19th century It was founded in Amsterdam on 14 November 1887, by members of three
cricket clubs, RUN, Amstels and Progress: RAP. The team managed to win the
Netherlands Football League Championship five times (all of which in the 19th century), including three titles in a row between 1897 and 1899, going undefeated in the latter season (1898–99). The dominance of RAP in that season was demonstrated by the fact that
HVV Den Haag, who finished second that year, was eight points behind RAP in the end. In that same season, RAP won the very
first edition of the
KNVB Cup, beating
HVV Den Haag 1–0 in the final thanks to a goal from
Jan Hisgen, and thus RAP was the first team in the Netherlands to win the league title and the Cup in the same season.
1900 Coupe Van der Straeten Ponthoz In 1900, the club participated in the first edition of the
Coupe Van der Straeten Ponthoz in
1900, regarded by many as the first-ever European club trophy. The tournament was held in
Brussels and on 15 April, in the first round, RAP unexpectedly defeated the champions of Belgium,
Racing Club, by 2 to 1. On the following day, in the semi-finals, RAP beat the champions of Switzerland,
Grasshopper Club, again by the minimum margin of 3–2, with
Jan van den Berg netting two of Amsterdam's goals. Finally, in the final on 17 April, RAP faced fellow Dutch club
HVV Den Haag, who had succeeded them as the new champions of the Netherlands by winning the championship in 1899–1900. HVV were the favorites to win as they had trashed the hosts
Léopold FC with a resounding 8–1 win in the first round and then comfortably got past the semi-finals with a 3–0 win. Furthermore, HVV had great national figures of that time such as
Willem Hesselink,
Miel Mundt, and
Eetje Sol, the latter of which already had 5 goals in the tournament to his name. However, this tournament up until the 1900–01 season, only featured teams from
Vienna, so the 7–0 win by Cricket over
Wiener FC 1898 on 21 November 1897 may not be regarded as the first ever truly international club final, and hence, Cricket may not be regarded as the first European Champions.
20th century In the 1900–01 season, RAP finished in fourth place, followed by a fifth-place finish in 1901–02. In 1902–03 RAP hit rock bottom and finished last in the league, forcing them to play in a relegation playoff series, which they won, very narrowly escaping relegation. A few years later, the club would eventually be relegated to the second division anyway. Although no longer relegated by the 1911–14 season, the team would always find themselves at the bottom of the table. Volharding (Dutch for Perseverance), which is the other old Amsterdam football club, found themselves in a similar predicament, always merely one or two points above RAP in the table, but still considered classified in the same section. On 23 July 1914, it was announced in Sport Magazine, that the two clubs had decided to merge. The creation of the mentioned Volharding-RAP-Combination: VRC would bring an end to RAP's run. After a few more years of football, the club eventually abandoned the sport, and switched back to
Cricket, renaming the club once more to the now-known
VRA. ==Honours==