On October 2, 1972, the Namur-based company, La Renaissance, opened the Liège Bowling Alley on Boulevard d'Avroy. The inauguration was a grand affair, attended by the Mayor of Liège, Maurice DESTENAY(†).

Subsequently, in December 1973, Hubert PIROTTE(†), then Alderman for Youth and Sports for the City of Liège, became the Honorary President of the Liège Bowling Club, the predecessor of the I.L.B.

The management of this extraordinary bowling alley for its time (18 automatic Brunswick lanes) was entrusted to Mr. Roger BOES(†). The year 1973 saw the arrival of an assistant manager in the person of the Frenchman, Bernard LOUITON(†)!

This duo formed the foundation of modern sports and leisure bowling in the Province of Liège. Thanks to them, the establishment was a well-known and frequented place for all Liège residents for four decades.

In 1974, the Liège Bowling Alley had two clubs participating in internal and federal competitions: the Phoenix and the Liège Bowling Club. Both of them successively disappeared!

Given the growing demand and his vision of what a modern club should be, Bernard LOUITON created the I.L.B. in 1975. This club quickly gained success and, by the 1990s, became one of the largest in Belgium with over 230 members. Building on this momentum and with an ambitious committee, Bernard LOUITON organized several tournaments, the most famous of which is the international tournament "Prince de Liège". This tournament attracts players from all over Europe, and the 2005 edition saw a record participation of over 370 competitors. For multiple reasons, particularly economic ones, it is currently dormant but should be revived for its 50th anniversary!

The club also organizes multiple innovative competitions, including a quadrangle tournament of twin cities with Liège, such as Lille, Maastricht, and Aachen. It will also be the creator of multi-sport challenges, with disciplines shared with ours being karting and golf (1996).

All these events were sponsored by the Ministries and Aldermanates of Sports of that era.

In 1985, several club members decided to take their federal instructor exam, and all of them passed! This led to the birth of the first bowling school in Wallonia.

1999 marked a year of major upheaval for the club. The Liège Bowling Alley was sold to a company whose commercial intentions were unclear, and which, incidentally, led to its bankruptcy in August 2015, the date of its permanent closure. In that same year, 1999, our founder, Bernard LOUITON, passed away after a long illness.

This resulted in the club's first relocation to the new "Le Strike" bowling facilities in Crisnée. In 2017, after several prosperous years, the management of the Crisnée bowling alley decided to change its management policy, focusing solely on a leisure clientele they considered more lucrative. This led to a second relocation, bringing the club to the "Carré d’As" bowling alley on Rue Paradis in Liège.

Following this new change and the "Covid" crisis, the club nearly disappeared. However, thanks to the determination of the committee at the time, it survived, and its membership continues to grow. Currently, with over sixty affiliated members, the Royal I.L.B. Club has once again become the largest club in the Province of Liège.