Andrew's Blog from Brussels: A Night at the Football: Brussels FC vs OH Leuven

Regular readers of this blog will, I'm sure, be aware that I am quite a keen follower of football. It will therefore come as no surprise to you that I took the opportunity in my first proper weekend in the European capital city to discover a new team.

FC Brussels call themselves the 'Pride of Brussels' and ply their trade in the Belgian Second Division. The club has quite an interesting history in that it was only recently formed (2003) following the merger of two local district teams: R.W.D. Molenbeek and K.F.C. Strombeek.

They play in the Edmond Machtens Stadium, which is conveniently just a short walk away from my front-door. It is in fact quite a nice little compact stadium. Tucked in behind rows of high-rise housing surrounded by tall thick trees you really would not know the stadium was there until you spotted the large floodlights rounding the corner onto the access street.

Naturally, being Belgian second division, it was not going to be the most state-of-the-art stadium, but I like that in a way. There are only two stands, running along the length of the pitch, and a limited space for standing for the away supporters behind the goal at the far end of the ground. There is no such standing space at the other end, which instead has been chosen to be the car parking facility.

Access to the upper tier of the main stand, renamed in 2005 to commemorate former player Raymond Goethals, is by an exterior staircase as to not to affect seating capacity.

That said, there was hardly a problem with seating. The ground was largely empty; the majority of fans (myself included) bunched up in the 'cheapest' ends of the grandstands. I put cheap in inverted commas because the ticket still cost €15, which for second division football in Europe is simply madness (especially when you can get a match ticket Anderlecht, in the first division and Europa League, for €10...).

I took my seat in the stand just moments before kick-off and unknowingly had chosen a seat directly behind the resident house-band. With a portable drum-set, a bass drum, two trumpets, a trombone and an enthusiastic and lively accompanying vocal chorus, they certainly contributed to the evening football match atmosphere that I love so much. Even if they were very, very noisy...

It was during the half-time interval that I experienced my first problem with language - namely the guy serving the half-time Belgian beer could not speak or understand French! With no idea how to ask for a beer in Dutch, thankfully a fellow supporter ordered it for me. [I have since looked it up, and for reference it is Eén biertje, alstublieft! although I have no idea how that is supposed to be pronounced! The beer was also very nice too...]

As for the football, well, as you'd expect, it was not the best display you are likely to witness. But for their relative lack in quality, they made up for in competitiveness, and the match finished 2-1 to the away side OH Leuven. Brussels FC did open the scoring in the opening few minutes capitalising on slack defending to lob the keeper into the net, but Leuven scored from a great free-kick (Beckham anyone?) and grabbed the winning goal late-on in an almost identical copy of Brussels' opener.

While the score was 1-0, I overheard a home supporter explain to his friend that Brussels FC had never beaten OH Leuven in any competition. This, unfortunately for Brussels, remains the case, but I did find it ironic that the away team scored almost immediately after this comment...

However, that was nothing compared to the irony contained within the home supporters' chants throughout the match (yes, sung in English): "Brussels, Brussels FC, we're by far the best team the world has ever seen..."

No, you are not the best in the world, but it was a good night's entertainment anyway.

Labels: Sport