Tag: belgium

  • Scores on the board, divided by two.

    I was in Brussels visiting the European Parliament.  In a very French way, the clocks of Belgium chimed 11 and, of course, the group I was with decided it was lunchtime. I had an Americaine frikadelle, which is a sausage possibly containing chicken, lodged in a baguette, topped with a little too many fries and a sauce whose flavour loosely corresponds to its given name. After probably doing something wrong with the identity crisis sausage, I dipped into the corner shop for a refreshing Lipton. The man was friendly, but a Lipton, he claimed, would not be enough for card payment. “Would a Bounty”, I asked, and the answer was no. Alas, I had no choice but to turn my eyes over to the journalism section. “DH Sports”, I muttered, as much a question to myself as to the man, and, before DH Sports had made its response, with a scent of cardboard mustard and a promise of Jupiler League wisdom, I was out of the shop and back on the streets of waffle town. 

    A few hours later, on the mini bus home, I was shattered. And the front page of DH sports was no more reassuring than the future of Europe I had been told about earlier that afternoon. I searched for stimulation in the form of Belgian sports headlines, each and every one of them daunting, and the cardboard mustard scent acted no longer as a pheromone, but as a poison. The football headlines made sense, and yet the numbers to accompany them seemed inexplicable, the tables disorientating. Separated by big, bold titles, were three divisions. As somebody who’d made an effort to understand the Scottish Split, this should’ve been easy, yet in every nook and cranny of this bemusing diagram was a question to which I had no response. 

    Union SG, were at the top of the CHAMPIONS PO league on a bizarrely low figure: 47 points. Liverpool, who’d just won the Premier League back home, were on 82. Either this was the most competitive league in the world, or perhaps Belgium had an absurdly lengthy winter break which I was unaware of. I’d watched a fair few war films, and Belgium was definitely cold. In the first position of the EUROPE PO, Charleroi sat in a European conference league playoff spot, yet so did Anderlecht, and they were 4th place in the CHAMPIONS PO group. Antwerp and Gent also looked to be missing out on Europe, despite both fairing better than Charleroi, occupying the final two places of the Championship group. Meanwhile, in the RELEGATION PO, who knew what the feck was going on? Barring last placed Beerschot (which is exactly what I could’ve done with), every club had more points than the apparently superior EUROPE PO group. 

    Crossing into France in my nauseous sports paper delirium, I made the choice that the only way to resolve matters would be, as is often the case, to write, and it was at that moment that CoupFrank’s May post was decided. Welcome on board. 

    In 2009, little to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s knowledge (I imagine), the first division of Belgian professional football underwent a radical change. That’s right; they introduced playoffs. After everyone’s played everyone twice, the league’s split into two. The Championship group includes the top 6 teams. Before the split, all of their points are halved. Of course, this leads to some clubs being on, as an example, thirty two and a half points. That’s why points are rounded to the nearest integer if this is the case. They’re not soft, the Belgian FA. Everyone in the championship PO plays everyone else in the Championship PO twice, before we get to see the final standings. The top three qualify for Europe, while fourth place enter a playoff for the privilege (more on that later). 

    Now for the second bit of split, the Europe PO. The teams who finished 7th to 14th in the regular season compete for a place in the second qualifying round of the Europa Conference League, but, again, only after having their points halved and then made back into whole numbers. Naturally, you’d think that this means first place get second qualifying round Conference league football, but it’s not easy being the seventh best Belgian team. They’re put to the test one final time, against the 4th placed team in the championship PO.

    By the time we get down to the third bit of split (aka 13th to 16th placed, before the split), it seems the Belgian FA’s calculator has run out, as no halving of points takes place. After every team places every other team twice, it’s only the top team who are safe. Second placed must fight a relegation playoff against the winner of the challenger league/second division playoffs (which are comfortingly normal and unconvoluted). Finally, as you’ve probably predicted, third and fourth place are relegated. Unfortunately, that was the fate for my adopted Belgian team, Kortrijk, who sit just over the Franco Belge border. If only they’d waited until next season, they’d have stayed up, with the league moving to a pretty average 18 team league from 2026/27.

    Yes, that’s right. The DH sports malaise and the subsequent knowledge obtained was worth it, for one more season. I hope you all enjoyed getting split fit anyway. I certainly did. It’s just a pity it was, arguably, time not that well spent. Maybe there’s something to be learnt from this. Or perhaps, you’ll take what you can and immerse yourself in the Jupiler Pro League run in, where two points separate the top two with a couple matchdays left. I know what I’ll be doing. Anyone for a bounty?

  • Sam Fender and all the Geordies in Belgium

    I think I rather like the idea of running away.  Not in the sense of running away from anything in particular, since my small French provincial town would doubtless struggle in any sort of impassioned chase, but running towards something. A century ago, that something would have been a quayside, a tourist information building filled to the rafters with sundry train and bus timetables, lost and misguided young men feverishly exploring their contents in search of an undefinable aspiration. Today, however, running away is far easier.

    It was just gone two in the afternoon and the language assistance correspondence was seemingly never ending, one part down to my slow French typing speed and another part down to a rogue index finger. This rogue index finger which could not be stopped from manipulating the trackpad on its whims; emails, the BBC homepage, emails again, the French news! This rogue index finger was my very own lost vagabond, quivering at the sight of the various tabs of British telecommunications mail; indésirables, boîte de reception, fubar nightclub over 30s night, B&Q, shoes (in your basket, did you forget something?) etc’ etc’. 

    Within good time, however, this rogue index finger had found something far more valuable; Sam Fender at Forest National Brussels: tickets available. It turned out that amongst the pile of deceivingly personally addressed invites to lowland small town Scottish nightclubs and DIY mega store sales, was something far more appealing, far more tangible. It was barely believable; signing up to a waiting list for a sold out gig is a fool’s game. I had imagined the employees of Forest National gathered around an iMac monitor in their plush offices, reading out the names on this waiting list over a few bottles of Leffe. They would eventually get to Frank Baker, and, in a very Dutch way, would mischievously, joyfully cackle, and the intern would get out his pointy stick and gesture it in the direction of the A3 chart on the wall of a very obviously sold out Forest National arena. Yet, none of this had happened and I was off to watch Sam Fender in Brussels. There would be no ships involved, no ambiguous farewells to the village folk. This was running away in the modern era. 

    What felt like only a matter of hours later, I found myself navigating the station quarter of Brussels, which itself seemed to be experiencing the sort of identity crisis mulled over in Sam Fender’s music. The gigantesque Brussels Midi tower stood awkwardly in this confused little segment of the capital, a darts player in a suit and tie, a sausage in a tiramisu. Etc. Where, in this confused little segment, would one find a hostel? 

    Your Hostel, as in my hostel for the night, was just around the corner, which meant circling a good few roundabouts, but I was in Belgium so that felt oddly comforting. The man on reception, who seemed to be one of about two people who ran the place, had me make my payment for the bed, and then asked me to take a seat on the shabby couch just behind. It seemed he was getting a group of us together: the 5PM check in gang. So off we all went to our very grand and very large dorm (30 beds in all). In terms of hostel pals, the American couple had selected the geeky Frenchman with round glasses, and he’d obliged, in the subtle French way that French men tend to oblige. My remaining options all seemed to be lost souls with perplexed looks on their faces, as if searching for something their exceedingly large duck taped suitcases didn’t contain. Alas, I decided it was time to make my move. I would be back, but I had a meeting with a Geordie.

    After a heartful Moroccan meal, probably cheaper for my choice of sitting in the single occupancy terrace, with breathtaking views into the windows of the Midi tower, I took the tram up to Forest National. Unlike most similarly named establishments, which tend to take their name from the apparently beautiful really wild thing they replaced (take any English housing estate as an example), Forest National was undeceiving in its title. From my wooded viewpoint, I observed the Brussels suburbs as they dozed off into the evening. Adolescent cyclists tackled speed bumps with the tact of a land rover. Bees floated around in a manner that seemed Belgian but was perhaps mere placebo. It was going to be a good night.

    Inside, it was hard not to notice the dress code, strictly monotone. Some Belgians, and possibly a handful of French were scattered in among the Geordies. The Magpies, who of course had won their first domestic trophy in 70 years only three days prior, were jovial, but not ecstatic. No, it was a feeling of mutual content inside Forest National. Snippets of conversation with fellow NUFC clad travellers would take place as the night went on, but almost in hushed tones. The audacity of beating Liverpool in a cup final, of being in Brussels three days later, Jupiler in hand, CMAT about to take to the stage, was outrageous. The barman, who worked for free in return for gig tickets, had no idea who Sam Fender was and as far as he was concerned, Newcastle United would only be relevant if I could name a Belgian player to have graced the St James turf. I could’ve said Philippe Albert, but a mix of modesty and joyful amnesia made that impossible. Of course, we were all immensely proud, inebriated by life, but that was our secret. We all knew. 

    CMAT took to the stage and was tremendous, as always. In all honesty I can’t remember, even after consulting the streaming services, her setlist in the sort of minute details which would make commenting on it worthwhile, and concocting praise for the sake of it would do her an injustice. Regardless, give her a listen.

    A half an hour pause followed, and on came wor Sam to a jubilant rendition of Going Home. I’d like to imagine that the avian inhabitants of the nearby woodlands succumbed to Mark Knopfler’s genius in the manner of a sort of Geordie pied piper, but that’s something for Belgian spring watch to contend with. In any case, it cannot be understated how impressive a piece of work Sam’s new album is. Every track in there is blessed, or cursed with the ability to make you smile, laugh cry. And after listening to the album in full, you listen to the lyrics, and every line is considered. It is prose more than worth its melodic charm. Nostalgia’s Lie, Reign Me In, Little Bit Closer are all memorable from an album point of view. Yet it was TV Dinner and Something Heavy which stood out in Belgium. Just the lyrics of TV Dinner are deserving of some sort of reward, maybe a Carabao energy drink or something. We do all love Carabao now, after all. 

    I must’ve been one of the last to leave, taking it all in, as if in the away section of a European football match, locked in on Police orders, fascist hooligans outside the turnstiles. But there’d be no fascist hooligans, only friendly Belgians, as I walked the 90 minutes back to the centre of Brussels. At one point I came along a few Irish lads, all in black and white, equally as lost and stunned as I outside a huge Audi factory. As the clocks ticked slowly towards midnight, as trams surged into the capital’s suburbs behind us, our odd group had become an anomaly among the Muslims celebrating their Ramadan evening meal. Memories of that hallowed Sunday afternoon were eagerly bounced back and forth between us, vivid descriptions of Dan Burn heading in our first, Alex Isak volleying in our second, our journeys to Brussels and whether, standing outside this Audi mega factory, we were even still in Brussels. Talk of Sam Fender, People Watching, CMAT would inevitably come up at some point, but it hardly felt necessary. Because of this precise moment, everything was going to be alright.