Pro League, 12th December 2014
PSV 2-0 FC Twente
Eredivisie, 14th December 2014
A pre-Christmas getaway was my plan here. In an ideal world I would have liked to do three countries - the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, but that plan appeared to go down the drain when I found out Luxembourg was on their winter break. Don't you hate that when it happens?
Anyway, first of the two games was a glamorous trip on a cold wet Friday to Mechelen. A half hour train journey north of Brussels, the rain had thankfully subsided a bit (walking around the capital during the day felt like a continuous Ice Bucket Challenge).
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| The main gate at KV Mechelen |
The hosts were struggling in the Pro League, Belgium's top flight, and were welcoming Gent, who finished the weekend in fourth place. Nothing could separate the two sides on the night though, in fact, Mechelen had the ball in the net in second half stoppage time, but the effort was disallowed.
Achter de Kazerne, named so as the ground was once behind some army barracks, is an old-school venue, almost like what you would get in a lower league game in England. For 16 euros I took my place on an old-style terrace - four rows running the length of the main stand. The most vocal Mechelen fans were on the far side, sharing a stand with the visting fans, which made for a decent atmosphere in a crowd of around 10,000.
Eindhoven
Sunday was taken up by a trip north of the border, to see the Eredivisie leaders PSV take on FC Twente. Going down the 'official' route, I had to buy a match package - which gave me a match ticket, 40 euros to blow in the club shop, and enough tokens to buy a couple of beers, a burger and a Mars bar. I can't gain weight so no guilt there.
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| A full-sized chocolate football |
The 40 euro voucher did mean I ventured into the club shop, where amongst all the usual shirts, scarves and flags offered up some weird and wonderful things. Not thinking the PSV shaving gel would make me some sort of magnet for the ladies (except to repel I suppose), or a Memphis Depay cushion, I ended up buying a football made out of chocolate. The story is, if you have to buy some useless tat, make sure it's edible.
In news that will probably horrify the Against Modern Football brigade. you can also buy Man City, Man Utd, PSG and Barcelona shirts in the store, perhaps linked to Nike's sponsorship of PSV and those clubs.
The atmosphere around the game was stereotypically Dutch. Teams warmed up to electrohouse, you could drink and have a smoke in the stand and it was all pretty relaxed. PSV fans seemed relatively quiet, but I was sat under the travelling Twente contingent who were in full voice 35 minutes before kickoff and never seemed to go quiet.
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| The set piece from which Luuk de Jong puts PSV 1-0 up |
A few other things
Dutch people are pretty forthright it seems.
"Hi, could you please take a photo of me"
"Of course"
"It's just the big butto..."
"Ja, I know, I know"
I half expected the steward to start telling me how all Dutch people are trained to take beuatiful photos from an early age and how Rinus Michels invented the selfie.
A special thank you to Fat Boy's bar in Brussels, who managed to put on the Bolton v Ipswich game for me. I wasn't expecting that.
When the Belgians strike, they strike. Absolutely no publlc transport on Monday was a pain, but good luck to them anyway.
I quite enjoyed the European Parliament Visitors Centre, it's a nice little interactive tour through modern Euopean political history, and it's something o do for free if it's lashing it down. There are lots of nice buildings too, especially some of the churches.
Next stop: Might do an easy one. Ireland or Scotland. Quite shockingly I've never stepped foot in Scotland.
