For February 17th I'm going back 13 years to 2008 and another "Jolly Boys" trip with my brother-in-law, this time to Brussels on the Eurostar to see RSC Anderlecht.
The more pedantic amongst you may like to point out that this is a photo of a magazine cover and isn't actually a programme. In my defence, Anderlecht didn't issue a programme and the magazine did do a feature on the Jupiler League match (Belgium's top flight) against RE Mouscron. The photo also shows my match ticket for added authenticity!
Today this stadium is known as Lotto Park but, at the time, it was called Stade Constant Vanden Stock. Naming one's stadium after a local benefactor and then ditching that name in favour of a sponsor seems to me to be somewhat insulting. In this case, since Roger, the son of Constant, took the decision and that the stadium was originally named the Emile Verse Stadium, a name which was ditched by Constant, I can forgive Anderlecht.
Royal Excelsior Mouscron, to give them their full name, no longer exist having been declared bankrupt in 2009. A successor club known as Royal Mouscron-Peruwelz has since been formed. The Walloon municipality of Mouscron is French speaking and is virtually in France being very close to Lille. Mouscron finished this season comfortably in mid table whilst Anderlecht finished second in the league behind Standard Liege.
As we expected, Anderlecht won this game 2-1 with Mouscron's consolation goal coming in the 90th minute in front of an attendance of 24,586 (capacity at the time was 28,063). I very much enjoyed Brussels and Anderlecht and, post Covid19, I'd love to return for some of those wonderful beers and, of course, a match! Any takers?
CRB Match No. 1610
Comments
Post a Comment