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BEING BELGIAN: You still can’t escape the Rovers!

Apologies for the delay. Being Belgian comes to you a little later than usual this week as your author is just back from Dublin’s fair city where this weekend Shamrock super hoops Rovers won the 16^th title of the club’s illustrious history. Boo-ya!

Having led for much of the season, the hooped ones crawled over the finishing line just three goals to the good on goal difference from northside rivals Bohemians after an excruciating 2-2 draw against Bray 112^th best place to live in Ireland Wanderers.  Only two seasons after moving into their new Tallaght home, it is the start of what the Hoops faithful hope will be a new era of dominance. As the long suffering green and white disciples sing: 

“Four in a Row, we won four in a Row.” 

They did, but that was in the 1980s! Since then there was the magnificent one in a row in 1994 and a cup final defeat in a row in 2002 against Derry you’re Brits and you know you are! City. How sweet therefore, that in 2010 they may actually end the years of hurt with the double. They take on Sligo is surprising Town in the Cup Final on 14 November. 

Whatever the result against a tough Sligo side, the Champions League 2011 campaign should be a piece of cake, on the evidence of the recent narrow defeats against Juventus what cup size takes your fancy ref Turin and Real Franco had nothing to do with our success honest Madrid. The faithful will be hoping to dust down their old Del Piero/C Ronaldo favourite: 

“You’ll ne-v-er play for Ro-vers”. 

First, however, they will have to get their hands dirty against the likes of the pride of Lithuania or Latvia, before potentially progressing to a possible (more conditionals than in David Beckham’s shower unit! (think about it...)) final knock-out round clash against the cream of Belgium. 

Which Belgian team awaits Rovers is a long way from conclusion but this weekend there was what had the feeling of a potentially decisive shootout at the top between Genk and Anderlecht, and in the subtop between Club Brugge and Standard. The second Super Sunday in a month! 

While Brugge and Standard shot each other in the foot in a 2-2 draw, Anderlecht travelled to Genk to take on the surprise leaders. It was a game that pitched ex Anderlecht player and manager Frankie Vercauteren against his one time assistant manager there Ariel Jacobs. The events of 2007, when Vercauteren got his Anderlecht P45 and Jacobs assumed the reins, obviously still rankle as the two men refused to name their side until two minutes before kick-off, declined to shake hands before or after the match, and simply wouldn’t sit side by side at the post match press conference to discuss Anderlecht’s 2-1 win. Keep on fighting lads, we’ve got you just where we want you… 

….You’ll never beat the Rovers! 

Results below, table here:

Racing Genk 1-2 Anderlecht

Club Brugge 2-2 Standard Liege

Charleroi 0-0 Kortrijk

Eupen 2-2 Lierse

AA Gent 3-1 KV Mechelen

Germinal Beerschot 0-0 Sint Truiden

Zulte Waregem 1-1 Lokeren

Westerlo 2-1 Cercle Brugge

BEING BELGIAN: Sometimes it’s better than Being Dutch!

There is a town called Baarle. No, in fact there is a town called Baarle-Hertog, which is Belgian, and a town called Baarle-Nassau, which is Dutch. Except they are one town really, several miles north of Belgium. Seriously! The border separating Baarle from Baarle is not like those silly straight Saharan lines between Algeria and Mali or Niger, or the seemingly stencilled extremities of Wyoming. This border runs cock-a-hoop through houses, gardens and streets, it cuts parking metres in half before doubling back to do the same to the space it metres. Homes are dissected, each household's nationality determined by the location of its front door. Families sleep in different countries, often they don’t know which, they go to the toilet abroad. Twenty-two (22) pockets of Belgium are entirely surrounded by Holland. But, as the BBC notes, within those pockets are more enclaves, which are Dutch. Godverdomme, that’s complicated shiznit man!

“One local mother named Vivian was forced by her husband's national pride into an international relocation.

"I am Dutch and my daughter is Belgian because my husband is Belgian," she says.

"But he won't live in Holland. He won't have a yellow number plate on his car. So we had to move countries. But it was not so far." 

Several kilometers to the west, there is the southernmost section of Dutch province Zeeland (that of New Zealand fame). While not quite displaying a Baarlesque bipolarity it does have its issues. It doesn’t quite touch the rest of the Netherlands but shares a rather long border with Belgium. All of which means that your author knows a fellow from Zeeland who supports both Feyenoord and Club Bruges. Feyenoord because he’s Dutch. Club Bruges because its closer, because he can go to a game there without getting into a boat. And because (I’ve always wanted to start a sentence with ‘and because’!) it’s handy whenever Feyenoord have just lost 10-0 to PSV Eindhoven (ten-nil). Godverdomme that’s quite a beating man! 

Belgian results below, Dutch table here:

Anderlecht 2-0 Westerlo

Cercle Brugge 2-1 Eupen

Lokeren 0-1 Club Brugge

KV Mechelen 5-1 Germinal Beerschot

Kortrijk 1-0 Racing Genk

Lierse 0-0 Zulte Waregem

Sint Truiden 3-2 Charleroi

Standard Liege 2-1 AA Gent