… that the last couple of nights were bad, you ain’t seen nuffink yet. Because there I was, it was 06:30, and I was still wide-awake. I just couldn’t drop off at all, and I’ve no idea why.
But I must have done shortly after that. And I heard the alarm go off at 07:00, and the next one at 07:15, but that was nothing like enough to make me leave my bed. Instead, I breakfasted at something like … errr … 10:30.
I was up in town a little later to buy some stuff for my butties. And here I had a big surprise.
There was a new van on there and it seemed to be advertising home bakery products, including bio, lactose-free, gluten-free and vegan products.
I had quite a chat with the owner and he pointed out to me the products that he had which were vegan. There were two varieties of cake that you buy by the slice and some biscuits too. That was so exciting.
He’s here every Saturday so I shall be frequenting him when I come back.
After lunch, I had a shower and a clean up ready for Alison coming round. We went down the road to the café for a coffee and a good chat about this and that, all that’s happened to us for the last couple of weeks.
Alison ran me down to the railway station afterwards where I bought my ticket.
OH Leuven are playing away tonight against AFC Tubize. Tubize is a town that I have never visted and of course I’ve certainly never seen the football club play. Apart from that, as I said to Alison, I ought to get out more often and connect with the real word every now and again, and going to the football is one way of doing it.
The ground is a good 20 minute stroll south of the railway station and, would you believe it, there’s no fritkot between the town centre and the ground that I could see. That meant that I had to do without my tea. But isn’t that astonishing?
The ground is a modern two-sided wonder with a couple of concrete stands with basic seat forms put on there. Underneath the stand where I’m sitting is a long hall with a pie hut inside and the players’ changing rooms and the like. It’s all very basic.
It cst me €15 for a seat which wasn’t so bad, but actually finding my place was something else. The security guards clearly didn’t know the stadium all that well and I was sent from pillar to post before I found the correct entrance.
I suppose that a good number of other people had difficulty finding the ground too, because I don’t think that I’ve ever seen such an empty stadium at this level of football. At a rough estimate of what I could see, there can’t have been 1500 people in the ground for this match. 100 away supporters if they were lucky.
The Kop for the home fans is a little standing area on the far side -capacity about 500 I suppose and maybe 120 people in it. They made a bit of noise I suppose, but it wasn’t anything to be worked up about.
There’s another small stand behind the goal, out of shot to the left. That maybe has room for 700 people I suppose but it was empty and closed off.
It’s not quite a one-sided wonder that you might find in Scottish lower-league football but it’s not far off. One of those places where they set out with the best intentions and then ran out of money.
As for the match itself, the first half was pretty uneventful. Both sides had their chances, including a shot from an AFC Tubize player that hit the post, rolled along the goal-line and back into play, with Gillekens in the Leuven goal totally flat-footed.
But there were a few strange decisions out there. The OH Leuven n°10 was being kicked, pushed, dragged and swatted off the ball by the defenders and never a foul was awarded despite how much protesting he did; It totally astonished me.
And when he was booked for complaining too much, I really did feel for him.
At half-time, I went down for a hot drink. I dunno what they flavoured my hot water with, but at €2:00 it was flaming expensive
The second half was a little more lively at first, and OH Leuven took the lead. They have a centre-forward called Casagolda who somehow has always flattered to deceive. But today, he had a really good game, living up to his promise. as a Tubize player dallied on the ball à la Pionsat defence, ha was harried out of it and Casagolda whacked it into the net.
The game them came alive and we had about 25 minutes of exciting football and it was a shame that the match couldn’t have been played like this all the time.
OH Leuven scored a second with about 15 minutes to go, and they hit the bar and had another cleared off the line too. As it finished, they thoroughly deserved the victory.
I walked back into town looking for a fritkot. I photo-bombed a group photo and so was invited to be formally included in it, which was good fun, and then carried on my search.
I walked past the really beautiful Church of St Gertrude and eventually came across a fritkot on the way out of town. a big bag of chips and garlic sauce was beautiful and as I sauntered back to the railway station I noticed that if I had come out of the station building via the second door, I would have been right by a fritkot.
GRRRRR!
The train brought me to Brussels-Midi and then we had more excitement as our train to Leuven via the Airport arrived at the wrong platform and we all had to run for it.
By 0045, freezing cold, I was back in my little room in my hostel. I’d had a lovely day out with good company, and now I’ll have a good night’s sleep ready for my trip tomorrow.
