… to get out of bed, what with my very late finish and my usual early (like 07:00) start – how my habits have changed since I’ve been living in digs.
I was alone at breakfast too, which is just as well because as you all know, I don’t do “company” first thing in the morning. Anyone who tries to chat to me just receives a collection of unintelligible grunts in reply.
Back down here, I had a brief (and only a brief) relax while I drank my coffee, and then I set to work.
And by 10:00 I had another couple of bags packed to take down to Caliburn. Now my room is looking much more like TS Eliot’s Wasteland..
Having done all of that, I came back and had a shower, and the last of my clean clothes (in fact, I didn’t have a clean T-shirt). So this obviously meant a visit to the launderette in the Ridderstraat. There were so many clothes that some of them didn’t make it into the machine and so they will have to go into the next load, whenever that might be. I’ve clearly not been keeping on top of things like I should and I’ll have to organise myself much more than this.
Once all of that was done, it was lunchtime. I had a packet onion soup hanging around and two of these half-cooked half-baguettes. One of those was for my garlic bread tonight, and so I cooked them both and had the other one with my soup. Followed, of course, by some fruit.
Plenty of time left yet, and so I loaded up another big pile of stuff, and by 15:00 I was ready to hit the streets. I dropped off everything at Caliburn yet again, and then carried on my little walk
Today is the last match of the regular season for OH Leuven. Long-since condemned to a place in the relegation play-offs with no escape, due to a few insipid results, they were playing for pride.
Union St Gilles are a couple of places above them and if other results go their way, a victory for them could haul themselves out of the relegation dog-fight and into safety. It’s therefore vital for Union St Gilles to win today
All of the matches in the Second Division are kicking off simultaneously at 16:00 this afternoon so that no-one can be assured of their place until the final whistle.
It seems that this mascot craze is spreading to all football clubs in Belgium right now. OH Leuven looks as if they have managed to acquire one too.
Somehow I thought it appropriate to take a photograph of him behind a sturdy wire-mesh fence – almost as if he was in a cage.
But never mind acquiring mascots – when is the club going to acquire some cheerleaders? That’s what I want to know.
The “away” end was heaving with fans. So packed out wasit in there that they had to open a second bay behind the goal. They were a noisy lot too, and kept the noise going for the whole 90 minutes more or less.
There was a huge crowd in here for the match too (for Leuven, that is). 4,263 spectators and that’s the largest crowd that I’ve witnessed for a match here at the Den Dreef Stadion, and it’s not ALL accounted for by the huge away support. Everyone else must feel the urgency too.
As the teams took to the field the away fans started some kind of synchronised sign-boarding display. I’ve absolutely no idea what it was supposed to signify, but they were clearly quite happy to do it.
But anyway, the teams took to the field with OH leuven in their usual all-white strip, and Union St Gilles in their usual yellow shirts and blue shorts.
And as the match kicked off, the first question that I asked myself was “how much longer can they keep on going at this pace?” because they shot off like rockets.
And one thing that I’ve noticed about Belgian Second Division football is that wingers are very popular. We know all about the wingers that OH Leuven have, and Union St Gilles were well-supplied too.
The big difference today though is that OH Leuven had Casagolda up front instead of Kostovski. Casagolda is technically a far better player, but he has his “days”. Kostovski is like a big battering ram, a bit short on technical skill but plays at 100% for every match and the kind of player I would like to have up front when the team has two wingers.
But as I said, Casagolda has his “days”, and luckily enough, today was one of them, even putting in a ferocious performance in the centre of defence at set pieces, and this made a great deal of difference.
As the game progressed, despite the barrage of noise from the Union St Gilles supporters, it was clear that OH Leuven had the “up”, not that it means very much in football because I’ve seen superior teams well on top in a game be undone by one single moment of magic, and OH Leuven can have some notoriously fragile moments. And when they missed a penalty, I really did fear the worst.
In the first half, they had hit the post twice, had about four shots on goal kicked off the line, and the keeper had made two outstanding saves. And much to my surprise, they were 2-0 up too. Both of them breakaways from out of defence, wingers racing off down the field, and crosses into the centre. And Casagolda had scored one of them.
As for Union St Gilles, they pressed well down the flanks and their n°20, Aguemon, particularly impressed me. But their problem was that they lacked a centre-forward who would throw himself about in where it hurts – someone like Kostovski for example.
I reckoned that whoever scored the first goal in the second half would decide where this match was going to end, but the players, clearly exhausted, played at a much slower tempo. Storm, this new winger that they had signed who had such a good game the last time that I saw him, he fell away quite rapidly – clearly not match-fit for this level – and I reckoned that he’d be one of the first to leave the field – which he was.
Casagolda had the ball in the net, sure enough, but was given offside – a decision with which I agreed, by the way – and the Union St Gilles keeper made a couple of other full-length saves to keep the ball out.
But Union St Gilles couldn’t find a way back into the game, even though this new keeper, Henkinet, made a brilliant one-handed save from a point-blank header that had “goal” written all over it.
And that was that – a huge sigh of relief at the final whistle as Leuven finally register a win. And if only they had played like this in a couple of other matches, they wouldn’t have to be pitting their wits against clubs like Dessel Sports and Deinze in the relegation play-offs. In fact, either of these clubs could have taken on KSC Lokeren and KAS Eupen from last night in the Premier League and disposed of them quite comfortably
On the way back I found a new short-cut that I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t that short, in fact, but it was certainly a prettier way to come home.
This by the way isn’t a medieval building, but it’s fairly modern and is actually a hotel, the Begijnhof Leuven Hotel. And if modern architects in Belgium can come up with buildings like this, then there’s no reason whatever why they can’t do this anywhere else either.
I’m going to make further enquiries …
Back here, I hadn’t been sitting down long before I was overwhelmed with hunger. It might have been only 19:00, long before tea-time, but nevertheless there was nothing for it – I went and made my pizza. And for once, everything was cooked perfectly and it was thoroughly delicious.
Now, it’s 21:00 or so and I can’t keep my eyes open. I have a lot to do over the course of the next few days, so I’m planning on going to bed.
