Belgium

Hainaut Provincial 1

Sunday 15th September 2019

Kick Off 15.00 Actual 15.04

R. Leopold Club Hornu 0 Sporting Club Montignies 0, attendance 98

@ Stade Barbet

Rue Du Commerce 98

7301 Hornu

€5 Admission

No Programme.

This was our first trip of the season over to Belgium. The driver was heading for A.S. Snef-Tyber, which I had been to, where he would be completing Provincial 1 in Hainaut, whilst two of us were being dropped off in Hornu, which would also see the completion of Provincial 1 in Hainaut for me as well.

Leopold Club Hornu are one of the oldest clubs in Belgium, having been formed in 1921. They have a very low 129 matricule number and they first played in the Belgian League back in 1946, having suffered relegation and promotion in the meantime, but having been relegated back into the Provincial League in 1997, they have remained there ever since and even dropped into Provincial 3 at one stage.

Having won promotion back into Provincial 1 this season, they have had a reasonable start, topping the league table with seven points from their opening three games. Montignies arrived here in eleventh place. Unfortunately, neither side had any ambition to try and win the game and they served up an absolutely dreadful match. I saw three awful matches yesterday and this was equally as bad. Yesterday it was due to the fact that the level we were watching was of a very poor standard. Today, it was because neither team wanted to win and were very happy to play for 0-0.

Having not been over here since May, we had forgotten what a shambles Eurotunnel are. Our outbound 09.20 train left eight minutes late and despite arriving back at The Tunnel twenty minutes before check in closed for our 20.20 return, we were told it was full (as we were well within our check in time, this seems a very strange way to operate a service) and we had been moved to the 20.36 crossing instead and surprise, surprise, it didn’t leave until 20.47.