Dosko 0-3 Berendrecht
Antwerpen Provincial 4a
Molenbaan
11 January 2013
There is a nice story about Chester City's relatively new stadium on Bumpers Way being built in such a way that the (original) away end is in Wales and that by going through the turnstile you move from England to Wales . Whilst amusing it is in fact, untrue, the whole stadium is in Wales; the border crosses through the car park and nicks the corner of the social club. And lets be honest, moving from Wales to England or vice verse is little more than moving from one county to another (apologies to any Welsh Nationalists but its essentially true, give or take a few laws).
However, if you get in your car and drive 485 miles (plus a channel crossing) you arrive at a small car park on Molenbaan in Baarle Nassau, The Netherlands. Why would you do that? Well, here you really do pass from one country to another when going through the turnstiles of a football ground. For here, in the extraordinary twin towns of Baarle Nassau (The Netherlands) and Baarle Hertog (Belgium) there is nothing but borders. Hundreds of them. BH is a Belgium enclave within BN, but within both there are enclaves withing enclaves. Borders pass across and along streets, though gardens, shops and even houses.
To be honest I struggle to work out whether I am in the Netherlands or Belgium, and the towns have made a whole tourist industry out of it. Today, of course, lack of border restrictions and a common currency means that, the only people that need to worry about where they are are the locals themselves in determining whether it suits them to be in one country or another (taxes etc) irrespective of their nationality.
And so to the car park on Molenbaan that is part of a small BN enclave within the BH one. We park up our car with Dutch plates in the correct country, and, along with my Dutch Girlfriend and Belgian dog (by birth but now with dual citizenship!) I pay 5 euros and walk into Belgium, I mean the ground.
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but after all this, the ground felt a little disappointing. To be honest, that's unfair as it is a fairly good standard for provincial 4, which we all know by now is the lowest level in Belgian football. There was ample grass surround, a small covered terrace and a pleasant club house. And then behind one goal was the fence. In reality this unremarkable 3m high plastic chain link fence was little more than the boundary between the football club and the neighbouring tennis courts, such that you see in any of hundreds of grounds up and down England where the two sports sit side by side. Ah but we know better, because any inspection of google maps will reveal that this is yet another border. Right on cue, one of warm up balls flies into the courts. The player responsible rather meekly ran off to retrieve it.
The pseudo Dutchman wanted to call out.....Hey you can't just run into your neighbours country and retrieve your ball whenever you feel like it! Don't you have to knock? I smiled as I thought of the phone call going out from the club-house...'er King Willem-Alexander, um Dosko here again. Er can we go and get our ball? Um er sorry, this will be the last time...... '
For the record, Dosko lost a game they dominated, and were taught a lesson in the value of taking your chances.
And so we left this unremarkable, remarkable little ground, back through the turnstile, across the border and into our car. Just 7 more border crossings and we will be home, in 25 minutes. However, we had to over take a parked car, so make that 9!
However, if you get in your car and drive 485 miles (plus a channel crossing) you arrive at a small car park on Molenbaan in Baarle Nassau, The Netherlands. Why would you do that? Well, here you really do pass from one country to another when going through the turnstiles of a football ground. For here, in the extraordinary twin towns of Baarle Nassau (The Netherlands) and Baarle Hertog (Belgium) there is nothing but borders. Hundreds of them. BH is a Belgium enclave within BN, but within both there are enclaves withing enclaves. Borders pass across and along streets, though gardens, shops and even houses.
To be honest I struggle to work out whether I am in the Netherlands or Belgium, and the towns have made a whole tourist industry out of it. Today, of course, lack of border restrictions and a common currency means that, the only people that need to worry about where they are are the locals themselves in determining whether it suits them to be in one country or another (taxes etc) irrespective of their nationality.
And so to the car park on Molenbaan that is part of a small BN enclave within the BH one. We park up our car with Dutch plates in the correct country, and, along with my Dutch Girlfriend and Belgian dog (by birth but now with dual citizenship!) I pay 5 euros and walk into Belgium, I mean the ground.
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but after all this, the ground felt a little disappointing. To be honest, that's unfair as it is a fairly good standard for provincial 4, which we all know by now is the lowest level in Belgian football. There was ample grass surround, a small covered terrace and a pleasant club house. And then behind one goal was the fence. In reality this unremarkable 3m high plastic chain link fence was little more than the boundary between the football club and the neighbouring tennis courts, such that you see in any of hundreds of grounds up and down England where the two sports sit side by side. Ah but we know better, because any inspection of google maps will reveal that this is yet another border. Right on cue, one of warm up balls flies into the courts. The player responsible rather meekly ran off to retrieve it.
The pseudo Dutchman wanted to call out.....Hey you can't just run into your neighbours country and retrieve your ball whenever you feel like it! Don't you have to knock? I smiled as I thought of the phone call going out from the club-house...'er King Willem-Alexander, um Dosko here again. Er can we go and get our ball? Um er sorry, this will be the last time...... '
For the record, Dosko lost a game they dominated, and were taught a lesson in the value of taking your chances.
And so we left this unremarkable, remarkable little ground, back through the turnstile, across the border and into our car. Just 7 more border crossings and we will be home, in 25 minutes. However, we had to over take a parked car, so make that 9!