Antwerp Supporters Club UK in the News
Royal Antwerp: How Belgium’s oldest club went from being ‘dead and buried’ to the Champions League
04 October 2023 – A BBC interview with our ASC UK President – By Emma Smith, BBC Sport
Six years ago, Royal Antwerp – the oldest professional football club in Belgium, founded in 1880 and nicknamed ‘The Great Old’ – were languishing in the second tier.
Last season, they earned a first league championship since 1957 in the most dramatic of circumstances, thanks to a 94th-minute equaliser from former Tottenham defender Toby Alderweireld in the final game, a 2-2 draw at title rivals Genk.
“It was unreal – there is not a word in any language to describe what it means for them,” Belgian football journalist Jan Willem Spaans told BBC Sport. “That Alderweireld goal, Belgium has never seen anything like that.”
“Since 2017, there has been an absolute revival,” Lennart van Walsum, president of Antwerp Supporters Club UK and lifelong fan who claims he has “red and white blood”, tells BBC Sport. “The [new owner, real estate entrepreneur] Gheysens woke a sleeping giant.
“They have invested in the right people at the right time. You can see that in the coaches hired, in the technical staff, the marketing, the youth teams.”
Aged 51, the Antwerp-born Van Walsum has seen the best and worst of the club’s fortunes and says it is down to the character of both the club and the city. Antwerp is a very energetic place, authentic and raw. It is a city disliked by many outside it, but embraced by those within.
“Historically, the football club embodies that – the authentic rawness, work hard and play hard, no nonsense. It’s not about being sophisticated but being unfiltered. That’s why Alderweireld and van Bommel are successful here.”
Almost dead and buried, but fans stayed loyal
“For a few years it was bumpy, the management didn’t follow modern football,” recalls van Walsum. “We were nearly bankrupt twice, the stadium almost fell apart. During those gloomy years, the Antwerp spirit continued to shine through.
“The Belgian second division is not like the Championship. You don’t usually have more than a few hundred fans at matches, but Antwerp fans continued to turn up in their thousands at tiny stadiums. It is easy to be a positive supporter in the last couple of years, but plenty supported when we were almost dead and buried.”
Read the full BBC article here
04.10.23 Voetbalprimeur.be: Royal Antwerp FC story picked up by the BBC
Long Live the Great Old: Royal Antwerp FC now also has a supporters club in London
29 June 2023. By Patrick Vincent, Gazet van Antwerpen
Wednesday coach Mark van Bommel returned on the training field with his men and, later this summer he hopes to reach the Champions League group stage for the first time since 1957 with RAFC. But, in the meantime Royal Antwerp Football Club is seeing love and support from all over the world: Recently, Lennart van Walsum founded the first British supporters club of the Great Old in London.
Due to his career path, Lennart has left Belgium since 2006 and, whilst having lived in several countries, he is now settled in London for almost seven years. He leads a busy life in the southwest of Greater London, focusing on his job and family. But there has always been time for his greatest passion: Royal Antwerp Football Club.
“I come from a genuine red-and-white family,” says the 51-year-old Antwerp-born, on the phone from across the Channel. “I’m born just a stones throw away from the Antwerp stadium, my father went through the youth series of Antwerp and an uncle on my mother’s side – Gino Tomadini – was a player for the first team for a while in the early 1970s.”
Being relocated professionally, Lennart moved to several countries, such as Germany, Italy, Brazil, the United States, and since 2016: the United Kingdom. Being a football-passionate he attended matches in some of the most iconic football stadiums in the world. But even though the atmosphere was ecstatic, there was always ‘a sense of incompleteness’ he says. “The Antwerp crowd is known for its passionate and never ending support, so despite how big or famous the team was, it would never be the same experience as an Antwerp match. Even the crazy atmosphere in Estadio Morumbi, where I saw Sao Paulo become champion of Brazil, could not match my years at the famed ‘Tribune 2’ of the Bosuil Stadium.”
But, he felt he had a more important responsibility: Lennart wanted to share his passion with like-minded people in the UK, and took the initiative to set up the Antwerp Supporters Club United Kingdom. “I want to give the people here the opportunity to join the Antwerp community, not just the Belgian expats, but especially the English football fans. Also to honour the original founders – English students residing in Antwerp around the early 1880’ies.”
The development of the ASC UK is ongoing. The Supporters Club base is set up in Hersham, in the ‘Watermans Arms‘, where club-members gather and watch games together.
30.06.23 Voetbalkrant.be: Antwerp goes international with… fanclub in largest world city
30.06.23 OneFootball: Antwerp Goes International Met… Fanclub in absolute wereldstad
29.06.23 Voetbalprimeur.be: Antwerp goes international with new supporters club in… London
29.06.23 Ground News: Long Live the Great Old: national champion Antwerp now also has a fan club in London