Belgium next. Strong Anderlecht and FC Brugge in Europe, but there was something else as well – the emerging of new great generation of ‘Red Devils’. They were still young and not fully developed, so Belgium missed the 1978 World Cup, so the strength of Belgian club football was based on the foreign stars. To many, Belgium was a country without any restrictions on foreigners, which perhaps was not the case. It was foggy matter – since Belgian clubs were hardly the best known and had constant financial problems, leading to mergers and bankruptcy, the best world stars were clearly not to be found on Belgian soil. Most imports were little known or completely unknown. Congolese players were often to be found playing for Belgian clubs, but they were no international stars and perhaps even considered domestic, for they came from former colonies. The Dutch traditionally played in Belgium in huge numbers. Hungarian defectors often appeared in Belgium perhaps because of the liberal rules. West Germans too, including suspended in Germany players. Yugoslavians, Swedes, Austrians, Danes, any kind of foreigners. Including stars – Lothar Emmerich back in 1970-71, for instance. Rolf Russmann during his suspension – 1973-74. Robbie Rensenbrink and Arie Haan by the current year. At least the biggest Belgian clubs had money for stars and to them their international success was often attributed – most of the league consisted of small, financially shaky clubs of no significance. Haan and Rensenbrink together with semi-professionals, and, curiously, the part-timers were even able to top the clubs with famous players now and then. The last intriguing thing about Belgian football was their unusually big sponsor adds on their shirts: shirt adds were still a bit exotic and normally not very large, except in Belgium. As a result, the club shirts were quite colourful and interesting to the eye. Of course, the real reason was plain money – the clubs had to find any possible mean to survive as professional clubs in a country with small and not so crazy about football population.
Naturally, the second division football was entire under the radar – the first league was barely known to outsiders, to whom the whole Belgian game consisted of the national team, Anderlecht, Standard, and, recently, FC Brugge. The rest was a blank… and no wonder. The 16-team strong second division hardly had better known clubs. It was poor league too – perhaps the reason why only one club was directly promoted at that time. The second promotional spot had to be earned in play-off tournament between 2nd and 5th finisher in the regular season. Made sense, since most of the clubs were really small fry, like KFC Diest.
KFC Diest finished 6th with 34 points, 3 less than the 5th placed, but really the most interesting thing about them were the exotic large adds on their shirts. Clearly, not a club able to disturb the status quo – and that was the case of every second division club. The four clubs above KFC Diest were not very different, except that they all were no strangers to first division football. Unfortunately, no strangers to second division either… they competed for the second promotion in two-legged round-robin play-off group. In the regular season 3 points divided 2nd from 5th place, which was decided on goal-difference. The promotional tournament mirrored the championship: AS Oostende KM ended last with 2 points. In the championship they were 4th, thanks to better goal-difference. KAA Gent finished 5th at the end of the season with the same points as AS Oostende KM (torturous full name has to be preserved because there was one more Oostande in the league: KVG Oostande, which finished dead last) – 37. KAA Gent was not a surprise in the promotional tournament either – they finished 3rd, 2 points more than AS Oostende KM, but hopelessly 5 points behind the other two clubs.
KAA Gent achieved nothing, but is a good example of Belgian football bursting with foreigners:standing from left: Brösch, Coenije, De Groote, Van Wassenhove, Tudor, Daffe, Temmerman
Crouching: Heyt, Varga, Bene, Giba, Van Herp.
Two Africans plus one Hungarian, certainly a defector. Intriguing name, Varga – yes, the much travelled Zoltan Varga in his last year as a professional. Add the West German goalkeeper Helmut Brosch, the Dutch Henk Heijt, one Brazilian – Francisco Benedito, and very Italian, only 17-years old, Francesco Pirelli.
Second and third place were decided by a single point in the championship and the parity was preserved in the play-offs: both clubs ended with 9 points and goal-difference decided who went up and who stayed in purgatory for another or more seasons. KSK Tongeren finished 3rd in the league – they finished 2nd in the mini-league. They were unbeaten – 3 wins and 3 ties, but, just like in the regular season, a little something was missing. Goal-difference – 5:2.
K. Bershem Sport bested Tongeren by a single goal. They were one point better in the championship, but it was a equal race. Tongeren were stronger in the direct clash – a win and a tie. But Bershem made no mistake against the outsiders – 4 victories, with which they also finished with 9 points. However, Bershem scored 7 goals and received 3 – they ended with +4 goals, Tongeren with +3, and Bershem went to up – or returned to first division, where they used to play in the 1960s and sometimes in the 1970s. It was doubtful they will last, but it was a concern for the next year. Lucky now – and happy too.
The direct promotion was unquestionable – K. Watershei SV Thor finished far above the competition: with 46 points, they had no real pursuer – the next team was 6 points behind. Best attack, second best defense, they lost only 3 championship matches – a record shared with K. Bershem Sport, but they excelled in winning – they won 19 out of 30 total championship games, the only club with more than 50% wins this year. The name of the club means nothing nowadays, for the club does not exist, but back in the 1970s they were one of the two clubs in the city of Genk, Limburg province. The other was Winterslag, slightly better known, for they played almost constantly in the first division, sometimes qualifying for the European tournaments. Watershei had nothing to be proud of so far – founded in 1919, they registered in the Belgian FA in 1925 and played mostly lower-level football. Their best years were in the late-1950s -early-1960s, when they played in the first division. Relegation followed and in 1977-78 they finally matched the relative success of the old 1950-s team – won the Second Division and promotion for second time.
Confident winners, but, as normally is the case with second division clubs, nothing really can be said about the squad. May be the only thing worth saying about the winners is description of their name. It was very, very long and amusing: Koninklijke Watershei Sportverenigung Thor. A mouthful? Not even close… for ‘Thor’ itself was an achronym of ‘Tot Herstel Onzer Rechten’, meaning ‘To Recover Our Rights’. Politically motivated name, hardly all that rare in football, but just try to use the whole proper name of the club… Try chanting it in full voice… no wonder the name was shortened to just Watershei. Watch out, first division, here they come. Minus their Moroccan player of 1977-78, Mohammed Maarouf, who was to stay in Second Division with KAA Gent.