Anderlecht O-Side at FC Brugge 1990/91

Belgian Hoolie Scene
The Belgian Hooligan Scene really began in the early 80's with the formation of the first Hooligan groups at clubs like Anderlecht, FC Brugge and Antwerp. The Belgian Hoolie scene has always been influenced by England, Holland and Germany due to its geographical situation and because of this a lot of contact and confrontations have taken place between clubs from Belgian and these other countries, this in one of the reason most Belgian Hoolie groups contain the words 'Side' or 'Firm' in their name (see list below). By the mid 80's incidents at club matches in Belgian were becoming more commonplace, as still during this period there was no real segregation between fans and some violent incidents took place between rival fans in the stadium, as well as in the streets, the underground system (Brussels) and railway stations. The police at the time were very poorly organized and often turned up too late after large confrontations had already taken place, for example at high risk games such as Anderlecht - FC Brugge matches and virtually any game involving Antwerp.

This was all to change in 1985 after the tragic events at Heysel Stadium in Brussels, the Belgian Government was almost forced to take action against the hooligans. Firstly segregation was to become standard at all stadiums, police escort for visiting fans from railway stations to the ground were introduced, as well as body searches at the turnstiles. The police also started to adopt tactics that the British police had been using for years, the compiling of information on known hooligans and the build up of photo libraries of known troublemakers. More police were deployed at matches as well as some armed with video cameras to record any incident or the faces os suspected hooligans, and this caused alot of concern amongst groups of hooligans than police armed with batons.
But as the police became more efficient so did the hooligans, and modes of transport was changed from train to cars, to avoid detection by police. Around the same time Belgian gangs adopted the Casual look from Britain, thus helping them avoid police by not wearing club colours. (This can be seen by some of the names of some of the gangs i.e. K4 Casuals- again see list below).

After the ban of English clubs from Europe, Dutch clubs started to influence the Belgian lads and a number of friendships were formed - FC Brugge & Den Haag; Anderlecht & Ajax; Antwerp & Feyenoord; and Standard & Den Bosch. Standard also had some links with Germany (Leverkuson).

Since the early 90's some of the Belgian gangs have started to follow the national side especially Antwerp X-Side and Standards Hell-Side. One of their first excursions with the national side was a friendly against Germany in Hannover in season 1990/91, two bus loads of Belgian Hoolies took the Germans by surprise and came of quite well in exchanges outside the ground.

Season 1999/2000 now and most of the clubs still have some kind of Hooligan following, you just have to look at the incidents between fans from last season for proof of this and already there have been a few incidents this season, keep an eye on the Ultra News pages for reports on incidents from Belgium.

     
Anderlecht - FC Brugge 9/9/98                                                                   FC Brugge - Anderlecht 1998/99

Below I have listed the names of most of the active hooligan groups from Belgium, if I've missed out any groups please mail me and I will add them to the list.

Ist DIVISION CLUBS