90 years later
How Union Saint-Gilloise fans learned to love the helicopter
It’s May 25th 2025, which is a long time since 1935. On 24th February of that year, Union Saint-Gilloise became Belgian champions for the 11th time with a 3-2 victory over Racing Mechelen.
90 years later, they are still waiting for number 12. They’ve come impossibly close in the last three seasons before this one, twice finishing the regular season top of the league only to be denied by the forced excitement of Belgium’s playoff system. Even more impressive was the fact that until 2021, Union had spent a generation in the second tier or below, with their initial relegation in 1973 being followed by two more.
Despite this, undoubtedly the most brutal of these near misses came in the 22/23 season, where they had finished the regular season in 2nd place. With 89 minutes played of the final game of the playoff round, USG were on their way to the title. By the time the whistle blew, they were 3rd, collapsing to a 3-1 loss to Club Brugge. This looked to have given the title to Genk, only for Toby Alderweireld to score a 94th minute equaliser for Antwerp to bring them their first title for 66 years. Three different sides had been top of the league in the final five minutes of the season, the type of ending to a campaign usually only seen in terrible straight-to-Netflix ‘Soccer’ movies.
Today was a chance to right the wrongs of the last few years. USG had been dominant throughout the playoffs, winning eight and drawing one to close the gap on Genk, who finished 13 points ahead of USG but had fallen apart in the playoffs to the point they’d already had no chance of winning the title with several games remaining. Instead, it was Club Brugge who could once again steal away the title from USG, this time for themselves.
The job for USG was simple - win, and they were champions. A draw would be enough if Club Brugge failed to win, whereas a loss would only do if Brugge also lost.
Even better for USG, they were at home to Gent, who had picked up just 1 win from their playoff campaign so far, losing each of the remaining 8. In addition, Gent’s main rivals are none other than Club Brugge, meaning there would be plenty in the away section who would happily take a loss to ensure the trophy stays out of their rival’s hands.
Looking at the situation from an objective perspective, it seemed certain that USG would get over the final hurdle at last. However, clearly haunted by the ghosts of the last few years, that mood was not reflected by the supporters outside the truly magnificent Joseph Marien Stadium in the hours before the game.
I was there at 15:00 ahead of the 18:30 kick off, to soak in both the atmosphere and a few beers at Union’s Tavern, a pub just across the street from the stadium. If USG supporters were used to seeing their heroes lift silverware, the day would have had a feeling similar to Christmas Eve - buzzing with excitement ahead of inevitable celebrations to come. Instead, it was more like a group therapy session. “We’re not going to mess it up again, are we?”. The air was thick with tension, until suddenly, it would be full with something else.
With kick off now two hours away, a clearly pre-determined plan kicks into action. One of the ultras scales a bus stop and starts a rousing, fist pumping chant. Thousands join in, and begin surging down the street away from the stadium. I have no idea where they are going, but I do know that I’m going to follow them. Something is happening.
It turns out to be a bus welcoming, synonymous with Liverpool in English football, but common all over Europe for big games. I’ve seen Feyenoord supporters do one after a monumental victory over hated rivals Ajax that looked more like a scene from a zombie movie, the sky completely engulfed by flares and fireworks as hundreds of people swarm all over the bus, banging on doors and windows in joyous celebration.
While this one was altogether calmer, it was still a hugely impressive sight. The moment the bus turns the corner and onto the street leading towards the stadium, all you can see is fire. Blue and yellow balaclava wearing ultras are igniting fireworks, along with strobe flares, smokebombs, and just about anything else you can imagine which is designed to explode.
And it’s not just the ultras. Union is a club for everyone, with flags and stickers showing their opposition to all forms of discrimination plain to see wherever you look. It’s not just a gimmick (looking at you, St Pauli and your lack of support for Palestine), but a clear part of the identity of the club. This is also reflected by how many languages you could hear spoken in the stands. Fitting for a team based in Brussels, I heard English, Polish, German, Spanish, and Italian being spoken in addition to the Dutch and French majority. Similar to my experiences with Swedish football, there were also far more women in the crowd than you usually see - a great reminder that football is for everyone and not just bald blokes who love Stella and the Daily Mail.
As the last flare burns itself out, the smoke clears, and the final piece of ash is brushed away from the clothes of the crowd, it’s time to make our collective way into the stadium.
It is a stadium as beautiful as it is totally unsuitable for USG’s new status as one of the powerhouses of Belgian football. With a capacity of around 9,400, it simply does not have the space required as a result of USG’s remarkable rise back to the top since 2021. Union cannot play their ‘home’ fixtures in Europe there, and it lacks the kind of fancy corporate facilities that are sadly seen as essential in the modern game.
Personally, I would take a crumbling terrace covered in crash barriers, stickers, weeds, and the skeletons of empty beer glasses over a corporate box any day, and that is where I found myself on this most pivotal of days for the blue and yellows. This standing section is home to the ultras mentioned earlier - with their Union Bhoys name a very confusing one for those with a knowledge of Scottish football (Rangers ultras group is called the Union Bears, while Celtic supporters often refer to themselves as the Bhoys).
The terrace is rapidly filling up, with the unspoken rule of leaving a scarf tied to a crash barrier to reserve the spot while going to buy beers. And buy beers they did! From what I could find in my research, the prize money for winning the Belgian top flight is about €8,000,000. Consolation for USG then, that even if they didn’t win today, they’d made this much money in beer sales just from the four guys standing directly behind me. A side note on them - if there was (an admittedly niche) world record for who could scream “ALLLEEEZZZZZ” into my ear the loudest, his record would be as tough to break as Usian Bolt’s 100m time.
Away to the left, Gent’s away end are throwing an end of season party - and from the looks of some of the USG shirts and scarves on display in their section, a funeral for Club Brugge’s title hopes. There are dozens of inflatables bouncing around the away sector, with everything from beachballs, crocodiles, rafts, and a solitary penis. Thinking about it, that sounds almost exactly like the videos I used to catch my university housemate watching after coming back from a big night out.
Kick off draws near, and one of the best things you can see in a football stadium is brought out. When a giant generic flag appears which covers the ultras section, you just know something good is about to happen. For those unaware, these large flags are used to hand out pyrotechnics without being picked up on stadium cameras, with a quick clothing change in the majority of cases. Sure enough, a minute or so after the appearance of the big flag, balaclava wearing ultras scurry out from every direction.
They’re each holding two bamboo sticks, usually intended for garden use. It’s fair to say none of these guys are too concerned about their tomato plants right now, with multiple smokebombs taped to each stick. These are ignited and lifted high into the sky, with a blue and yellow card display also being held up around the entire stadium. It’s lucky the infamous helicopter from last season isn’t overhead right now, as not only was the air thick with blue and yellow smoke, there were also countless fireworks exploding all around. A point deduction for shooting down a helicopter was just about the only way USG hadn’t lost the league title in the past few years, and the pilot clearly wasn’t taking any chances.
You’d have been forgiven for not noticing due to the thick blanket of smoke covering the field, but the game was now underway! The atmosphere was good, but it was clear to see that in the battle between nerves and excitement, nerves currently had the high ground.
That lasted for all of ten minutes.
USG win a corner on the left hand side. Gent’s defenders are clearly expecting a cross, but instead the ball is played along the ground. It catches them completely by surprise, and the ball is smashed home by USG’s Croatian striker Franjo Ivanović. The stadium erupts - and not just the home sections. As predicted, Gent supporters wanted no part of helping their rivals become champions, and they celebrated the goal against them with almost as much enthusiasm as the Union supporters themselves!
From that moment on, I knew USG were going to win. This time, at last, it wasn’t going to go horribly wrong.
A reminder, if it was needed, that sometimes I need to just shut the fuck up (subtle foreshadowing).
The early goal had USG buzzing, and they could have added to their lead on a few occasions if not for some good saves and a lingering bit of nervousness in the finishing. 25 minutes after the first goal celebration, it was time for another.
It wasn’t USG who had put the ball in the net however, but Antwerp. Club Brugge were 1-0 down at home, and the grip on the title had grown stronger. The stadium was really bouncing now, safe in the knowledge that not only would their title rivals need to score twice, but Gent would have to go against the wishes of their own supporters by equalising.
That calm lasted for exactly eight minutes.
News came through that Club Brugge had equalised against Antwerp, and within the space of a few seconds, Gent equalised with their first shot of the game. It was almost as if they had scored by accident, Gent’s striker instinctively tapping home from close range before thinking “Oh shit, did I just win Club Brugge the league?”. Silence from the away end showed that feeling was mutual, and heads sunk into hands all around.
It was almost the last action of the first half, with the whistle blowing almost immediately after.
The Union players were applauded off the pitch despite the obvious frustration of conceding the equaliser, and another few gallons of beer were being queued for to calm the latest surge of nerves.
This half time wait would be extended, with the league keen to ensure that both of the decisive games restarted at exactly the same time. There had clearly been more stoppage time over in Brugge, as USG were left waiting around on the pitch for a considerable amount of time before the final and decisive 45 minutes of the season.
If USG had scored in the first five minutes of the second half, there was a real possibility that the amount of beer that would have flown from the stands would have caused a postponement due to a waterlogged pitch.
I don’t speak French, but “Le putain hélicoptère” was easy enough to understand, muttered through clenched teeth as two early second half chances were wasted. If any of the USG supporters packed inside the ground were therapists, they could have picked up enough clients for the next several years - such was the clear lingering trauma from their previous flirtations with glory.
Of course, 1-1 was actually enough to do the job as things stood, with Club Brugge still tied at 1-1 with Antwerp. It was clear that not a single person in attendance trusted this scoreline to stay as it was, with blue and yellow fists shaking with despair at the sky as time continued to tick by without a second goal for their heroes.
A false rumour spreads around the ground that Brugge have scored, with USG supporters proving their peaceful reputation to be true as they managed to restrain themselves from setting the original perpetrator on fire.
Every football supporter has experienced the clock that appears to be moving backwards at one point. Fittingly enough for today’s setting, my own was the Wales vs. Belgium qualifier in 2015, a 1-0 victory that just about ensured a first appearance at a major tournament in my lifetime. Gareth Bale had given Wales the lead after 25 minutes, with the remaining 65 minutes feeling equally as long as the 58 years that had gone by since John Charles and the boys had reached the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.
For USG supporters, this was that moment. 40 minutes to go, 35 minutes to go, 34 and a half minutes to go…
You desperately try not to check the time for as long as possible, only to realise that when you do so, what felt like 20 minutes was less than 5. As much as the therapists in the crowd were gaining work, there were sure to be a lot of disappointed nail technicians in the morning as dozens of pedicures were cancelled due to fingernails being chewed to the bone in an increasingly frantic stadium.
If you’re a Real Madrid fan, liking football is probably pretty fun. For the rest of us, it’s usually fucking miserable.
Not today.
With 68 minutes on the clock, the wonderfully named Canadian striker Promise Akinpelu would write himself into permanent USG folklore. Gent mess up a throw in deep into their own territory, with the fullback under immediate pressure. He can’t get it clear, losing possession to USG’s press. The ball is played into the box and finds itself at the feet of Akinpelu, who takes a touch before calmly slotting the ball past the goalkeeper at his far post.
It’s chaos.
The celebrations can only have lasted a minute or so, but they appeared to take place in slow motion. A beer majesticly flies through the air, leaving the flailing limbs of its past owner behind as it soaks an almost impossible amount of people. In the row in front of me, someone has stolen his friend’s flat cap, using it as a weapon against him as he joyfully smacks his newly exposed head with it again and again. As always, someone has ended up on the floor, and hundreds of shins will never be the same again. People make the frantic decision of whether they should attempt to down their beer in one, or accept it being lost in the mayhem. The man behind me with the loudest voice in the world ensures once and for all that I won’t be able to hear anything in my old age, and there are tears, screams, hugs with strangers, and accidental fists to the face which won’t hurt until the adrenaline wears off.
Now, they (mostly) believe. The atmosphere had been dying off as nerves took over, but that had been washed away with the goal that put USG back on top. Fists shook to the sky with joy, not despair, followed by what I would consider to be the signature chant of Union supporters.
The chant begins with the supporters raising one fist to the air, starting with one, then another, and another, until the entire stand has their fists raised. Once the song begins, they punch the air in the direction of the pitch, screaming:
Bruxelles,
Ma ville,
Je t’aime,
Je porte ton emblème,
Tes couleurs dans mon cœur,
Et quand vient le week-end,
Au parc Duden,
Je chante pour mon club,
Allez l’Union,
Ohohohohohoooo...
Like most things, it sounds better (and mostly rhymes) in French but here’s an English translation:
Brussels,
My city,
I love you,
I wear your emblem,
Your colors in my heart,
And when the weekend comes,
In Duden Park,
I sing for my club,
Come on, Union,
Ohohohohohoooo…
If you only learn one thing from this book, let it be that “Ohohohohohoooo…” is pronounced the same in both French and English.
Seven minutes later, things would get even better.
The ball comes into the box, again from the left side, this time in the form of a precise cross. It lands inch perfect on the head of man-of-the-moment Promise Akinpelu, who wrongfoots the goalkeeper by directing the ball to the left, when most players would have aimed for the top right corner. In my opinion there are few better words in the English language than bamboozle, and the Gent goalkeeper was well and truly bamboozled as he helplessly watched the ball nestle in the bottom left corner of the net.
If the celebrations for the second goal had been fueled by relief, this time around it was pure joy. Any beers that had survived last time around were sacrificed, with cathartic screams of joy coming from every direction. This was more than a goal - it was 90 years of pain evaporating in a single moment. With the tears, came the helicopter. Le putain hélicoptère.
Its arrival is like something out of a movie. The sky had once again been turned blue and yellow with pyro smoke after the third goal, and when it finally cleared minutes later, there it was. Still in the distance, perhaps afraid to come any closer after the events of a year ago, but unmistakably the flying machine that the home supporters had both been dreading and dreaming of seeing all day.
The arrival of the helicopter leads to another special moment, with scarves removed from necks and twirled in the air, replicating the movement of helicopter blades. “HÉLICOPTÈRE! HÉLICOPTÈRE! HÉLICOPTÈRE!” they chant. Once a song used to mock them, now one that would be forever connected with the crowning glory of their return from obscurity.
So much of Union’s story since they were promoted back to the top flight resembles a movie that you could certainly be forgiven for perhaps expecting one last twist ending, but thankfully for the blue and yellow loyal, M. Night Shyamalan wasn’t amongst the Gent substitutes. The visitors never looked likely to spoil the party for a second time, and the closing stages took place in a shared experience of joy from all four sides of the stadium.
3 minutes of injury time were announced, along with a plea for supporters to stay off the pitch at full time. Even if the helicopter had been landing on the pitch, there was no way anyone was paying attention to this particular request. With three short blasts on a whistle, the referee ensured the footballing equivalent of “and they all lived happily ever after” became a reality. Fairytale no more - Union were champions.
The next hour would bring a tear to the eye of even a statue, as Union supporters flooded the field in joy. In moments like this, there really is nothing quite like football. Every time you turned your head, you saw someone having one of the happiest moments of their lives. I stayed in the stands to begin with, taking in the celebrations from those who had also resisted the urge to join their heroes on the pitch.
A few rows in front of me are two guys, both completely unable to speak through the tears streaming down their faces. Hands on their head in disbelief, each attempt to put words to the moment only causes them to cry even harder. A husband and wife to my left are also engulfed with emotion, while another stands alone, periodically screaming. We’ve all been there mate, we’ve all been there.
I decide to make my way onto the pitch, because you only get so many opportunities in life to be part of a pitch invasion, and when that opportunity comes - it must be taken. This is my excuse for storming the field with Helsinborg supporters in 2021 after their 3-1 victory over BK Halmstads saw them promoted, although I have less excuse for getting caught up in the moment and taking one of the corner flags with me.
No chance of a unique souvenir this time, as the corner flags and goal nets have long since disappeared. Just a few blue and yellow strands remain in the goal where the title winning strikes were scored, with these small pieces being cut away with keys, bottle openers, and anything else sharp (but not quite sharp enough to be refused entry to a stadium) they could find.
My lasting memory of this day will be in these moments, walking around the pitch and observing all the different types of joy that football can bring. There were of course, the usual excitable football lads, waving smokebombs, hoisting the players onto their shoulders, chanting and generally going mental - the staples of any football celebration. But beyond this, there was also the guy on crutches, standing 20 feet or so from the main scrum of celebration, taking in the moment from as close as he dared. The guy holding the “USG Italian branch” banderi flag with tears streaming down his face. The two girls embracing on the pitch, one holding a handmade “I should be studying” sign. The dads with their kids on their shoulders, and so many more stories.
Someone at USG then made the best decision of the day so far, opening the gates to allow those people who had not been able to secure a ticket for the match to join the celebrations. In poured hundreds of delirious supporters, some falling to the ground and kissing the grass, overwhelmed with happiness that they were able to celebrate inside the stadium after all. This was also the moment I witnessed one of the most emotional moments of the day, a man wheeled into the stadium on a hospital bed by his friends. He was clearly very unwell, but no matter what happened, he and his friends would always have this moment of pure joy. Hopefully he made a full recovery, but if not - some of his final moments were spent surrounded by friendship and pure joy, not a bad way to go.
On a more cheerful note, the opening of the gates allowed for numerous good boys to join the on-pitch celebrations, with dogs of all shapes and sizes running around with glee at being allowed to meet roughly 12,000 new friends. One of them in particular absolutely refused to take part in a title winning selfie, in a way that only someone who has tried to take a nice photo of their cat can relate to.
With the trophy presentation delayed until the helicopter could land and safely deliver its precious cargo, the pitch slowly began to clear in anticipation, although the fastest runners who had secured a place right next to the platform weren’t going anywhere. A number of the Union Bhoys had arrived back in the stands, setting off one more round of flares, smokebombs, and fireworks, partly in celebration, and partly because they didn’t want to have to carry them to wherever the party went next whenever things finally died down at the stadium.
After one fragment of firework missed my head by about 3 inches I decided to move to a slightly less precarious spot. I did so just in time, as just a few minutes later came the crowning moment. The players finally reemerged from the changing rooms, once again being mobbed by the many admirers who remained on the field. With a helping hand from security they were able to find their way through, and moments later the unique trophy (featuring a bull with a football/globe on its back) was lifted aloft by goalkeeper and captain Anthony Moris, a man who had been with the club since their days in the second tier.
Blue and yellow confetti rained from the sky and was quickly snatched up by those looking for a souvenir. I did initially manage to grab some, but gave it away 30 seconds later to the stressed looking dad of a young kid who was in floods of tears that he didn’t manage to get any. To make myself feel better, I will choose to believe this confetti will become a treasured family heirloom, and not immediately forgotten because of an iPad.
It had been a long day, and my lungs were keen to be somewhere that wasn’t being set on fire every five minutes. Heading back onto the pitch for one last walk through the joyous crowds, I did my best to take in every single moment. I watch a lot of rubbish football in my life, and I knew there would come a day pretty soon where I’d just watched a 0-0 draw in the Bosnian Third Division and had to walk 5 miles back to the hotel because Uber doesn’t exist here.
When that day came, I could just close my eyes and pretend I was back here in Brussels, on the day that dreams came true and people learned to love Le putain hélicoptère.
