BELGIUM: RCS Brainois (B) (±1981-2023) / RCS Brainois (2023-)

Complexe Gaston Reiff - terrain 2, Braine-l'Alleud = Eigenbrakel (RCS Brainois - formerly B pitch, hosting first team football since the start of the 2023-24 season)

Belgium, province: Walloon Brabant = Waals Brabant

25 II 2024 / RCS Brainois - CS Pays Vert Ostiches-Ath 2-0 / ACFF Amateur Division 3A (= BE level 5)

Timeline

• 1913 / Foundation of a football club in Braine-l’Alleud, which is given the name Cercle Sportif (CS) Brainois - and acquires registration number 75 upon the introduction by the Belgian FA of a club register in 1926. The new club’s first ground is Terrain Ferme de la Haie Sainte. It is unclear for how long the club played here exactly.
• 1938 / Celebrating its 25th anniversary, CS Brainois obtains the royal epithet, officially adapting its name to become Royal Cercle Sportif (RCS) Brainois. Also, while the club started its life at Terrain Ferme de la Haie Sainte in 1913, it is clear that by 1938, there was a new ground, Terrain de Saint-Sébastien at Avenue Alphonse Allard. It is unclear when the club moved to this new ground; and also there is unclarity as to the question if there had been more ground moves than one before the club moved to this ground.
• ± 1954 / Sometime between 1950 and 1957, RCS Brainois must have moved away from Terrain de Saint-Sébastien, settling at a new ground near the local train station, the so-called Terrain de la Gare.
• 1972 / A start is made on the construction of a new ground for RCS Brainois at Rue Ernest Laurent, on the location of the former amusement park Belgique Miniature. Inaugurated in 1959, this park featured a 1 : 10,000 version of the map of Belgium in concrete, featuring the main sights in the country’s landscape and architecture in a miniature version. Due to a lack of interest from the Belgian public, though, the park had closed down in 1963. In the building works on the new stadium, only the café of the park is preserved – turned into RCS Brainois’ projected clubhouse (still existing today).
• 1973 / RCS Brainois moves into the new sports park at Rue Ernest Laurent, consisting of two pitches and an athletics track around the main pitch. The ground is named Stade Gaston Reiff in honour of Braine-l’Alleud’s living sports legend Gaston Reiff (1911-1992), who won the Olympic 5k race in Helsinki (1948) ahead of Emil Zátopek from Czechoslovakia; in honour of Mr Reiff, a small monument was erected on the hillside between the clubhouse and the main pitch of the new ground. Terrain de la Gare, RCS Brainois' old ground, is abandoned.
• ± 1981 / The karting track situated to the south of the main pitch – a relic of the times of Belgique Miniature, when it had been one of the attractions of the park – was removed to make way for two new side-pitches, bringing the total of pitches of the ground to four.
• 2011 / Pitch 2 of Complexe Gaston Reiff – the pitch directly to the south of the main pitch – is equipped with a synthetic surface as well as a utility building including dressing and storage rooms, and also including a small open terrace.
• 2023 / Oddly, RCS Brainois moves its first team football to the synthetic B pitch of Complexe Gaston Reiff, while the home matches of the B team, playing in Brabant’s Provincial League 2, are moved to the main pitch. Prior to this, the synthetic pitch had been used for first team football only incidentally, when the main pitch was unavailable due to the pitch being waterlogged or in use for an athletics or school event.

Note - In photos 7 & 18 below, the so-called Lion's Mound can be seen in the background, a conical artificial hill constructed as a memorial of the Battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo in 1815.

All photos: (c) W.B. Tukker / www.extremefootballtourism.blogspot.com. Publication of any of these images only after permission of author