“WE’RE ONLY HERE TO SEE THE REFEREE”

Whistle-happy ultras turned up at a Belgian top-flight match just to cheer on the man in the middle. When we said officials needed more support, we weren’t quite expecting this…

When KV Mechelen took on Kortrijk in a Belgian Pro League game, something didn’t seem quite right. Home fans on one side, away supporters on the other – but wait, who are the other guys? As it turned out, the 400 fans decked out in green behind one of the goals hadn’t turned up at the wrong stadium by mistake. Instead, they had arrived purely to support the man with the whistle, Joeri Van de Velde. Even referees have ultras following them these days.

This ref kop was the brainchild of Babett Manalo and the appropriately-named TV production company Bonka Circus, partly owned by Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany. Manalo contacted the Belgian FA with the idea, and Van de Velde agreed to play along. “For once, we wanted to support the third party involved in every football game,” explains Manalo, a TV presenter on Belgian football show Fanatico. “Referees mainly get heckled and criticised by supporters of both teams on the pitch. We decided that they deserved their own moment of glory.

“We put the word out and were greeted by many enthusiasts willing to join us. Oddly enough, a lot of the one-off referee fans turned out to be amateur officials themselves, or closely related to one. They embraced the idea that at least one man in the middle finally got his 90 minutes of fame.”

And 90 minutes of fame they were, as the ultras turned up with scarves, shirts and hats in the same green hue as the ref’s jersey, while unveiling a banner that read: ‘You’ll never whistle alone’.

They even launched into chants, such as “There’s only one Joeri”, “He’s one of our own” and “Viva referee”, all carefully devised before the match had started, with allotted timeslots for each song.

“We didn’t want to offend the other fans, so obviously we wouldn’t cheer for yellow or red cards,” Manalo explains. “But we did put a smile on everyone’s face when we counted down the 10 yards for the defensive wall before a free-kick was taken, and cheered the ref for using his vanishing spray.

“The fans of the two teams didn’t mind too much, apart from a few friendly jibes at our green attire, since it’s the colour of KV Mechelen’s rivals, KRC Mechelen.”

And what did Joeri, the hero of the evening, make of it all? “After the match had finished he came to greet his own kop, just like winning teams do,” Manalo says. “He had a blast.”