Football match cancelled due to…molehills

A football match that was to have taken place in the Flemish Brabant municipality of Sint-Pieters-Leeuw on Sunday was cancelled because there were too many molehills on the pitch. The players of Brucom Sportief were to have taken on SK Vlezenbeek in a local derby that was to have been the first game of 2020 for both teams.

However, players and supporters had their hopes of an enjoyable Sunday afternoon’s football dashed when a pitch inspection found no fewer than 100 molehills on the Brucom Sportief pitch.

The Brucom players had counted around 75 molehills when they trained on the pitch on Friday. Normally there are just one or two. However, by Sunday there were more than 100 molehills, making it impossible to play a match on the pitch.  

Brucom’s Chairman Marc De Bosscher told VRT Radio 2 Flemish Brabant that in its current state the pitch is far too dangerous to play on. “Under the molehills are holes and if your foot ends up in one of them you risk injury”.

"We have never experienced this before. Either the moles have bred during the winter break or there are moles that have come here from somewhere else. We are of course in an area with a lot of agricultural land. Farmers ploughing up their land might have made the moles come here because it’s quieter”

Those that look after the pitch at Brucom don’t only have moles to contend with. There are also rabbits.

"Rabbits have dug tunnels under the stand. Clearly Brucom Sportief is well-liked by the animal kingdom”, Mr De Bosscher joked.

The chairman has informed the local council’s Sport Department (the council owns the pitch) about the mole problem. The Sports Department has in turn informed the Parks Department and together they will try and get the pitch playable again as soon as possible. 

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