Royal Excel Mouscron (Belgium)

Royal Excel Mouscron is a football club from the town of Mouscron on the Belgium and France border that was formed as Royal Mouscron-Péruwelz in the spring of 2010. However, the lineage goes back far further.

Two former clubs both formed in 1922; Stade Mouscron and A.R.A. Mouscron came together with a merger in 1964 to become Royal Excelsior Mouscron. The club was placed in Division Three; where they stayed for many seasons.

Successive promotions in 1989-90 and 1990-91 propelled Mouscron to the the second tier. A runners-up place in 1995-96 and play-off victory saw the club reach the top flight for the first time. Mouscron finished in third place in their debut season.

The 1998-99 and 1999-00 campaigns saw fourth place finishes adding to further UEFA Cup appearances; with the team having to play their ‘home’ games at Le Stadium Nord over the French border at Villeneuve-d'Ascq until Stade Le Canonnier was upgraded.

Head coach Lorenzo Staelens took the team to the 2002 final of the Coupe de Belgique; where Mouscron went down 3-1 to Club Brugge. In 2005 the club hit serious financial troubles as star players Marcin Żewłakow, Franky Vandendriessche and Geoffrey Claeys were among those to leave the club.

The club returned to the Belgian Cup final in 2006. On that occasion SV Zulte-Waregem ran out 2-1 winners to dent the hopes of ‘Les Hurlus’. The financial issues were continuing at Stade Le Canonnier.

Manchester City offered to invest in return for Mouscron to become a feeder club. However, by that stage the club defaulted financially for a third time, with the Belgian FA excluding them from the league competition as former international Enzo Scifo head a spell in charge of the team.

On December 28^th 2009 the club ceased to exist. A few months later the replacement club Royal Mouscron-Péruwelz was formed as the new management arranged a merger with Royal Racing Club Péruwelz; a club based thirty miles away.

The arrangement allowed the new club to move thirty miles to Mouscron and to play in the fourth tier Promotion Division, where they finished as runners-up in 2010-11 to win promotion to the Division Three under head coach Philippe Saint-Jean.

Mouscron-Péruwelz won the third tier title in 2011-12 to continue their progression back through the leagues. A runners-up slot in 2012-13 saw the team just miss out on promotion on goal difference to Cercle Brugge.

However, it was the following season with Rachid Chihab in charge as Mouscron reached the top flight to start the 2014-15 campaign following successes in the final play-off rounds. For several years, the French side OSC Lille had major shares in the club.

In June 2015 Mouscron was bought by a group of foreign investors represented by the Israeli agent and businessman Pini Zahavi as the team diced with relegation. In the summer of 2016 the club changed their title to Royal Excel Mouscron.

The team evaded demotion by just one place in 2016-17 under the direction of Romanian coach Mircea Rednic. He was replaced by Frank Defays in February 2018 who lasted until August 2018 when Bern Storck was appointed with the team once again ending in the Europa League play-off groups following the split after the regular season.

Bernd Hollerbach took over as coach for the 2019-20 season in which Mouscron ended in tenth place when the campaign finished prematurely owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Royal Excel Mouscron will play in the Belgian First Division A in the 2020-21 season.

My visit

Royal Excel Mouscron 3 KAA Gent 2 (Sunday 20^th August 2017) Belgian First Division A (att: 4,000)

My Belgian adventure was continuing in fine style. I’d met up with Anthony Vargas and the man known as Antonio the Anderlecht fan from the Facebook European Football Weekends Group and seen a good game in the capital before Anthony and I had to make tracks.

We caught the metro to Central Station in time for the 5.45 train south. The fixture had only appeared a few days earlier on Soccerway; no doubt it had been re-arranged at a late stage for TV coverage.

We were required to change train in Gent; where the Sint-Pieters station was undergoing a huge refurbishment. The connection went to plan and we pulled into Mouscron at 7.20pm ready for the walk to the stadium.

An English and Dutch lad, both living in Brussels joined us for the twenty minute stretch along the side of the railway. Both had been to matches that afternoon; one also at Anderlecht while the other had opted for Belgian Cup action at Aalst.

Anthony and I had to buy tickets, as the online sales had required the use of a Belgian bank card. There was a fair queue but the ladies in the hut were going great guns. We bought standing tickets on Le Kop for €12, getting a decent place in readiness for the arrival of the sides.

Le Stade Le Canonnier had two decent seated stands on either side. The Kop was covered standing with several supporting pillars, while the away end was a few steps of terracing with advertising boards and a scoreboard above.

Gent had arrived with a decent travelling support, who also took up plenty of seats on the right hand side as well as more or less filling their standing section. Their team had started the season badly with just one point from a possible nine.

Mouscron came into the game occupying sixth place in the table. Pre match I predicted an away win despite the form table. Gent had really impressed me at Wembley the previous season when they ended Tottenham Hotspur’s Europa League campaign.

Les Hurlus started the game well without making any real chances. Anthony went to buy his scarf and returned with a Hoogarden beer for me. Gent were getting into the game more and more. My pal happened to mention that it could be a long night for the hosts.

He appeared to be spot on as Brecht Dejaegere received a pass before lashing in a shot that entered the net off the underside of the crossbar. Just three minutes later the visitors doubled their lead as Mamadou Sylla sent a beautiful low curling shot past Logan Bailly in the Mouscron net.

Bailly had to make a fine stop, while Gent wasted a fine one on one opportunity before the game turned with a controversial decision from referee Nicolas Laforge a couple of minutes before the break.

The visitors defender Samuel Gigot flew into a challenge out on the touchline which sent Mouscron’s Fabrice Olinga sprawling. The crowd went berserk, which probably led to the issuing of a red card.

Gent’s coach Hein Vanhaezebrouck was going spare on the side of the pitch, while the away fans in the seats above the tunnel offered some extremely angry feedback towards the official as they headed off at the break.

We enjoyed another drink at the break while the other two lads joined us for a chat. They said that mates had texted that the defender had taken the ball and the red card had been a harsh call. I was also given some invaluable information regarding late bars in Brussels!

Our general thoughts were that an early goal against the ten men would give Mouscron half a chance. Indeed, Excel did have lots of possession as was expected, but it looked like De Buffalo's had seen off the main pressure.

Half way through the second period a seemingly over hit pass saw Gent keeper Lovre Kalinić go just outside his area and was forced to head the ball away. Unfortunately for him it landed at the feet of Dimitri Mohamed who managed to lob into an empty net.

The pressure continued, while Gent still looked dangerous on the break. It really was turning into a fantastic game. Anthony and I had one eye on the clock and if the gate nearer the station was open as we wanted to catch the 10.13 train.

With just six minutes remaining Omar Govea fired a shot from the edge of the box which curled towards the corner of the goal from the outside of his boot.  Kalinić was unsighted as the ball went in to create bedlam on the terracing.

Excel continued to pour forward. The Gent defence was creaking and making some poor decisions. On eighty seven minutes the a Mouscron forward was adjudged to have been fouled so the referee went further down in the visiting fans thoughts as he pointed to the spot.

Jonathan Bolingi stepped up and sent Kalinić the wrong way with the penalty. Gent threw what they had left into a desperate attempt at an equaliser. Kalinić went up for one last corner but the ball was cleared as Monsieur Laforge blew his whistle for full time.

We didn’t hand around to hear the abuse he was surely to receive from the away fans. Our pace was most impressive back along Avenue de Rheinfelden to the station, which we thought was never going to come into view.

Our journey required a change at Tournai, which was no issue. However, we were getting rather concerned when the second train stalled at Leuze-en-Hainaut. Announcements followed, and while we didn’t understand what was said, we got the gist of things.

The excellent guard explained in English to us that there was some kind of communications fault that the driver was trying to resolve. All the power was turned off for a short while before we eventually went on our way. It seemed apt that we stopped at a town called Silly!

It was just gone midnight when we alighted at Brussels Central. I said my goodbye to Anthony, who had been great company over the past couple of days. We’d got on really well and enjoyed plenty of chat and laughs.

It had been a long day. I couldn’t be bothered to go for a nightcap in town. Instead I caught the bus back to Hotel Sabina, bought some chocolate from the vending machine and enjoyed watching the match highlights from the two games I’d been to.