Belgium

"'Why do people always have a go at Belgium? This is the programme that quite likes Belgium.' (24 August 1999)" Belgium (Dutch: België; French: Belgique; German: Belgien), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi) and has a population of about 11 million people. Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups: the Dutch-speaking, mostly Flemish community, which constitutes about 59% of the population, and the French-speaking, mostly Walloon population, which comprises 41% of all Belgians. Additionally, there is a small group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area, and bordering Germany.

Links To Peel
Peel was generally a fan of the Belgian alternative scene including artists such as Allez Allez (the first Belgian act to do a Peel session) and Berntholer (the first Belgian artist to enter the Festive Fifty). Many Belgian artists got played by Peel on his show and on those programmes, he would often be very protective of Belgium when critics made unfavourable comments about the country as being boring:


 * "What's wrong with Belgium? People always slag off Belgium. I like Belgium." (29 July 1999)

Peel made two important visits to Belgium, one was to see the 1985 European Football Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus at Heysel and the other was the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest in Brussels.

At Heysel, 39 fans died at the stadium in Brussels, Belgium, when a wall collapsed after Liverpool fans breached a section of the ground containing Juventus supporters before the start of the European Cup final. Despite the disaster, the game was played to avoid further crowd trouble. Juventus won 1-0. John Peel was present at the stadium with his wife Sheila, having received tickets from Kenny Dalglish. They both left the ground before the start of the game. Peel did not go to another football match for several years.

At the Eurovision Song Contest in Brussels, Peel mentioned on his 11 May 1987 show how the city had nice bars and restaurants, however he mentioned also having his car towed away after parking there on Sunday at 1.30am and finding out at 7.30am that it disappeared. Peel then gone on to say that he had to pay nearly £200 to get it back because it was on a Sunday. Also at the event, Peel managed to speak to some members of Belgian's royal family, including Queen Fabiola who was talking to him about keyboards and California.

In an BBC Interview: On Liverpool FC, Heysel, Hillsborough, Peel spoke about visiting Heysel couple of years after the tragedy, while he was at the Eurovision Song Contest in Belgium:


 * "I was in Brussels for the Eurovision Song Contest of all things – which is one of my favourite events. But I went on a sort of afternoon off to the Heysel Stadium, which was near where the contest was taking place, and went to the ground. And there were no piles of bodies, there was nobody screaming, it was a sunny day, it was quiet. And I went to the glass door and kind of touched it, because it was that glass door that sort of loomed very large in these nightmares. So I suppose – it’s cheap psychology and I don’t know what I’m talking about – but I was able to replace the former image with a more recent one."

See Others

 * Heysel
 * Interview: On Liverpool FC, Heysel, Hillsborough
 * Eurovision Song Contest