Visit to Mechelen 2025

2025 Mechelen

The St Albans Foreign trip this year was to Mechelen (Belgium) which took place between Friday 7th and Sunday 9th March, 2025. There were nine players in the touring team this year, eight of whom had travelled to Ghent the previous year, with Matt Kortekaas being a welcome addition to the team.

  1. Jeremy Fraser-Michell 2078

  2. Ian Gooding 2035

  3. Paul Lawrence 1932

  4. Matt Kortekaas 1761

  5. Ian Cross 1695

  6. Lubomir Botev 1653

  7. Stephen Taylor 1546

  8. Ray Claret 1492

  9. Martin Hill 1190

The team played two Matches, the first on the Friday evening against the local TSM club. The second Match on the Saturday afternoon was against the Royal Mechelin club (KMSK). There was free-time on Sunday before the return trip back to England to allow the team some site-seeing opportunity.

Accommodation

The base camp for this year’s trip was the NH Hotel, 22-24 Korenmarkt, a modern three star hotel located within walking distance of both match venues.

Match v TSM (Friday 7th March)

Pre-match preparation was made at “Beer Central”, a bar offering a wide selection of Belgium beers. Each player had two games of 45 minutes plus 10 second increment against the same opponent, with colours reversed in the second Round. This allowed a playing session of around three hours, but with a short break in between Rounds.

St Albans won first round by 6 – 3. TSM recovered to tie the second round by 4½ - 4½. Hence St Albans won the match overall with the final score 10½ - 7½.

Match v KMSK (Saturday 8th March)

The time limit for the Match was 60 minutes per player, plus a 20 second increment.
St Albans had a comfortable victory with the score 5½ - 3½.

Five of our hosts joined the team for a post-match meal at the “Brasserie de Margriet”.

Free time (Sunday 9th March)

Sunday’s excursion was to visit the Het Anker brewery that brews the local Carolus brand. The tour took around one hour, which included a visit to the beer sampling room. An early dinner was taken at the “Beirut Palace”, a Lebanese style restaurant nearby the Mechelen railway station. The local train departed Mechelen at 19:03, the Eurostar departed Brussels Midi at 20:56.