Proper Charlton
Under a cloak of darkness 20 Charlton fans made their way to Belgium tonight and took the Anti Duchatelet to his homeland and demonstrated at the St Truiden home game against Zulte Waregem.
The 20 Addicks paid for the trip themselves and planned their journey meticulously. They met up before the game to work out how their protest could get both maximum impact, and buy-in from STVV supporters. The group also looked at various scenarios, perhaps expecting that their arrival in the small town had already peeked some unwanted interest.
The 20 Addicks handed out flyers in both English and Dutch before the game and then in the ground and after 15 minutes of the game unveiled a huge banner (photo) along one side of the ground.
Within 5 minutes stewards came down to the Charlton fans to force them to take down the banner. Stragically placed in the stand opposite were two other Addicks who took photos and at the time of the steward kerfuffle opposite starting doing a massive flyer drop to as many fans around them as possible.
Across on the other side stewards initially but then supported by police got the Charlton fans up and escorted them out to loud boos from around the ground. All of the Addicks in that stand were arrested and the ‘Roland and Katrien Time To Go’ banner was confiscated. The two Addicks on the other side were met by suited security and were asked for personal details and threatened with arrest. Plain clothes officers also joined the fray, and there are questions as to how quickly security, stewards and police reacted to Addicks being in the stadium.
It is important to reinforce that the protests were peaceful and friendly but the aim was achieved and more than backed by local STVV fans.
The Charlton fans on the other side were each arrested and later released without charge. But whilst not a particularly nice situation for those involved to find themselves in, those arrested have caused maximum exposure with the BBC, the Guardian and Talksport all carrying the story tonight as well as the story running across all streams of social media. Vitally the Belgium media jumped on it as well.
I have said for a long time that we need to take our fight to Belgium. This was brilliant and my heartfelt congratulations and respect to the 20 Addicks who took the time, spent their own money and put themselves through a potentially difficult situation. I trust they enjoyed plenty of Belgium beers tonight. They are well deserved. Proper Charlton.
Chicago Addick 
WELL DONE MEN, That’s the way to do it. Get him a bad name in his own country.
Well done the Truden Twenty! Keep up the good work. Thoroughly admirable. What cowardly clowns the RD henchmen are to have these peaceful, law abiding fans arrested for holding up a banner. The henchmen have a siege mentality now, which is stage one in them eventually buckling under the strain. Keep it up!
Absolute respect to the Truden Twenty. It proves though how rattled the regime are in that they obviously half expected some form of demonstration at the ground given the speed at which the protest was scuppered…
a2c – I won’t comment on your post as I simply cannot understand what you have written – if you cannot write in English just why do you bother posting? You are about as odd as the regime …. unless you are Katrien in disguise.
Mark – I deleted a2c’s comment as it was unintelligible.
I thought the exenophobes were in favour of free speech, oh I forgot only when it suits theirn. Anyone who is against protests n negative aggressive boo boys like wot I am aint proper Charlton.
Never said that mate
ere a2c I fink we shud sing sum songs 2gether after the mk Dons game abarht ow katrien n Roland r doin a great job dahn r gaff, that shud shut up dem negative boo boys. I got this one that goes:
Katrien and Roland we luv you,
ignore dem boo boys they don’t deserve u,
wen we’re in league 2 I’ll still be there,
cheerin on future league 1 stars
Meet me at Sam bartram @ 9:35
c2a
I’m sure more than twenty would have travelled, how about more publicity next time.
Fan-bloody-tastic. I love every last one of you. And can’t wait for the Middlesbro game – bring it on with the TV cameras. Let’s ask the Boro fans to join in and boycott the game – won’t be too hard for them surely – ridiculous time on a Sunday to be travelling that far back to the north east just because of the other evils of modern football – Sky TV. They can sit in a nice warm pub, save their money for their promotion party and watch their team take the 3 points. We really need an empty stadium.