There are grounds you visit, and there are grounds that stay with you. For photographer Marco Magielse, the Oscar Vankesbeeckstadion belongs firmly to the latter. First encountered on a bright July day in 2013, it revealed itself not in spectacle, but in detail – the kind that rewards patience and a trained eye. White concrete walls baking in the sun. Crush barriers worn smooth by decades of movement. Faded adverts clinging to the backs of nearby houses, as if the stadium had quietly spilled into the neighbourhood around it.
Returning over the years with a Hasselblad, an ageing Agfa Clack and his original Minolta X-300, Magielse built a body of work that mirrors the ground itself – layered, honest, and resistant to modern gloss. His images don’t chase action; they hold onto atmosphere. They recognise that the soul of lower-league football lives in textures, in stillness, in the spaces between moments.
Racing Mechelen’s story has shifted – promotions, relegations, financial strain – but the stadium remains a constant, even as its future hangs in the balance. What Magielse offers here is not just documentation, but preservation: a quiet argument for why places like this matter, and why once they’re gone, they don’t come back the same.
“I didn’t know where to look first, there were too many gorgeous details”
Marco Magielse
Racing Mechelen, second club in town, best ground in Belgium by Marco Magielse | @deafbeelding68
“My first visit to the Oscar Vankesbeeckstadion was in 2013, on a sunny Monday, July 1st.
I didn’t know where to look first, there were too many gorgeous details. The white concrete walls surrounding the pitch, the main stand with its paddock and crush barriers, the old painted adverts on the backside of the houses that were built just a few yards off the stands.
It’s not often one feels pure joy entering a football ground, this was definitely one of those occasions.
Later on I visited matches to see the ground come alive and it was even better. In 2014 Racing got promoted to the second tier of Belgian professional football and they played against sleeping giant Royal Antwerp FC in a packed ground. Until today the last time that happened.
Since then life has been tough for the club. They relegated three times, got promoted twice and there were severe financial troubles.
But the beauty of the ground is still there, although its existence is threatened due to a lack of money and plans to build something new with plastic grass and Lego-like stands.
So if there is someone out there with some money on the bank: please buy this club and restore this monumental ground in it’s old glory!”
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