The Picañol sports day

On August 17 1952, the first ever Picañol sports day was held. There were three sporting events - basketball, athletics and football. It all started with an 'idea' from a few members of the Party committee. It was not called a 'celebration day' at the time, but it would literally become one later on. It was basically a large-scale sports event, which the people started calling 'Straight through Ieper'. Whilst you will not find any of this back in the program of the original Sports day, such imaginative ideas ultimately led to other inspiring ideas. The 'idea' was submitted to the Party committee, and at the end of the meeting, it had been firmly established: Picañol would get its first Sports day. Eventually, this grand event was successfully organized in cooperation with the city council, the Bekaert company, the football clubs of K.V.C.S. Ieper, White Star Ieper and W.A.P. Sport Ieper, the Athletics and Basketball club Athlon, and the Picañol Brass Band. The first Picañol sports day was not only a first for the company, it was also the first of its kind in our country. To make it even more unique, the event also saw the debut of Athlon as a basketball team. The team played pretty well against Bekaert, its neighbors from Zwevegem. The first two quarters were very tight, and at times Athlon was able to give their opponents a bit of a scare. Unfortunately, the second half of the game saw the team collapse a little, resulting in a 14-24 score, which everyone agreed was ultimately quite flattering. Nevertheless, the performance proved to be the start of a promising future for the team. In the afternoon, the Athlon-athletes took appropriate revenge by beating Cercle Ieper and Bekaert following a superb contest. There was also a football match afterwards: White Star Ieper played Cercle Ieper for the Picañol cup. As the match ended with honors even, it was agreed that both White Star and Cercle would keep the cup for 6 months each. The first Picañol sports day was attended by approximately 1,500 people.