International disabled football game marred by mass brawl

A football game held in Westerlo, Antwerp province, between representative disabled teams of Belgium and the Netherlands ended up in a mass brawl, reports Easy Branches. Both teams fielded one-legged players on crutches (except the goalkeepers who were missing an arm). What should have been a party ended in a fight. At a 3-3 score the crutches of two players hit each other. Tempers flared up when a Belgium player hauled down a Dutch opponent, and within seconds a punch-up spilled out between the players. Testosterone-laden onlookers stormed the field under the watchful eye of Belgian national television. Not all competitors were phased by what happened. “I felt we were doing well,” said Marnix Huys of the Belgian team. “A couple of beginner’s mistakes, but all in all we had reason to be happy. It was a pleasant match with a few incidents that should not have happened, but other than that things went well. In the end we got stronger and stronger both physically and technically.”