Stade Joseph Marien

Stade Joseph Marien is in Forest, a name left over from the wooden staircase players once used to walk down onto the pitch. The ground opened on 14 September 1919 as Parc Duden, paid for almost entirely out of the pockets of club members rather than any outside patron.

It kept that name until the early 1930s, when the club renamed it for Joseph Marien, the former president who had driven its construction and later its expansion. His mark on the place outlasted him: the art deco facade along Chaussée de Bruxelles, drawn up by architect Albert Callewaert in 1922 and built into the 1926 reconstruction, still carries bas-reliefs by Oscar De Clerck from that same rebuild.

Royale Union Saint-Gilloise still play on natural grass inside a ground that has grown rather than been replaced. Capacity stood around 8,000 for decades before a 2018 renovation pushed it toward its current 9,400, and the club has since opened talks over a further restoration of the facade and the stained-glass windows in the old VIP room, put at some €1.5 million. What holds it together is that layering — a 1919 shell, a 1920s face, and repairs added on rather than a ground rebuilt from scratch.