Aalst Forty years ago reed Johan Van Nieuwenhove (62) after a match Eendracht Aalst with a pint too many in the Water and saw his bike sinking in the stinking Denderwater. Now, four decades later, Johan is on his bicycle, found.
“I couldn’t actually believe it, but it is one hundred percent sure my bike forty years ago,” says Johan Van Nieuwenhove. The Erembodegemnaar is already from childhood, an ardent supporter of Eendracht Aalst and forty years ago, it took him his bike.
“Against whom Unity Sunday has played, I don’t know anymore. Mountains, perhaps, that might. Afterwards, I continued to hang out in the canteen and I decided to have a visit to the FC great danes Erembodegem, who also had played. I cycled through the Brusselsesteenweg to the great danes, and drove later that evening back to the centre of Oxford. That should be around an hour or ten in the evening.”
Clothes discarded
Johan, pointing to the big tree in a bend of the river Dender, where he of the path affietste, into the water. “I was 22 years old, and we had a good doorgedronken. There, on that big tree, I am in the water trouble. I could save myself, and to the side for a swim. Behind me I saw my bike sinking in the Denderwater,” says Johan.
His bike was not able to save. It was at that time already not conducive to the health to get in the dirty Denderwater to fall. “The clothes I was wearing I have certainly never worn. Everything smelled horrible,” says Johan. He started on a walk of shame to Erembodegem, soaking wet, into the house. “There I got seriously under my feet of my mother, who is furious.”
Magnets
three weeks ago, will pass to Johan as is so often the place again where he so many years ago, the water fell and he sees a rusty scooter and a rusty old bike on the side stand. “People from the neighborhood say fishermen with magnets that have removed. I had immediately suspected that this my bike had been. When I was there a couple of times had passed, I was sure. I recognize the steering wheel, it is one hundred percent sure of my bike. I could really not believe it when I saw it,” says Johan.
The last ride of this bike is however driven. By forty years in the water, the wear complete. “It is a lot of scrap, but I will give him to the scrap heap. Now I admittedly have the bike from me, they give me maybe even a GAS-fine. Even though it was forty years ago not yet”, says Johan.