Belgian History - 30 Years Of Ultimate In Leuven (JETSET)

This post is an article about the history of Ultimate in Leuven which has existed for 30 years.

All facts have been gathered from answers by Eric Delafortrie,Peter L,Bere, and Freek but might need some clarification. This post will probably get updated anytime soon now with some more visual stuff (old pics and more). Read it with pride, and most definitely go celebrate TONIGHT in Leuven, where the JETSET crew is holding one wicked party called FRISBEATS !!!

So, the story starts somewhere around 1981.
Of all the persons I asked some questions to, none could really say when exactly the first frisbee was thrown in Leuven, but as you can see it's been a long time ago.
Ultimate has been around Leuven ever since the beginning of the eighties.
And this means that Leuven was one of the very first Ultimate teams in Belgium. XLR8RS must have been around just a little longer but more on that anytime soon now (I'll be trying to reconstruct Belgian Ultimate history in the next few months if possible...)
So, how did these guys get into it ? Well, as Eric Delafortrie, (co-?) Jetset founder told me, they had their first ever Ultimate practice on one third of an indoor hall (small like a tennis field) somewhere around september 1981. Not really a big question who was teaching : the ever famous Patricia & Jacques Doetsch, who were already playing in Brussels (XLR8RS), came out to teach the Leuven guys how to play.
The team was called LEUVEN ULTIMATE FRISBEE but after a few years already changed it's name. An American player from the -at that time- infamous San Francisco Flying Circus (see http://skydmagazine.com/2010/12/bay-area-sweep/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MICMlYO8WUU) called Tom joined the Leuven ranks and the team soon changed it's name to TOMCATS , which was a wordplay actually meaning something like the word 'hangover'. Tom and his Flying Circus have won the 1985 UPA championships and so he soon taught the boys how to play the Stanford Offense and the team made it's first ever hand painted (every single one of them)  t-shirts with a Ghostbuster feel to it.

After making some progression in the next few years, and also visiting the 1986 WUGC in Colchester England ánd placing a bid to host the 1988 WUGC, the team had some difficulties facing the language border in Belgium which made things unnecesarily complicated in the team. The team quickly evolved in what came to be known as FUNKADELIC DISC BAND around the years '87 or '88 and had a whole new focus of men and women together, bilingual (speaking french and dutch) and a whole bunch of juniors. Best thing that could ever happen is winning the bid to host the WUGC in 1988. A bid that, by the way, had been placed by Eric D when he went on honeymoon to Colchester, as you can imagine off course during the 1986 WUGC in England.
The word was official, LEUVEN was to host the 1988 WORLD ULTIMATE & GUTS CHAMPIONSHIPS !

An enormous honour for the Belgians, which we still talk about proudly nowadays, but which took an enormous effort from the Leuven crew. Eric and his team started inviting teams and arranging all kinds of things (you've seen how tourneys get run, a lot of work right??) but in these days everything had to be done by mail. No, not your nowadays average mail which you can send while sitting on your lazy ass, but the real paper mail with stamps and all. Hard to imagine all tournaments being run like that, but after a preparation which lasted from september '87 up until august '88 the time had finally come.

According to Eric D, WUGC 1988 was unforgettable. It was the first time ever that a real worldwide competition was being held. Australia was there for the very first time, as was Japan, in 3 divisions with open,women and juniors. This was an event never seen before and this magic atmosphere also struck a few of the now still very known JetSet players who were there. Peter L told me he'd been there as a spectator and rememberd really being hit by watching Ultimate and Guts. Shortly after the WUGC, which hosted over 1000 players who all had their own room to stay in ("thank you KUL,Leuven University"), a team of Juniors was ready to rock the fields on September 18th 1988. Guys like Bere,Haggie,Chimme,Utsav,Neel and more started playing Ultimate and already participated in the 1989 Belgian Championships, which would later become known as the BUOC.
In 1991 the team also switched from using the Wham-O discs to our better know Discraft discs.
A time when rules weren't that important and way more people played Guts in between games. Different times those were...
The real uprising of the Leuven crew happened when the whole team participated in the 1995 World Ultimate Club Championships as FUNK, with the old guys and the juniors all playing together. Not a great result, but the foundation had been built and the spark was lighted.

Atfer that there seemed to be a kind of switch in ambitions, which finally lead to the birth of the famous and infamous JETSET team. A great team from Leuven, who has won the Belgian Championship in 2002 but has always competed on the highest level in Belgium (and beyond) up until now was born.
One of the highlight periods in the team's history was the idea of playing with JETSET INTERNATIONAL.
This team, built around an idea from Chimme and Haggie, invited some great players like Sili,Sammy,Beo,Wouter Vondynamite, to play along the likes of other great players like Peter and Bere. Golden outfits were hand made, kind of Five Ultimate 'avant la lettre'.

The tone had been set, and JetSet was slowly becoming a household name, and still is nowadays.
One of the oldest teams in the country, one of the best teams in the country, and definitely not at their peak yet, I'm proud to say I carry many friends in this team and always enjoy playing against them and even with them a few years ago. And as Eric said : "it's not important if we're celebrating 30 or 30,5 years of Ultimate in Leuven, we're celebrating the fact that Leuven now has a team with over 100 members who all play and live Ultimate, because Ultimate is more than a sport, it's a way of life !"

More history of Belgian Ultimate teams to come, but for now let's all go out and have a drink to celebrate a wicked birthday, as I'm sure all JetSet players will do in the Rumba bar tonight.

Hip Hip Hooray for JETSET, cheers and bottom's up !