Our friendship with Van Binst dates back to March 2015, when we interviewed him in the small Tower Bridge hotel in Grimbergen where he was staying in a not very luxurious room. The hotel owner had taken him under his wings because “the Gille” was not doing very well. The subject of our interview was the Belgian Cup final that Anderlecht would play against Club Bruges. Gille was a specialist in this field, having won four Cups in the ’70s with his friend Rensenbrink. But the 1977 final, on the other hand, he lost to Club Bruges (3-4) after two goals from the Englishman Davies. Van Binst:He didn’t know how to play football, that one.”
Mimi, his ex-wife, takes him under her wing
In 29 years of career, we have never met a person as pleasant to interview as him. His book “Circus Voetbal” released in 2009 could have had a second, third, or even fourth part because he had so many tasty anecdotes to tell about his career. With his dry humor, he even managed to amuse the youngest readers, who had never seen him play. Van Binst made no secret of the fact that he had not lived like a professional and that he liked to drink. And he didn’t hesitate to reveal locker room secrets or anger former teammates – like Arie Haan – by stirring up inglorious stories from the past.
Farewell Gilbert Van Binst, sacred character and European hero of Anderlecht: “I called my wife to find out if I was not a cuckold”
But Gille was also a sensitive man. Like when he told us he was sick. In the program De Kleedkamer on VRT, he even admitted to thinking about ending his life. But these dark thoughts disappeared when his ex-wife Mimi took him back under her wing, despite his stupid past. “Thanks to her, we discovered that I have Parkinson’s disease. he announced to us at the bar of a café in Grimbergen. “Thanks to her and her new husband.” From now on, he lived on the second floor of a beautiful apartment in the center of Zaventem, above the apartment where Mimi lived with her new companion.
Gille’s health was deteriorating. But his memory and his dry humor remained intact for a long time. When we invited him to a restaurant or to a barbecue, he would say the same joke when a pretty lady served him or passed him. “I’m shaking, I have Parkinson’s disease”he said to her, trembling hard, before looking at her full of adoration. “But when I see you, I am healed.” And indeed, for a few seconds, he managed to extend his arm without trembling.
Coucke’s “sauna” and “discotheque”
His day of glory came on April 15, 2018, during a Anderlecht – Club Bruges (1-0) in the playoffs. Anderlecht had invited the heroes of the 1978 European Cup final against Austria Vienna, a match in which Van Binst scored twice. Van Binst forgave Marc Coucke for confusing him with Robbie Rensenbrink in a quickly deleted tweet, but he was especially surprised by his own popularity. “There are even models who have asked to pose for photos with me, it’s the world turned upside down”he confided to us, before giving advice to Coucke. “Can it reduce the heating in the dressing rooms? It feels like a sauna. And the stadium is more like a nightclub.” He had finished the evening at two in the morning, at Michou’s. “Like in the good old days.”
Anderlecht pays homage to Gilbert Van Binst: “Gille was unique in his genre”
Van Binst came to the stadium with his son Sven from time to time, but the (lack of) spectacle and the effort to reach his place in the stands cooled him more and more. He preferred to watch the matches in front of his TV. In his analyses, he spared no one, not even another monument of the club like Vincent Kompany. “I never understood his famous project.”
Cancer, fractures, burns
Its glitches follow one another. He survives prostate cancer, he breaks a hip in a fall in his apartment, he suffers burns when his microwave oven catches fire. “Don’t write this too dramatically, I don’t want people to feel sorry for me.” But despite everything, he keeps his spirits up. He is proud to announce that he has (finally) stopped smoking and that his anti-Parkinson’s medication (when he does not forget them) is having an effect. “Some people with Parkinson’s live beyond the age of 80.he tells us one day.
Despite his poor health, Gille remains always available when asked for a service for the DH. In the middle of the Covid period, when no one accepts a face-to-face interview, Gille says yes to an interview from his balcony. And in April 2022, before Anderlecht’s last Belgian Cup final, he agrees to accompany us to the King Baudouin stadium to tell his memories on this legendary pitch. He was shaking so much that they had to do up the buttons on his shirt before leaving his apartment.
Unrecognizable at home in Evere
Our last interview, at the beginning of October 2022, was done by telephone, before West Ham – Anderlecht. In 1976, Anderlecht won its first European final against the same opponent, Van Binst was captain. “We won despite a coach who had lost his control”was one of Gille’s many good sentences on this subject. But in the following weeks, we would get his answering machine every time we tried to call him. “Dad is not well”his son, Sven, explained to us. “He lives in a home in Evere.”
December 21, 2022 will always be engraved in our memory. The Gille we met on the third floor of Home Clivia where he was being treated for his dementia had become unrecognizable. He could no longer speak, barely reacted to our remarks and had become very thin. And yet, he managed to make us smile. When a demented old lady kept screaming ‘Help!’, he would raise his eyebrows, as if to say: “Is that one still there? She annoys me!”
We have never seen Gille since then. He changed homes – he was transferred to WZC Trappeniers in Zaventem – where he joined Robbie (Rensenbrink), Swatje (Van der Elst), Nico (De Bree), Attila (Ladinszky) and so many other friends.
