Bert De Cleyn

Bert De Cleyn
Personnel
Surname	Albert Antonia Gustaaf De Cleyn
birthday	June 28, 1917
place of birth	Mechelen ,  Belgium
date of death	September 13, 1990
position	attack
Juniors
Years	station
	RFC / KFC Malinois
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1933-1955	RFC / KFC Malinois	542 (481)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1946-1948	Belgium	12 00(9)
1 Only league games are given.

Albert "Bert" Antonia Gustaaf De Cleyn (born June 28, 1917 in Mechelen , † September 13, 1990 ) was a Belgian football player on the position of a striker .

He spent his entire career as a football player with the RFC / KFC Malinois and is the record scorer in the top Belgian league, founded in 1895, with 443 goals. Overall, De Cleyn scored 481 goals in 542 league games for FC Malinois. He was also Belgian champion three times and top scorer just as often.

Career

Career start in Mechelen

De Cleyn began his active career as a football player in the youth division of his home club, the RFC Malinois, which is now known under the name of KV Mechelen . From there he moved to the 1932/33 season in the men's team of the club, which was already represented in the top division, the then Division d'Honneur . In his first season with adults, the then 15- and 16-year-old scored just as many goals in two championship games.

In the following season 1933/34 De Cleyn was used in 26 league games and scored 22 goals. After completing the 1934/35 season, he brought his goal rate over 1.0 goals / game for the first time; in the 24 league matches he scored 27 goals. In the 1935/36 season, the 18- and 19-year-olds' risk of scoring broke down somewhat, so he scored “only” 14 times in 25 appearances. During the following season could not play as many games as in the three previous seasons. So it came about that De Cleyn only appeared in 16 official league games, but also scored as many goals.

In 1937/38 he also performed well and scored 23 goals in 25 championship games. With the team, however, he finished twelfth of 14 places in the final table and only just got past relegation to the second division. Scared of the threat of relegation and of the relegation they had just managed to keep up in the uproar, the team played a number of good games in the following season and was able to move up to fourth place, just two points behind Lierse SK, who placed second . De Cleyn was one of the main responsible for the fourth place to be rated as a success, as he scored a total of 27 goals in 24 championship games.

Two-time top scorer and Belgian champion

After the 1939/40 season had started almost perfectly for De Cleyn (in five games he made seven goals), the current championship had to be canceled because the Second World War had broken out. In the War League introduced at the same time, the young striker scored 16 goals in 13 appearances. After the league operation was resumed for a short time in 1940/41, De Cleyn completed twelve league games and scored 19 goals, making him for the first time in the ranks of Belgian goal scorers. In the War League he took part in 22 games at the same time and scored the same number of goals.

While normal play began in the 1941/42 season, the most successful Belgian striker of all time showed more and more what he was made of. After a well-played season, he came up with a record of 34 league goals in only 25 completed league games, which meant the renewed award as top scorer. In the final table, however, the team only reached tenth place and was therefore far from the champions, the Lierse SK. Overall, the team scored 61 championship goals in 1941/42, which De Cleyn had scored more than half of the goals for his team.

After the 1942/43 season, the striker was allowed to hold the championship trophy for the first time in his career. In all 30 league games in the season De Cleyn was in action and with his 34 goals was one of the main contributors to the fixation of the championship title. As only rarely in the past, the defensive line of the RFC Malinois played well during this season, which clearly underlined the 31 goals conceded in relation to the other clubs. With a performance drop corresponding to his circumstances, De Cleyn had to struggle during the 1943/44 season, as he met "only" 20 times in the opposing goals in all 30 league games completed.

Again top scorer and champion

In the 1944/45 season, which was broken off again by the Second World War, the now 27 and 28-year-old striker played in 17 championship games, with a record of 25 goals. With the season 1945/46 De Cleyn denied the most successful season for him in his career. The league, which had already been expanded by two teams, was expanded by a further three teams, so that a total of 19 teams took part in the game of the highest Belgian football league. The number of league games has been increased from 30 to 36 instead of in previous years. The RFC Malinois got off to a good start in the championship and was able to celebrate as Belgian champions again with 55 points (six points behind their pursuers Royal Antwerp ). Of the 108 goals that the team scored this season, 40 went to De Cleyn, who himself played in all 36 championship games. With his 40 goals, he was Belgium's top scorer for the third time in his career.

In the season 1946/47 took part in all 36 league games and scored 31 goals. After numerous top performances before, De Cleyn was appointed to the Belgian national team for the first time . When he made his team debut, he was already 30 years old and had already spent a number of seasons at his home club. In the league, the fresh national player with the RFC Malinois only made it to third place in the table behind RSC Anderlecht (1st) and ROC Charleroi-Marchienne (2nd).

Declining goal rate

As De Cleyn grew older, physical problems also became noticeable, which also had an impact on his hit rate. So it happened that in the following season 1947/48 he came in 29 games to a number of 19 goals, two seasons earlier he was able to record more than double the number of goals. Since the number of games was reduced from 36 games to 30 matches before the start of the season, De Cleyn was still in action in almost all championship games. After a good performance, the team around the Belgian top scorer achieved first place in the final table and was five points behind the pursuers from Anderlecht .

The striker was able to record a minor low point in his career so far in 1948/49 when he "only" scored nine times in 24 league games and was not used in six championship games. In the following season of 1949/50, the age of the now 32 or 33-year-old was already evident, with a total of 15 goals in all of the 30 league games. The success of the RFC Malinois, which was often mainly dependent on the hits of the record goal scorer, did not materialize in the following seasons. From season to season, the team slipped further and further down in the respective final table.

After the team was at the end of the 1950/51 season in tenth place in the table and De Cleyn came in 30 games on a number of twelve goals, the team realized that something had to change in order not to crash into the second division. With combined forces, the team fought its way up in 1951/52 and was fifth at the end of the season. De Cleyn scored twelve goals in 26 games.

New football era and runner-up

With the beginning of the 1952/53 season, a new era dawned in Belgian football. A first step was taken with the renaming of the highest Belgian league from Division d'Honneur to Division I. At the same time, however, the RFC Malinois underwent a name change and from then on appeared under Koninklijke Football Club Malinois , or KFC Malinois for short . This name should not be changed again until 1970. Obviously impressed by the complete change, De Cleyn experienced a final flight of heights during this season when he scored an impressive 30 goals in only 15 championship games, which meant that he was able to record more than half of the total goals scored by the team.

After this season, which was very successful for De Cleyn, a significant drop in performance followed in 1953/54. The then 36- and 37-year-olds scored three goals in 14 appearances, which indicated that the player's career would soon end. With the team he was runner-up with one point behind RSC Anderlecht. After six championship games and two goals, De Cleyn ended his active football career during the 1954/55 season. Since then, De Cleyn, who was born in Mechelen, has been the record goal scorer in Belgium and the top scorer in the top Belgian football league.

Most of the goals he has scored in a single game were all seven goals in a 7-0 home win over Racing CB (Racing Club de Bruxelles).

International

After playing a number of games for RFC Malinois and scoring a large number of goals, De Cleyn was only called up in 1946, when he was 29, for the first time in his career in the Belgian national team. The striker made his debut on January 19, 1946, when he was in action at London's Wembley Stadium against the English national football team . The game ended with two very early goals in a 2-0 home win for the English.

For his first goals De Cleyn came on February 23, 1946, when he scored five goals in the 7-0 victory over Luxembourg . Another brace followed on his next team assignment on May 12, 1946, when the Belgian attacker scored the goal to lead 1-0 and 3-2 in the 3-6 away defeat against the Netherlands . He scored another goal on June 1, 1947 in a 2: 4 away defeat against France , and on September 21, 1947 in a 2: 5 home defeat against England.

With a 2-0 defeat against Scotland on April 28, 1948 in the Scottish Hampden Park in Glasgow De Cleyn ended his national team career after only twelve games and nine goals scored.

successes

• 3 × Belgian top scorer: 1940/41, 1941/42, 1945/46
• 3 × Belgian champions : 1942/43, 1945/46, 1947/48
• 1 × Belgian runner-up: 1953/54
• Belgian top scorer
• Record scorer in the top Belgian league
• multiple team-internal top scorer

family

Bert De Cleyn's son Willy was also an active professional football player in Belgium, but like his cousin Jan De Cleyn , Bert De Cleyn's nephew, he only made a few short appearances in the top or second top Belgian league.

Web links

• Bert De Cleyn in the database of the Belgian Football Association (English)
• Photo by Bert De Cleyn on the IFFHS homepage