Champion celebration at football club ends fatally: honorary chairman Rudy (76) suffocates pizza (Hamme)
With the death of founder Rudy Permentier, the champions celebration ended in a minor on Sunday. – © If
The champions celebration of the amateur football team FC Bondgalm ended in a minor on Sunday afternoon. Honorary Chairman Rudy Permentier (76) died in the canteen during the party buffet.
FC Bondgalm Hamme is an established value in amateur football. The club has been in existence for more than sixty years and is active with two teams in the Walivo, the Wase Lovers Association. Last week the club took the title in the highest class of amateur football for the tenth time.
That title would be celebrated on Sunday afternoon with a gala competition and a pizza festival. The sun was there, the bouncy castle was ready, the atmosphere was exuberant.
Rudy Permentier (in wheelchair) posed a few moments before the fatal event with his players on the champions photo. – © JVDV
But suddenly the atmosphere turned into the canteen, when honorary chairman Rudy Permentier (76) choked in a piece of pizza. Attempts to help him fail. The emergency services still arrived and brought the man to the hospital. Permentier did not make it.
Wheelchair
Rudy Permentier was – together with Omer van de Voorden, Freddy Van Couwenberghe and Eduard Smet – the founder of FC Bondgalm. In 2002 a merger followed between Bondgalm and Den Bos, which played in the same street. The club continued afterwards under the name FC Bondgalm.
A few years ago, the club’s site was given the name of founder Rudy Permentier. – © JVDV
Permentier was active at the club almost his entire life and received the title of honorary chairman from the current board. Although he was less mobile and moved with a wheelchair, he continued to support the club.
A few years ago, the site on which the club played was given his name: the Permentier Arena. Calculated in his own canteen, surrounded by ‘his’ players and friends, Rudy let life.
