BACK IN TIME: BEERSCHOT - OOSTENDE, SEASON 1969-1970

With Beerschot starting the 2020-2021 in the Frist Division, we look back at our club's history and turn the spotlight on a corresponding fixture from yesteryear... 
Today: Beerschot - Oostende, season 1969-1970.

THE NIGHT ARTO TOLSA'S IMPRESSIVE CAREER AT BEERSCHOT STARTED ON A FALSE NOTE

It is more than fifty years ago since Beerschot and Oostende faced each other in a first division encounter. So today we take you back to a chilly Saturday night mid October 1969 when the then called AS Oostende came to the Olympic Stadium for a league match that eventually ended in a boring 0-0 draw and was bound to be forgotten the same evening. Were it not that the game had a special meaning for Finnish striker Arto Tolsa. Tolsa had joined Beerschot from Kotka TP in the transfer period, well hidden in the shadow of German international Lothar Emmerich, and made his debut in Beerschot's purple and white colours. A very unconvincing debut it was...

At the time Tolsa was considered Finland's best player, a full international with a remarkable good scoring record. However, when in Antwerpen he had a lof difficulties adjusting to the more powerful, tactical and faster Belgian game... and failed to impress at the start. "He is too tall, too  nice, not mobile enough and lacks technical ability to make it as a forward", analysts said. So Arto - a 6ft 5" tall gentle giant - was set back to the reserves. That game against Oostende was Tolsa's first and only game in the 1969-70 season. It was Lothar Emmerich who got the nod over Tolsa. And rightly so as he became Beerschot's top striker with 29 goals in 30 league games... and topscorer of the Belgian first division.

Arto Tolsa showed some character and fought back, eventually claiming his spot in Beerschot's first team. He played 16 games the next season, scoring 7 goals, and 23 games in the 1971-1972 campaign, with 6 goals. His moment of glory came in May 1971 when he scored the winning goal when Beerschot beat Sint-Truiden in the Belgian FA Cup Final at the Heysel Stadium.
 
Coach Cois Geeraerts tried Tolsa out as a defender during one of the training sessions... and there the Finnish international immediately surprised everyone with his vista, good tackling and strong and impressive dueling power. It proved to be the start of a second and new caree. As a libero. Within a couple of months he became one of the best and trustworthy central defenders in the Belgian league. Tolsa stayed at Beerschot for ten seasons, bowing out with a second FA Cup win in 1979, when Beerschot beat Club Brugge. With a team full of stars like Jan Tomaszewski, Juan Lozano and Emmanuel Sanon amongst others.

He returned to Finland with that Belgian FA Cup in his bag and ended his career playing for KTP, the club where it had all started for him. The fact that Kotka's stadium was named after him - "Arto Tolsa Areena" - proves his popularity and how he was respected as a footballer back home. The story doesn't have a happy ending though as his mental health deteriorated quickly because of quite a few drinking and gambling issues... which led to his suicide on March 30th 1989. Arto Tolsa was only 43 years old.

Looking back, with his remarkable make over from striker to defender, his faithfullness for ten years and his two FA Cup wins, Tolsa was one of the best and lucrative foreign transfers in Beerschot's history. No one would have anticipated so on that chilly Saturday night during a poor game of football against Oostende. 

At the end of 2020 Finnish author Kimmo Muttilainen wrote and published Arto Tolsa's biography in which his 10 year stay at Beerschot and in the city of Antwerpen is very much highlighted. And rightly so...

 
ZATERDAG 12 OKTOBER 1969 – OLYMPISCH STADION
BEERSCHOT – AS OOSTENDE 0-0
TOESCHOUWERS: 12.000
DOELPUNTEN: geen
BEERSCHOT: Brösch, Van Opdorp (46' Hermans), Van Herck, Raskin, Willems, Verheyen, Weyn, Houben, Van Puymbroeck, Tolsa, Emmerich
 
By Danny Geerts