Now it’s possible to find a space for your needs, using a new database set up by the Flemish sports agency Bloso. There’s an open-air sports field suitable for beach volleyball, for instance, right there in Markegem, a part of Dentergem in West Flanders. You’ll also find that the adjoining sports hall is used for aerobics for seniors, jogging and sports camps during the holidays. Oh yes, and there’s an ice skating rink, for the time being.

The Sportsdatabank lists 19,000 sports venues and 17,000 organisations in Flanders, from aikido to swimming, and including American football, circus techniques, power lifting, high jump, polo, twirling, windsurfing and yoga.

The information is useful if, for instance, you want to know where it’s possible to practice liggende wip – the Flemish term for the sort of longbow archery associated with Robin Hood: archer standing upright and aiming at a target in the horizontal distance. The database will find the nearest club to you, as well as steer you away from those practising staande wip – a quite different discipline in which the archer doubles up and aims at a target 28 metres above in the stratosphere. Clearly, the two disciplines are not to be confused: one is for hunting high-flying birds (presumably) while the other is for defeating French armies at Agincourt.

You’ll find athletic tracks, open-air and covered swimming pools, horse riding stables, cycle tracks, skating rinks and the more general indoor sports halls with a multiplicity of uses. Fancy some discus in Deinze? No problem: the Brielmeersen athletics centre in Stadionlaan awaits your call.

www.bloso.be/sportdatabank