My first experience with paintball

In 1992 I came into contact with this sport through a lady friend who had played paintball once before. She began to tell about her experience. I immediately knew what she talked about.
Only the word paintball was unknown to me, as for many of you now.

I was immediately fascinated and began to pound her with all types of questions. But soon I realised that there is only one way to get to know everything there is to know, namely to try it yourself. After an appointment with a competent person, I started looking for people who wanted to play paintball with me.

I soon had 14 people together. The playground was in Neeroeteren. There I got acquainted with the manager, Guy, with whom I am still friends with today.

At the beginning of the first game I felt my adrenaline rise into my throat, my heart rate increased incredibly. I will never forget that day. At the end of the day I said goodbye to Guy.
Two weeks later I was back there with some 30 people and I ordered my own paintball gun.
From that day I went along with Guy everywhere in order to play. After a year I took out a membership at a paintball club in Antwerp under the name "Armageddon".

I played as many tournaments as possible with the club, even abroad. As such I gained more and more experience with this sport.

After two years I decided to put a private team together. I already dared a few attempts before I managed to get together the suitable persons. When the team finally got to exist it got its name “The Snipers". Ibo also belonged to this team, my current colleague.

There I was, in a team without experience with paintball, let alone tournaments. 66 other teams already had years of experience and many tournaments under their belt. I gave my team a 2-month training and registered myself with the Belgian federation.

The first tournament was a great success. We ended up third. I was so happy. That year we got 8 cups and we ended up as second in the Belgian Championship.

And to be able to give others that fantastic feeling we started the Paintball Arena in 2000.

Paintball? Try it before talking about it!