James Storme

James Storme was a Belgian footballer, coach, club director, and lifelong Buffalo of KAA Gent whose career stretched from a teenage debut opposite Pele to a late-life role as one of the club's favourite elder statesmen. He died on 12 September 2026 at the age of 83 after a cardiac arrest. Clubs across Flanders, from Gent and Standard Liege to Beerschot and Boom, remembered a flamboyant midfielder turned coach who treated football as both craft and celebration.

Born in Ghent on 12 April 1943, Storme grew up kicking balls on the Jan Yoensplein in Wondelgem. A friend dragged him to a trial at La Gantoise when he was twelve or thirteen; he had meant to try Racing Gent, but stayed when the Buffalos invited the quick winger back. He won titles through the cadets and schoolboys, reached the first team early, and in 1959, aged only sixteen, made a landmark debut against Santos of Pele at the Jules Ottenstadion. Storme later said his greatest weapons were pace, two-footed crossing, and a clean shot.

In 1964 he helped ARA Gent, today's KAA Gent, win the Belgian Cup with a 4-2 final victory over KFC Diest, the first major trophy in club history. That success opened European football: Gent's first European nights, including Inter-Cities Fairs Cup ties against FC Koln and a Cup Winners' Cup meeting with eventual winners West Ham United. Mid-decade he moved to Standard Liege, where he played and scored in Europe, notably against Liverpool, then continued with Union Saint-Gilloise, a return spell around Gent, and VG Oostende before business interests pulled him from full-time playing.

Coaching followed boardroom work. In 1977, as a Gent director after an eight-match losing run, he offered to take charge himself. The side then went eight matches unbeaten, a streak the club still cites when calling him the only KAA Gent manager never to lose a match. He later managed KV Oostende, Racing Gent, Boom, Beerschot, Kortrijk, Lokeren, Standaard Wetteren, Mons, and Roeselare, preaching attacking football. At Boom in 1992 he won promotion to the top flight alongside striker Roger Lukaku, father of Romelu and Jordan Lukaku. Beerschot remembered a warm, extrovert who arrived at training in a Ferrari or on a Harley-Davidson and collected improbable stories.

In later years Storme lived on the Belgian coast at Knokke, where his wife ran an art gallery, while remaining a familiar face at the Ottenstadion and the Planet Group Arena. He took ceremonial kick-offs and, on 25 October 2025, led out the old boys when Gent marked 125 years against Standard. Life is a feast, he told the crowd. Belgian football lost a colourful link between the 1964 pioneers and the modern Buffalos.