From the Tuinwijk neighbourhood, we reach the football field, right next to the back gardens of the houses on Molenkouterstraat. From his first studio in the attic room on Petegemstraat, Roger Raveel looked out onto this football pitch. He also walked past it every day, as we learn from an interview with Roland Jooris: "Every morning, he walked from the liquor shop owned by Zulma, his great love, through the fields, past the football field in Machelen. Machelen, in his eyes the most beautiful village in Flanders. “That's different from Latem and Deurle, isn't it,” I can still hear him say."

The open space, the deep perspective and the busy interplay of lines inspired Raveel to create various drawings and paintings. The small gardens and cottages along the footpath catapult us back in time, when many people maintained their own vegetable gardens, often with chickens and other small livestock. The small and irregular plots are separated only by concrete posts and wire and seem to merge organically into one another.