Whilst the disadvantage of spending two and a half weeks in France during late September is that I am missing three Ipswich Town home games, this is offset to some extent by having tickets for two Ligue 1 matches, and is then offset quite a bit more by having the opportunity to see a game in the fourth round of the Coupe de France, a knockout cup competition every bit as much fun as England’s FA Cup and possibly even better on account of it not having been won for the last two years by the all-conquering pet team of some dodgy middle eastern emirate.
Having discovered that the weekend of 1st October was ‘cup weekend’, I struggled a little bit at first to discover the fourth-round draw, and then a little bit of further work was involved to find out which home teams were a reasonable distance from where I am staying in Carnac. Unhappily for me, as I trawled through the fixtures it seemed that most games are being played on Sunday 1st October, when my wife Paulene and I shall be watching Lorient play Montpellier, and of the Saturday games most are in the area around Brest, which is a good two-hour drive away. But then the fixture list on the footbretagne website came up with the rather grand sounding name of Garde St Cyr Moreac and Google maps quickly confirmed that Moreac is just 33 kilometres north of relatively nearby Vannes, and about the same distance from where my wife Paulene and I are staying as Framlingham or Leiston is from our house back in blighty, and I’ve driven to watch them before, more than once. Moreac of the third tier of the regional league (Step8 – the same as Ipswich Wanderers, Stowmarket Town and Felixstowe in England) would be at home to Vannes OC of Ligue National 3 (Step5).
The drive to Moreac takes a little under an hour and the roads are quiet because it’s lunchtime. The countryside changes as we travel in land from the flatness and long straight road just in from the coast, to the greener, rolling countryside where the road twists and turns and rises and falls through valleys populated by grazing cattle and not much else, it feels miles from anywhere, not unlike Framlingham and Leiston. At Locmine we pass a huge factory belonging to the Jean Floc’h company, a major producer of meat products in France, although being France the sign outside refers to charcuterie and not pies. Jean Floc’h is nevertheless a massive purveyor of processed food. Moreac is just a few kilometres beyond Locmine and is an attractive village built around the focal point of the large church of St Cyr, from which the football club takes its name. Wikipedia tells us that in 2020, Moreac had a population of 3,703. The Stade Alfred le Biavant, home of the football club, is just a street or two away from the centre of the village and has a large, surfaced car park where Paulene and I rock up in our planet saving Citroen e-C4 with a bit more than an hour to go before kick-off at 3 pm.
The entrance to the stadium has an elegant if small gate, and a guichet from which a middle-aged lady is selling tickets; today entry costs 5 euros for me but is free for Paulene and indeed all women, which is nice. Even better, I get a little green ticket too as a souvenir. The stadium has one small stand with seats on the far side and opposite that a very small bank of terracing, just two steps high but very steep; it’s a bit like a sea wall. The site also contains a huge sports hall, which looks like it could double as a barn to house some of the animals destined for the Jean Floc’h factory, a changing room block, a bar with glazed walls overlooking the pitch, a second full size grass pitch and a very smart plastic pitch, on the fence to which is a sign which tells us it was built with money from the local Morbihan Council. France, unlike the UK, is a country which despite problems with pensions seems to a large degree to be still run for the benefit of its general population. Adding interest, in the corner between the sport shall and the car park is the village cemetery.
With time to spare until kick off, we watch the teams warm up and I take the opportunity to invest 2 euros in a small glass of Lancelot beer, considerately served in a re-usable plastic ‘glass’; why don’t all football clubs do that? The crowds are now streaming in and it feels like the whole village is turning out, a man in a club tracksuit top greets friends and neighbours and kisses on cheeks are being exchanged everywhere, although the younger men tend to only shake hands. The French seem much more sociable and comfortable with each other than the English. A bunch of blokes in their twenties wearing faded green football shirts appear to be the Moreac ultras, and they parade along the path leading from the gate to the pitch following a bloke banging a drum, and holding aloft red distress flares. If this happened in England they’d probably be arrested, but here no one bats an eyelid, although one or two people take photos for posterity.
As three o’clock approaches the public address system gets tested with a few bursts of sound of gradually improving quality. Eventually the ubiquitous 1983 rock anthem ‘Jump’ by Van Halen is played, but it ends abruptly as it’s still not quite time yet, although the teams can be seen lining up behind the referees at the door of the dressing room block in the corner of the ground. The referee eventually gives the nod, and the teams parade on to the pitch attended by several small children as proud parents point mobile phone cameras at the event and Van Halen get to do an encore in full. Over on the terrace the ultras light more flares, chant enthusiastically and unfurl a tifo which declares ‘La casa de Mourieg’ and displays a picture of what looks like a pale faced Salvador Dali in a red hoodie. Mourieg is the Breton name for Moreac but casa is Spanish for house, so I it’s not clear to me what they’re trying to convey, although of course Dali was Spanish, perhaps they’re just being surreal like him. (Postscript, the next day, driving out of Lorient after seeing Lorient lose at home to Montpellier in Ligue 1, we passed a pizza restaurant in Lanester called Casa del Pizza which had the same Salvador Dali face for its logo. The surrealness continues)
At exactly three o’clock the game kicks off with Vannes getting first go with the ball, kicking it towards the sports hall and dressing room end of the ground. Moreac are all in red and Vannes all in blue; this reduction of team colours to blue and red is normal in the early rounds of the Coupe de France as is two common shirt sponsors in all games; today the Credit Agricole logo adorns the red shirts and Betclic the blue. Pleasingly both teams are numbered 1 to 11 and no one is wearing anything silly like a number 98.
The gulf of three divisions is soon apparent as Vannes begin to dominate possession. Moreac manage to win a free kick wide on the right early on but Vannes earn a corner. “Aux Armes” chant the ultras, and incidentally “Aux Armes et caetera” was the title of Serge Gainsbourg’s thirteenth studio album, but he didn’t then sing “Nous sommes les Moreacois, Et nous allons gagner, Allez GSC” (“ We are the Moreacois, and we will win, Go GSC”.) Sadly, the chant will prove overly optimistic and Vannes score their first goal after just eleven minutes, their No9 being left in enough space in the middle of the penalty area to steer a half volley in off a post. “Allez Moreac, Allez Moreac” sing a group of children undeterred by the early goal.
Vannes continue to dominate, but Moreac have the occasional foray forward, usually on the basis of a free-kick. Twenty-two minutes gone and the Moreac goalkeeper has to make a decent diving save to keep out a low shot. “La la la, la la, la, la la, la la, Allez GSC” sing the ultras celebrating small victories. Three minutes later and Vannes’ number eleven doubles his team’s lead as he is left all alone on the left and he passes the ball across the goal into the far corner of the net. It might be a matter of how many goals Vannes can get.
The home crowd, which seems to make up a good ninety per cent of those here don’t’ show their inevitable disappointment and their attention is still gripped, although that doesn’t go for all the dogs in attendance. A Labrador has a lie down, albeit almost on the pitch whilst a mongrel looks the wrong way. Only a sort of Yorkshire Terrier is concentrating on play, and when any player comes near he strains at his leash and yaps ferociously. As for the away support, I’ve only seen a couple of the sort of grizzled old fanatics who tend to follow amateur teams away from home.
With almost a third of the game gone and lost to history, Moreac have their first shot on goal as their number 10 cleverly beats a man and then shoots optimistically from twenty-five metres out. The prevailing, uneven balance is restored soon after however, as the Vannes number nine has a shot well saved and then shoots over from very close range. It’s enough to make the Stade Alfred Le Biavant as quiet as it has been all afternoon. It doesn’t get any louder as the Vannes number seven has a shot deflected onto the top of the Moreac bar. The lull is filled by Paulene revealing to me that she is always fascinated by young women at football matches on their own, as a smartly and alluringly (she has an off the shoulder top) dressed girl watches the game briefly a few metres away from us, before walking on towards the main stand. I suggest that perhaps she’s just a lonesome WAG.
Fortunately, football is never entirely predictable and three minutes before half time Moreac attack down the right. Surprisingly, the Vannes defence is drawn across the penalty area leaving Moreac’s number seven free to run onto a wide expanse of grass into which the ball is played. The Vannes goalkeeper saves seven’s first shot, but can only parry it, and the number seven then strikes home the rebound. It’s just a short run to the ultras for number seven and his teammates who form an impromptu human mound of celebration. The game restarts. but it’s the last kick of the half.
During the first half, we have watched as a barbecue has smoked away in the corner of the ground and now there is a human tide flowing towards it, attracted presumably by the promise of a mid-afternoon snack of a lamb and beef sausage (Merguez) and a chip butty for 3 euros.
The match begins again promptly at four o’clock and the familiar pattern of Vannes passing the ball about too quickly and smartly for Moreac continues. It is Vannes however who have the honour of being the first to have a player booked as their number seven hauls an opponent to the ground. But Vannes press forward still. Numbers eight, eleven and nine combine cleverly but nine shoots over the goal again, then number ten does the same. My attention is taken by the number eight, a tall creative midfielder who passes the ball well and makes me think of both France’s Adrien Rabiot and Arsenal’s Graeme Rix, although that it is entirely down to his mop of curly hair.
At a quarter past four Vannes score again, this time number ten tidies up as the ball runs loose and wellies it into the net from about 10 metres. I watch as the number two on the scoreboard is unhooked and replaced with a three. Moreac had had some hope at half-time thanks to their unexpected goal, but the game has settled down now, and the score will remain unaltered, despite a series of substitutions by both teams. The substitutions are overseen by the Delegue Principal, a sort of fourth official in overall charge of the fixture, but in a shiny blue suit; he has his own designated seat at pitch side midway between the two team benches. From a distance he is unfortunate enough to look a bit like Norman Tebbitt, but it’s probably just because he’s bald.
I see out the game by wandering around and enjoying it from different angles from both sides of the ground and behind both goals. Clouds and sunshine swap about altering the mood of the backdrop of trees, fields, houses and headstones. Number three for Moreac evens up the score for bookings but there’s never any malice in the game. The worst that happens is that the ultras take a dislike to the Vannes number ten who I think they perceive is a diver, so they boo him whenever he gets the ball. With the final whistle, the ultras release a final salvo of flares and the victorious losers of GSC Moreac gather in front of them to give and receive appreciative applause. It’s been a decent match on a warm afternoon of late summer sun mixed with early autumn clouds and breezes and everyone has had a lovely time. Just like in England, local football in France is a wonderful thing, there really is no need for professional football or the Premier League.
trippingovertheball 