Nimes in the Occitanie region of southern France is a wonderful and ancient city with a plethora of Roman remains including a virtually complete amphitheatre and temple (La Maison Carre), which frankly make most of the Roman remains in England look like random heaps of rubble and barely worth bothering about.
History notwithstanding, tonight we are in Nimes for the match between Olympique Nimes and AJ Auxerre, two football clubs that have in the past both played at the top level of French football, Auxerre having even won the Ligue 1 title. Today however, both are in the under-hyped Ligue 2, the second of France’s two professional leagues. Despite France’s reputation for haute cuisine, Ligue 2 is sponsored by Domino’s Pizza.
We bought our tickets
at the Stade des Costières stadium earlier in the day to avoid any queue, although we did have to wait a short while because the sign in the window of the guichet read ‘back in five minutes’. Tickets for the main stand cost 14 euros, whilst those for the identical stand opposite are 9 euros and a ticket behind the goal costs 4 euros. We buy 9 euro tickets in the Tribune Sud (South stand). There are acres of free car parking all around the Stade des Costières and arriving a little more than an hour before kick-off it’s easy to park up near the exit for a quick getaway after the match. Nevertheless, there are plenty of people here already, buying tickets, standing about, socialising and heading to bars for a pre-match aperitif.
The stadium itself isn’t open yet, but we file in a minute or two after seven o’clock and the now standard frisking and bag inspection. The Stade des Costières was opened in 1990 and designed by Vittorio Gregotti and Marc Chausse; Gregotti was also architect of the Stadio Communale Luigi Ferraris in Genoa, one of the venues for the 1990 World Cup. Although the stadium does now look a little run down in places, it is nevertheless a fine building and a great place to watch football. There are two broad sweeps of grey seating on either side with roofs suspended from exposed steelwork.
The ends are open and each corner of the ground is a white concrete block containing the accesses, buvettes and toilets and on the main-stand side, club offices. Inside these blocks the ramps and staircases read more like an art gallery than a football stadium and from the ramps there are views across the seats through sculpted openings. The stands behind the goals with their bench seats and classical-style structures at the back, which whilst looking a bit naff somehow also look alright in this context, make me think of the arène (amphitheatre) in the centre of town; I hear a far of voice of a hawker “ Otter lips, Badger spleen!”.
The sun is setting spectacularly behind the Tribune Ouest casting soft shadows on the white concrete of the Stade, the clouds that have made it a grey day are dispersing, the floodlights are on and the teams are warming up. There is a wonderful air of expectancy and relaxed sociability as the Stade fills up and people throng by the pitch and on the broad concourse behind the seats. Some men drink beer; some stuff their faces with baguettes from the buvette, whilst other have brought food from home, carefully wrapped in tin foil. Bags of a locally produced brand of ‘artisan’ potato crisp are much in evidence. 
Nimes’ crocodile mascot does his rounds as people, mostly children, pose for selfies with him; I am very tempted but my wife gives me a look. With the teams’ and Ligue 2 banners on the pitch a man with a radio mike gees up the crowd as the teams enter from the corner of the ground. There are ultras both behind the goal and beside the pitch, waving flags, standing clapping and jumping about. The chant is “Allez-Nimois, Allez-Nimois”. I join in. Why the hell isn’t it like this at Ipswich? The crowd is less than half the size of that at Portman Road (6,771 tonight) but three, four, five, a hundred times more involved. There are just a handful of stewards in the stand; I don’t feel like I am here to be policed, but to enjoy the match.
The game begins; Nimes kicking off towards the Tribune Est in their red shirts with white shorts and red socks, Auxerre in white shirts with blue shorts and white socks. After only eight minutes a poor punch by the Nimes ‘keeper Marillat requires a second punch but the effort is too much and he falls to the ground clutching his knee. Both the physio and club doctor attend to him and Marillat carries on, but for less than fifteen minutes before he has to be substituted. Nimes lose a second player to injury in Valdivia who had previously been fouled by Auxerre’s Phillipoteaux, who is the first player to be cautioned by referee Monsieur Aurelien Petit. How witty of the LFP to send a referee to Nimes who shares his first name with a Roman Emperor. Nimes are attacking more than Auxerre or in greater numbers, but are creating no more or better chances. It doesn’t look much like anyone will score.
In the stand a large man in a white polo shirt, which barely conceals the presence of flabby breasts, is exhorting his fellow supporters with the use of a megaphone. At first he is ignored but he doesn’t give up and begins to sing softly, but then with increasing strength before he signals to a drummer besides him who breaks out a rhythm and people to start to jump and clap and sing and have a helluva of a time, before going quiet and the whole performance is repeated. It’s like a flash-mob version of Bjork’s “It’s oh so quiet” in which the main lyrics are “Allez-Nimois”. It’s a lot of fun.
Four minutes of added time for injuries precede half-time in which there is a shoot-out between two teams of what are probably under-tens. The goalkeepers are somewhat dwarfed by the goals and the shoot-out takes a long time because the boys have to run from the half way line; there is one girl in the two teams and her goal receives the biggest cheer. How might radical feminists view that? As positive discrimination or as patronising? Discuss. Meanwhile an advertisement hoarding encourages spectators to travel to the match on the “Trambus”, which is really just an articulated bus with fared in wheels and a dedicated bus lane, but it’s good to see the football club and local authority combining to promote public transport in spite of all the free parking spaces.
Within thirty seconds of the re-start Nimes have a corner after a good dribble, but poor shot from Thioub. From the corner the ball is partly cleared and Auxerre’s wonderfully named 36 year old Guadeloupian, Mickael Tacalfred tries to clear the ball further but collides with Nimes’ Bozok and Monsieur Aurelien Petit awards a penalty and instantly brandishes his red card in the direction of Tacalfred for dangerous play (a high boot or “coup de pied haut”). Both the award of a penalty and the sending off seem somewhat harsh. The game is delayed as the matter is discussed at length by the Auxerrois but eventually Savannier puts Nimes ahead. “B-u-u-u-u-u-t! ” shouts the announcer through the public address system before calling out the goal-scorer’s first name to which the crowd give his surname in response.
More drama ensues as Auxerre’s Arcus collides with the replacement Nimes ‘keeper Sourzac. Arcus had already been booked in the first half so quickly leaves the scene of the incident as Sourzac stays down clutching his chest, but is of course okay really and later he easily saves Auxerre’s only shot on target.
Sixty-three minutes have passed and now there is a free-kick to Nimes and a booking for Auxerre’s Yattara who had been whining all game. Nimes’ Moroccan forward Alioui does a little shuffle, as if to take a rugby-style kick, before running up and arrowing a shot over the defensive wall and into the top left hand corner of the Auxerre goal. A brilliant shot which predictably is met with a great deal of noise and excitement, all of it justified. At the front of the stand, fans pogo whilst chanting an extract from Bizet’s Carmen.
Nimes are exultant, Auxerre vanquished but it isn’t over yet. Alioui keels over to earn another free kick to Nimes in roughly the same place as he took the first. Whilst he repeats the earlier performance with a missile of a shot that Kim Jong-un might covet, Auxerre’s ‘keeper Boucher dives to save the shot, only for the Nimes captain Briançon to score from the rebound. Joy abounds amongst les Nimois.
The final fifteen minutes sees the best football of the match as both teams relax, knowing the inevitable result and not wanting to add to the tally of yellow and red cards. Nimes ultimately deserve their win, but have had a big helping hand from the referee Monsieur Aurelien Petit along the way. Nevertheless, overall it’s been a blast; I have had a lot of fun on a fine evening, in a beautiful stadium in a fine city with excellent supporters, even if the France Football correspondent later only marks the match as 8 out of 20. Allez Nimois!
one, from Carcassonne; both shots are from angles, across the face of goal. Uchaud have an uncharacteristically solid, English looking centre half at number four, whilst as well as having a Julien Palmieri lookalike at number eleven, their number six bears a disturbing resemblance to former French international and alleged sex-tape starlet Matthieu Valbuena.
attached with velcro; his shirt, shorts and socks all look brand new as if this is their first outing; he’s like an outsized boy on his first day at school. Carcassonne look the slightly more accomplished team and have more forays forward, but Uchaud are well organised and in Palmieri (who the rest of the team call Kevin), Valbuena and their captain they have three players who stand out for their skill and good positional sense; their goalkeeper contributes too with his constant calls of “parlez vous” (talk) and “garde” (keep it) as well as the odd catch from a cross. Carcassonne finish the half with a flourish winning the game’s first corner and then seeing their number three place a free-kick carefully over the angle of post and crossbar, before their dreadlocked number eleven runs in behind the Uchaud defence only to hit a low shot beyond the far post.
featuring four beautiful mosaic friezes depicting the heavy industry made possible by the coal that was hewn from the ground below this town and those around it. This is the land of Emile Zola’s Germinal, a fabulous book which you should all read when not reading this blog. Staying with the arts, Lens is now possibly more famous for having an outpost of the Louvre museum, built to help regenerate the area, the economy of which was devastated by the closure of its coal mines in the 1980’s. Although we can’t blame Thatcher for these mine closures, she probably would have gladly taken the credit seeing as she didn’t seem to care much for coalminers or the French. But most of all, Lens has a football club with a large and fanatical fanbase. Racing Club Lens is in Ligue 2 and this season their average home attendance has been 28,966, making them the fifth best supported club in France behind only PSG, Marseille, Lyon and Lille, all of whom are Ligue 1 clubs.
to help me join in with what could be a momentous evening; my wife rolls her eyes. Leaving my purchases back in the car along with the wine and beer I’d already bought from a nearby Intermarche supermarket, we make the short walk into town to take a look at that marvellous railway station. On the way we pass Chez Muriel, a small bar decorated with red, black and gold balloons, the colours of RC Lens, it’s a popular pre-match haunt for Lens fans and there are several people stood out on the pavement drinking beer. Opposite the station another bar also already seems to have standing room only. Having taken my fill of those mosaics rather than any beer, I watch a TGV (Train Grand Vitesse) pull away and think how much like the HS2 it probably is, the only difference being it actually exists and has done for years; French Republic 1 British Monarchy 0.
. That’s another thing the French understand, vistas at the ends of streets. There are more bars along the length of the main street, particularly at the stadium end. Many of the bars are decorated in club colours, most of the drinking is taking place out on the street. Some tables have ‘beer engines’ on them
clear towers of beer with a dispenser at the bottom that looks like a football; this is beer drinking that is dedicated to football. This is France, but it is northern France, and it shares the beer drinking culture of Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia and Britain; we are all northern Europeans together, but your dumb Brexiteers wouldn’t have known that. Lens and the towns around it could have been transposed from the coalfields of South Yorkshire or Nottinghamshire or the Ruhr valley in Germany. For a boy from Suffolk some of this lot seem a bit rough and they probably are, brutalised as they or their forefathers were by that hard industrial heritage. Football was the escape from the brutality of the mine and along with a belly full of beer it still is the escape from whatever gets us down, life for instance.
that look like their antecedents were at Agincourt (it’s not that far away) just stroll on by up toward the main street. If this was Alderman Rec’ in Ipswich there would be pandemonium “Oooh, you can’t do that here.”
with a stick of chocolate stuffed through the middle. It’s a new product from Pasquer called “Match” and the packaging tells me it’s given away free and is not for re-sale; another business plan down the tubes. Having acquired a dessert I need a main course and there is a big friterie truck right in front of me at the back of the stand, so chips and beer it is
. Like I said, this is northern France, chips and beer is what these French people want and it’s what they get. Also, weirdly, the beer outside the stadium is alcoholic, inside it’s not; no wonder it’s busy out here. I go back to get some mayonnaise to put on my chips, as is the custom in these parts. I pump the dispenser and nothing happens, so pump it five, six, seven times more and then it sprays out all over the place accompanied by a nasty farting noise. I get mayonnaise on my sleeve, but there is some on my chips too so it’s not all bad and the bloke stood next to me doesn’t seem to notice that he has mayonnaise splattered down the side of his coat. Sniggering stupidly, but at the same time apologetically, I make a strategic withdrawal.
. Flares are lit amongst the ultras who occupy the lower tier of the Marek Xerces stand at the side of the pitch; they wave banners and flags ceaselessly. We all have coloured A1 paper sheets beneath our seats which we hold aloft and the stadium is a sea of red and gold; the blood and the gold (le sang et or); it’s loud, very loud and it’s bloody brilliant, like blood and gold, naturellement. The stadium announcer tells us the team, announcing each player’s first name and then pausing as in unison the crowd shout back his surname. Lens are kicking towards Trannin and at 37 minutes past eight they are top of the league as the brilliantly named Kermit Erasmus
(middle name Romeo) smashes the ball home after an initial shot is blocked. Man, this is good! The railway line from that marvellous station runs behind the main stand and the trains hoot their horns as they go past,
sounding “Allez Lens” as best they can. Five minutes later and it’s not quite so good, the word is Amiens have scored at Reims and are now top, although Lens remain second and therefore still in line for automatic promotion. At a quarter to eight the mood shifts a little again, a corner is nodded on at the near post and Cristian barges through to head in a second goal for Lens, but as he does so Strasbourg score at home to Bourg-en-Bresse and Lens are knocked back in to the play-off (Barrage) position. But Erasmus and Cristian are the goalscorers, God must be on Lens’ side tonight.
They stagger and wave and entertain looking like a pissed-up Ant and Dec whilst the rest of the crowd hurl screwed up programmes and those coloured pieces of paper at their heads.
whose nickname is The Hawks. It costs £10 to watch this standard of non-league football and for another £2 a programme can be had. The teams enter the arena to the strains of Oasis’s, ‘Roll with it’. The Hawks are second in the league table and Needham third; anything might happen so to ‘roll with it’ seems like wise counsel.
I was able to avoid the worst of the queue and settled down at a Yogi Bear style picnic table with a pound’s worth of tea to read the programme. The advertisements were especially impressive, in particular the full page colour one on the back page for “Certified high quality recycled aggregates for all your building and resurfacing projects”. This contrasted nicely with that for Boux Avenue, purveyors of lingerie, nightwear and accessories which featured a picture of a big-breasted brunette wearing a cross between a brassiere and chiffon mini-dress. Finally, there was an advert for Mark J Morsley & Associates, financial advisors, which would be very boring were it not for the fact that Mark Morsley is the Needham manager , though sans the letter ‘J’, but it has to be the same bloke; though he looks more like a financial advisor than a football manager. What that assortment of advertisements says about the type of people who the promotional team think attend Needham games I am not sure. But I like to think that the old boys in caps who make up a good part of the crowd are the target audience for all three; financially careful lotharios with a penchant for extravagant DIY.
whilst Needham had the ‘kop’ behind the other goal which at last inspired a handful to once or twice shout ‘Come on Needham’ or something like it. Meanwhile the Havant fans were joined in the stand by two overweight, middle aged blokes in matching blue suits and blue and yellow striped ties. These two most stereotypical, small time football club directors had sat in their dedicated seats in the main stand 
during the first half, but were now moving amongst the people. 
Another of the wonderful and yet also slightly amusing and at the same time slightly worrying things about non-league football is the presence of blokes in suits and club ties, all doing their bit for the club most laudably, but also rather anachronistically, it’s all so stuffy and respectable; it’s like the 1960’s never happened. Why can’t they just dress as if they’re going to a football match like everyone else?
drawing me to them. Seriously? Do I want to do this? Return to the scene of so much disappointment and suffering? Of course I do!
A late free-kick for Wolverhampton hits the cross-bar and the relief of this for Town fans is matched by the announcement that there will only be two minutes added time.
trippingovertheball 