zidane

When planning a long weekend trip to France, ostensibly to enjoy a Christmas market, it is important to ensure that there will also be a convenient football fixture to attend, there’s only so much mulled wine, churros and roast chestnuts that one can imbibe after all. So it is that with Amiens away to Laval and Lille in Marseille, I find myself with my wife Paulene in Reims (pronounced Rance but without really saying the ‘n’), city of Champagne, art deco architecture, Gothic splendour and the place where Clovis, the first king of what would become France, was baptised in about four ninety-seven. Coincidentally, in two night’s time this very same Clovis will be the answer to a question on University Challenge about which king was baptised in Reims in about four ninety-seven.

The dramatic concrete shapes of Stade Auguste Delaune, home of Stade de Reims are a twenty-five minute walk from our hotel according to Google maps. With kick off at 9pm local time we set off well before eight o’clock to allow for my wife’s short legs and asthma, and getting lost. The last time we went to a match in Reims we caught a tram, but that night our hotel was near a tram stop; tonight it’s not and it’s probably just as well because I don’t think the trams are running, something about an earlier “perturbation” (disturbance) and a “greve” (strike). It’s a marrow chillingly cold evening, so a walk will keep the circulation going, and it is warmer than it has been during the afternoon, when it rained; an hour away to the north there are reports of snow.

Two of the satisfyingly avant-garde, pointy floodlights of the Stade Auguste Delaune eventually hove into view like a seven or eight centuries late alternative to the Gothic spires that the magnificent cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims was meant to have, but never did; cancelled like a medieval HS2. The whole stadium then appears before us as we reach the busy Boulevard Paul Doumer and cross over the Aisne-Marne canal and Voie Jean Tattinger, which run side by side. Eventually, we reach the stadium and the short queue to negotiate security who pat us down thoroughly. It is strange how at French football matches, despite much tighter security than in England, someone, and often several people, always seem to be able to sneak in some flares or smoke canisters.

After a brief visit to the club boutique, where I decide 29.95 euros is too much for a T-shirt, we make our way to the other side of the stadium, past statues and murals of Raymond Kopa and Juste Fontaine, who were the French Ted Phillips and Ray Crawford in 1962, to the turnstiles and our seats (35 euros each) in the upper tier of the tribune Francis Meano. We take it in turns to use the facilities and as I wait for Paulene I stand and watch two men looking very pleased with themselves as they drink champagne and photograph themselves at the back of the stand. Sadly, I haven’t spotted any programmes, and with our tickets being on our phone I will have no memento of this game only memories, unless that is I rip my seat off its concrete base and hide it under my coat on the way out..

Stade Auguste Delaune is an exciting looking stadium, the work of architect Michel Remon. It was completed in 2008 and is on the site of the ground where the club has always played. Weirdly however, there is perhaps less to it than meets the eye, as it is skeletal with no enclosed landings or concourses, only the vaulted, cantilevered roofs over the four tribunes. In contrast to most similar sized English stadiums (21,684 capacity) however, it is a triumph of rakish angles, steps, curves and concrete, not a defeat to painted metal sheeting and tubular steel.

On arrival at the top of the final flight of stairs, we stand a moment to get our bearings and look about to try and spot our seats amongst the lettered rows. Immediately to our right sits a line of six men and women in late middle age and one much younger male; all of them are, not to put too fine a point on it, very fat. Like Michel Platini or Zinedine Zidane about to take a free-kick over a defensive wall into the top corner of the goal, our brains and eyes quickly and instinctively make a calculation and conclude that we will not be able to squeeze past these enormous people to our seats, and nor would we want to. Instead, we opt for a short free-kick, walking unopposed along the row behind, which fortuitously is completely vacant. We sit in the seats directly behind where we should be sitting and hope no one has bought them. As we await kick-off, we take in the sights and sounds of flashing floodlights and a bullish stadium announcer, who although annoying in almost every way imaginable, reads out the first names of the home team wonderfully, providing the perfect cues for the home crowd to bellow the players’ surnames; and what surnames they are, Agbadou, Atangana Edoa and Nakamura to name just three. Who wouldn’t enjoy shouting those out?

When the game begins it is Monaco who get first go with the ball, aiming it mostly in the direction of the goal to our left, which stands before the tribune Albert Batteux and the turnstiles through which we entered the stadium. Monaco wear an all bottle green kit, looking like and yet looking nothing like a more chromatically subdued Yeovil Town or Gorleston. Reims parade in their signature home kit of red shirts with white sleeves and shorts, like a sophisticated Rotherham United, albeit from a city steeped in Champagne and the historic coronation of French royalty rather than scrap metal.

To our right, behind the other goal, but confined to a corner are the Monaco fans, about 900 of them and they are in fine voice, chanting “Monagasque, Monagasque” and “Allez, Allez, Monaco” to the constant rhythm of a drum, the beater of which hardly ever looks up at the match, it’s as if he’s here in a wholly professional capacity, just to beat the drum. I like to think he’s on the payroll of Prince Albert, the Monagasque sovereign.

Since the game began, the seats to our right have become occupied, the three closest to us being a temporary home to three impossibly smart and neatly presented young people, a man and two women. The man sits between Paulene and the taller of the two women, who is dressed in white trousers over which she wears a long white fur coat; she probably spent more time applying her make-up and doing her hair than she’ll spend at the match. On the pitch, eleven quite dull minutes pass before the first shot of the game arrives, an effort which goes both wide of and above the goal. The shot is by the usually pretty reliable Aleksandr Golovin, a player who for some reason I consider to be a Dean Bowditch lookalike.

Golovin’s impressively inaccurate goal attempt will unexpectedly prove to be representative of the whole match and ten minutes later Monaco’s Eliesse Ben Seghir is through on goal but smashes a terrible shot over the cross bar. Seven minutes after that Monaco’s Takumi Minamino is all on his own in much the same position and succeeds in winning the game’s first corner. Although hopeless in front of goal, Monaco have been marginally the better side until Reims breakaway, win a corner and Marshall Munetsi glances a header over the Monaco cross bar. The Monaco supporters continue to chant and sing however, undeterred by a line of half a dozen stewards who cover some of the area in front of the stand , like a sort of human Maginot line, which would inevitably be easily breached if anyone made it onto the pitch.

The descent towards half-time brings the worst miss yet as Reims’ Keto Nakamura appears to be set up perfectly at the far post after a break down the right , only to despatch the ball in almost the completely the wrong direction in the manner of someone who has no idea what he is doing, or if he does, he doesn’t want to do it. Another type of entertainment is soon provided by Monaco’s extravagantly numbered Soungoutu Magassa (number 88, but still not the highest numbered player on the field) as he is pointlessly booked for tugging at Junya Ito before Ito himself joins the ranks of players intent on blazing the ball as high and wide of the goal as possible. With the final minute of the half and then added on time, Ben Seghir and Golovin shoot straight at Diouf the Reims goalkeeper and Reims ruin a promising looking break from defence with an awful cross.

Half-time comes as a welcome break from the frustrating performances on the pitch and the girl in white fur embarks on her own personal telephone photo shoot as she explores how, through pictures she can tell the world of social media that she is at a football match. In front of us the tubbiest people in the ground all up and leave, presumably for a re-fuel at the buvette; they are joined by another even larger , but younger woman from the row in front of them whose clothes fail to cover up a large expanse of what must be cold flesh where her top was meant to meet the top of her trousers. On the pitch, we are entertained by three people attempting to kick a football through holes in a sheet hung across the face of one of the goals. One of them fails to lift the ball off the ground in three attempts, but another scores one out of three, which everyone seems to agree is a decent effort.

At ten o’clock the football resumes and the Monaco fans unfurl a tifo which reads Daghe Munegu, which, if the Monagasque dialect is as similar to the Ligurian dialect as Wikipedia says it is, possibly means something like “Give it a chance”. Sadly, as to why this makes any sense as a slogan at a football match, I have no idea, but it all adds to the colour, even though on this occasion the words on the tifo are in black type on a white background. Back on the field of play, the pattern of the first half more or less continues as Ito runs down the wing, cuts inside and sets up Diakite to shoot against the cross bar for arguably the best shot of the game so far.

Monaco have improved on their first half display and win three corners in quickish succession as the first hour of the match slips away into history. Just to prove his increased commitment Kassoum Ouattara also gets himself booked. The increasing cold is penetrating deeper into our bones and Paulene puts a blanket over her knees whilst the seats directly behind us are filled by teenagers who all seem to be supporting Monaco, as does the young woman in the white fur, who has begun squealing excitedly when Soungoutu Magassa gets anywhere near the ball. In front of us, the weight watchers on a night out have returned to their seats and have colonised the places that are really ours, with buttocks straddling two seats at a time. Monaco are the first to make substitutions, perhaps as the team of whom more is expected because they sit second in the Ligue 1 league table to Reims’s middling ninth.

The final twenty minutes witness a Reims corner which is headed away, but otherwise it is Monaco who come closest, but never particularly close to scoring. Minamino gets past a defender only to shoot wide, substitute Elio Matazo scoops a shot over the bar and Ben Seghir shoots high too. But it’s all grist for the Monaco fans who happily sing “Na Na, Nana, Naa, Naa, Wey hey hey, Monaco” to the tune of the 1969 single “Na na, Hey hey, Kiss him goodbye” by the made-up band Steam. In the final ten minutes Henrique and Minamino add to the catalogue of missed goal attempts for Monaco and in time added on play ebbs back and forth in vain, whilst the young woman in the white furs, and her friend continue to yelp and shriek. The final whistle confirms what had become increasingly likely, that neither team would score. As we go to leave, the young man raises his eyebrows and possibly almost rolls his eyes. I’m not sure if his gesture is made in reference to the game or his accomplices, or all three.

The walk back to the hotel will prove to be long, cold and gently uphill, and there still won’t be any trams. As enjoyable as tonight has been tomorrow evening I think we’ll go back to the mulled wine, churros and roast chestnuts.

In April 2019 in a moment of brilliant optimism my wife and I bought ten crossings on Le Shuttle; they had to be used within twelve months but it was worth ‘buying in bulk’ for the discount ,and why wouldn’t we want to commit ourselves to getting away to continental Europe at least five times in the next year? We say “Bugger Brexit”. In April 2019 we went to Dijon, in July ,in the midst of the heatwave, we drove to Paris to spend a week looking after some friends’ dog and in September we were due to spend three weeks looking after a cat in Strasbourg. Disappointingly, we never made it to Strasbourg; in a personalised prototype of the current global shut-down, my life was put on hold as I spent five weeks in hospital and the best part of six months recuperating. But now I am at last repaired, and there’s a rush to use up our six remaining crossings. At the end of January we spent a few days in Belgium, foolishly departing early on the Saturday morning to catch Ipswich Town v Oxford United instead of staying to join the 4,423 who enjoyed KV Oostende v Sint-Truiden, and then a couple of weeks ago we arranged a long weekend in Boulogne and Calais, planned to coincide with US Boulogne’s Friday night fixture in Ligue National (the French third division) against Lyon Duchere.

Life is sweet we thought and with US Boulogne in third place it promised to be a lot of fun; but on the morning of our departure the game at the Stade de la Liberation in Boulogne is called off, supposedly because of windy weather; but all twenty games in the Ligue 1 and 2 programmes are already postponed because of Coronavirus and within a few hours the whole of the Ligue National programme is cancelled too. To add to our disappointment we had thought we were blessed by having succeeded in booking into a hotel with free parking opposite, which is a mere 300m walk from the stadium, and this had had us fantasising about being able to comfortably stagger back from the match hi on frites and Kronenburg, fine wine and third division football.

Friday is a beautiful sunny day with Boulogne-sur-Mer looking at its best, aided perhaps by no one much being about as schools and colleges begin to close and people stay at home due to Covid-19. We enjoy the street art on the gable ends of the town houses and telecom equipment boxes, I drink Chimay trappist ale at a street café whilst my wife drinks pastis, we walk the town ramparts and visit the cathedral crypt, I buy a postcard and we sit in the sun. Our day ends with a pleasant meal in a small restaurant in the centre of the fortified old town. I forget about the football but for a brief glimpse of a single floodlight pylon at the end of the road as we step from the hotel and cross into the old town. I sleep well and dream sweet dreams.

On Saturday morning the puddle of standing water on the flat roof outside our hotel room window ripples with falling rain drops. After breakfast we will depart for Calais, but first I must give my regards to the Stade de la Liberation and head out into the fine drizzle that is coming directly off the English Channel and dropping on Boulogne-sur Mer. Not wishing to provoke her asthma, my wife remains in our room watching the drama of the Corona virus unfold on French TV, when not looking for Les Lapins Cretins on the cartoon channel. But I have to get a measure of what I missed last night and imagine what I might have witnessed under the beams of those four floodlights.

The floodlights of the Stade de la Liberation peak over the roof tops around the ground, appearing between high gables and block of flats or hiding behind the spreading canopies of leafless grey trees. A sign with an arrow says “Ribery” and points the way to a stand at the side of the pitch named after Boulogne’s famous son Franck, one of those players not greatly celebrated in England because like Zidane, Trezeguet and Thuram he was always just a bit too classy for the Premier League.

The main entrance to Stade de la Liberation is on Boulevard Eurvin where I peer through the railings across the pitch past the statue of a naked woman clutching a shell and standing on a fish. How many clubs I wonder can boast such erotic statuary combined with references to seafood, not many I’ll wager. Smiling to myself about what they’d make of such things in Grimsby and Fleetwood I turn into Rue de Dringhen and then Rue Leo Lagrange, which run behind ‘Ribery’ whilst tantalisingly offering no views of it at all. Another right turn takes me in to Rue du Vieil-Atre and more sitings of the floodlights and the entrances to both the ‘Kop’ and the away supporters enclosure. Stickers adorn the signage outside indicating that at least one supporter from Creteil, a south eastern suburb or banlieu of Paris, has been here and that he, or she, was well supplied with Creteil related stickers. If the ultras from other clubs have stickers it would seem that Creteil are the only visiting supporters to have ventured this far north and they either went nowhere else or had stickers to spare.

An uncovered mass of seating above a scaffolding frame looms above me as I approach the turn into Rue Hector Berlioz , another residential street that backs onto the stadium. I like that every French town has streets named after the same great French composers and writers and wonder why England is so different and why we choose not to remember Britten or Williams or Holst but to honour local councillors and dignitaries who no one has ever heard of and even less gives a toss about. Between the buildings there are glimpses of the cream painted render of the art deco style Tribune ‘Honneur’ where the posh people sit; but in truth the ground is now largely hidden but for the occasional lamp of a floodlight poking over or between the rooftops. A few more steps up the slope between parked cars and my tour of the Stade de la Liberation is over and I find myself back on the Boulevard Eurvin.

To be honest, in my ten minute walk I’ve not seen a lot of the Stade de la Liberation ,but what I have seen has been a series of snatched, tantalising half views of bits of stands and floodlights and signs and traces of those who’ve been here before, added to which my coat, my trousers and my shoes are all a little wet. I will now be sure to remember for posterity my visit to US Boulogne during the great pandemic of 2020, and I will be able to tell my grandchildren that I got wet watching a game that never happened, having not even got into the stadium. But it’s of such tales of pointless folly that football legend is made and such suffering and stupidity is what following football is all about.