bob l'eponge
New radge
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2004
Hi there,
This is St.Etienne, France, calling. I was really pleased to learn about the existence of the green brotherhood. Around 1990 I spent some time in Edinburgh as a student and would gladly take myself to Easter Road, come Saturday afternoon. Nowadays I'm not against wearing a Hibs shirt at Geoffroy Guichard stadium, a place some of you Scots may be familiar with it as that's where Scotland played Brazil during the 1998 World Cup. I think it's a bit of a shame you seem to know so little about "les Verts", my own green team. The Boys are just back in Ligue 1, France's equivalent for the premiership. The club's been struggling on and off the field for years now but down here, attendances and expectations are always high, because it's les Verts, a team sporting more trophies than our historical "enemies" Marseilles, or any other French club for that matter. There's also one big rivalry going on with 2004 French champions Lyons, as there are only 39 miles between the two cities. Football-wise St.Etienne was the capital of France for about three decades, much to Lyons' chagrin, attracting the best players including Michel Platini. But as far as everything else was concerned, St.Etienne couldn't compete with Lyons. In the late 1970s the place became the helluva depressed area with factories closing every single week. Now things are a little better, still the city isn't exactly booming and many people have to go and work in, er, Lyons where they put up on a daily basis with the local fauna, cold tight-lipped thickos who discovered soccer in 1998 and gently laugh at our "funny accent" and "ugly town" where "tourists never go". (Admittedly, St. Etienne has in the past been compared to Sheffield: the steeltown, the terrible housing, the green hills all around.) Lyons' team dominates French football right now, and to the average St.Etienne guy this situation is like, say,a neverending rainy Sunday afternoon in Gorgie.
The main problem with the club is the legacy, a kind of weight our current players just cannot lift. This club was once one of the best sides in Europe and for the last 20 years we've been creeping in the nether regions of the table. When you look at the pitch, the jersey's the same but something's not right. And people here are desperate for a "comeback", and they don't want to hear that football has moved on with the times and St. Etienne hasn't, and they don't want to hear that you have to start from scratch again and go one step at a time. If the lads lose three games in a row, they're "the club's worst team ever" a bunch of disgusting lowlifes who don't deserve to wear the green shirt. It's not uncommon to see self-styled "ultra" fans wait for players on the parking lot to threaten them with violence. A few years ago they attacked the team bus TWICE on the same day. Before and after the game. (St.Etienne might have something of the North of England but is still in a latin country). Then, if the team win three games in a row, this means we're back in the business and pretty soon we'll make AC Milan and Real Madrid bite the dust in the Champions League. Local fans are so passionate and yet so disillusioned. Owners are sick of losing more money. Chairmen come and go. Managers never buy property in the neighbourhood. This year's the Verts won France's first division title. Popular manager Antonetti had managed to turn a so-so team in a decent hardworking unit and yet, for dubious reasons also called club politics... the board has decided to let him go. The new man in charge is Elie Baup. I mean, "in charge": Right now the guy's in Portugal following the French national team for a TV station. Baup clinched a few titles when managing Bordeaux, a dark blue-clad side you might have come across watching European Cup football. How time passes: ten years ago Baup had already been in charge of les Verts. At the time the club was a shambles, going through a bad patch of financial crisis and personality clashes, the team were painfully mediocre and he was considered by just about everyone a painfully mediocre manager. I remember my dad saying "give that bloke the Sahara desert and next year he'll have to go and buy sand". One night in March 1996 Baup was shown the door in a rather unceremonious way after another dismal loss at Monaco. He pledged he would never come back again in that dump, but apparently he did. Last week I saw his picture on the paper, obviously he's all smile and "eager to write new pages in the great history of the club". Oh dear. At least Baup shouldn't feel lost, coz nothing's changed much: right now the club is skint, and the Antonetti demise was one big crisis, complete with angry fans attempting to drown the owners in spit (maybe that was their way of thanking the owners for saving the club from bankruptcy 6 months ago.) Well, nevermind the promotion, there will be no top player joining the team because, basically, there's no big-time sponsorship, no money in the bank to spend. It seems there's never any money to be seen in St. Etienne, I guess we all survive these days swapping coal for vegetables or something. On this forum I saw a message in which one lad was quite chaffed about having bought a "classy" St.Etienne shirt for 15 quid. Admittedly, it's a good price but I believe he didn't realize he was in the middle of another "everything must go" sale, another way to try and raise some cash for the club... The year before they had sold the best players.
So I guess this year we'll try to get along somehow, creeping in the nether regions of the table again, fighting hard just to stay up, hoping bloody Lyons will be out of the champions league after the first round. Still, there will be interesting matches and for instance we're really looking forward to give Marseilles a good spanking at Geoffroy Guichard. Most home games are likely to be sold out anyway because, well, it's les Verts you know...
This is St.Etienne, France, calling. I was really pleased to learn about the existence of the green brotherhood. Around 1990 I spent some time in Edinburgh as a student and would gladly take myself to Easter Road, come Saturday afternoon. Nowadays I'm not against wearing a Hibs shirt at Geoffroy Guichard stadium, a place some of you Scots may be familiar with it as that's where Scotland played Brazil during the 1998 World Cup. I think it's a bit of a shame you seem to know so little about "les Verts", my own green team. The Boys are just back in Ligue 1, France's equivalent for the premiership. The club's been struggling on and off the field for years now but down here, attendances and expectations are always high, because it's les Verts, a team sporting more trophies than our historical "enemies" Marseilles, or any other French club for that matter. There's also one big rivalry going on with 2004 French champions Lyons, as there are only 39 miles between the two cities. Football-wise St.Etienne was the capital of France for about three decades, much to Lyons' chagrin, attracting the best players including Michel Platini. But as far as everything else was concerned, St.Etienne couldn't compete with Lyons. In the late 1970s the place became the helluva depressed area with factories closing every single week. Now things are a little better, still the city isn't exactly booming and many people have to go and work in, er, Lyons where they put up on a daily basis with the local fauna, cold tight-lipped thickos who discovered soccer in 1998 and gently laugh at our "funny accent" and "ugly town" where "tourists never go". (Admittedly, St. Etienne has in the past been compared to Sheffield: the steeltown, the terrible housing, the green hills all around.) Lyons' team dominates French football right now, and to the average St.Etienne guy this situation is like, say,a neverending rainy Sunday afternoon in Gorgie.
The main problem with the club is the legacy, a kind of weight our current players just cannot lift. This club was once one of the best sides in Europe and for the last 20 years we've been creeping in the nether regions of the table. When you look at the pitch, the jersey's the same but something's not right. And people here are desperate for a "comeback", and they don't want to hear that football has moved on with the times and St. Etienne hasn't, and they don't want to hear that you have to start from scratch again and go one step at a time. If the lads lose three games in a row, they're "the club's worst team ever" a bunch of disgusting lowlifes who don't deserve to wear the green shirt. It's not uncommon to see self-styled "ultra" fans wait for players on the parking lot to threaten them with violence. A few years ago they attacked the team bus TWICE on the same day. Before and after the game. (St.Etienne might have something of the North of England but is still in a latin country). Then, if the team win three games in a row, this means we're back in the business and pretty soon we'll make AC Milan and Real Madrid bite the dust in the Champions League. Local fans are so passionate and yet so disillusioned. Owners are sick of losing more money. Chairmen come and go. Managers never buy property in the neighbourhood. This year's the Verts won France's first division title. Popular manager Antonetti had managed to turn a so-so team in a decent hardworking unit and yet, for dubious reasons also called club politics... the board has decided to let him go. The new man in charge is Elie Baup. I mean, "in charge": Right now the guy's in Portugal following the French national team for a TV station. Baup clinched a few titles when managing Bordeaux, a dark blue-clad side you might have come across watching European Cup football. How time passes: ten years ago Baup had already been in charge of les Verts. At the time the club was a shambles, going through a bad patch of financial crisis and personality clashes, the team were painfully mediocre and he was considered by just about everyone a painfully mediocre manager. I remember my dad saying "give that bloke the Sahara desert and next year he'll have to go and buy sand". One night in March 1996 Baup was shown the door in a rather unceremonious way after another dismal loss at Monaco. He pledged he would never come back again in that dump, but apparently he did. Last week I saw his picture on the paper, obviously he's all smile and "eager to write new pages in the great history of the club". Oh dear. At least Baup shouldn't feel lost, coz nothing's changed much: right now the club is skint, and the Antonetti demise was one big crisis, complete with angry fans attempting to drown the owners in spit (maybe that was their way of thanking the owners for saving the club from bankruptcy 6 months ago.) Well, nevermind the promotion, there will be no top player joining the team because, basically, there's no big-time sponsorship, no money in the bank to spend. It seems there's never any money to be seen in St. Etienne, I guess we all survive these days swapping coal for vegetables or something. On this forum I saw a message in which one lad was quite chaffed about having bought a "classy" St.Etienne shirt for 15 quid. Admittedly, it's a good price but I believe he didn't realize he was in the middle of another "everything must go" sale, another way to try and raise some cash for the club... The year before they had sold the best players.
So I guess this year we'll try to get along somehow, creeping in the nether regions of the table again, fighting hard just to stay up, hoping bloody Lyons will be out of the champions league after the first round. Still, there will be interesting matches and for instance we're really looking forward to give Marseilles a good spanking at Geoffroy Guichard. Most home games are likely to be sold out anyway because, well, it's les Verts you know...
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