Hello and bonjour!
It is April 2022,
it is a cold but sunny Saturday,
and I’m heading out of Paris to the north-western suburb of Colombes.
Now you lot know that we love a bit of faded glory on this channel,
grand old buildings that have seen better days,
places that the world has left behind, but they had a glorious past;
and in the world of sport,
it doesn’t get much better than where we’re going today.
Because how can I put this…
well...
here’s a photo of the opening ceremony of the 1924 Olympic Games;
here's a photo of Italy winning the 1938 World Cup Final;
and here’s a photo of Racing Club - one of the great fallen giants of French football -
winning the French Cup final in 1939.
And the old stadium that you see in all three of those photos...
...is this one right here.
And not only that, but those fallen giants have got a game on this afternoon.
Welcome to Racing Club de France, and the historic Olympic Stadium of Colombes.
Racing Club are a team I’ve been wanting to come and watch for ages
because there’s just so much history behind both the club
and the stadium they play at.
As the name sort of suggests, Racing started life as an athletics club
but they later added football, rugby, and a bunch of other sports.
And by the 1930s, their football side was THE big team in Paris,
and one of the biggest in France;
over the next couple of decades, they won 5 French cups,
including a league and cup double in 1936,
and all but one of those cup finals was played here at Colombes.
And Colombes itself has - if anything - an even more illustrious history.
For many years this was the French national stadium,
and it’s not just French Cup finals,
a World Cup Final,
an Olympic Games,
and years of international matches in both football and rugby,
it’s the stories that happened here.
Take those 1924 Olympics for example:
Paavo Nurmi - the legendary Flying Finn - winning 5 gold medals including 2 in 1 hour,
that was here!
Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams,
the whole story behind the film Chariots Of Fire,
that was here!
a woman called Dorothy Margaret Stuart winning the Silver Medal in Mixed Literature
with a 37-page poem about fencing,
that was here!
(At least I think that was here,
it was those Olympics anyway,
and I just had to mention it.)
But unfortunately these days,
neither Colombes nor Racing are quite what they used to be.
After the Parc Des Princes was modernised in the early 1970s,
all the big matches that used to be played here moved there instead,
and Colombes saw less and less use.
And with no real reason to maintain such a big old stadium
when it was never going to be filled again,
large sections fell into disrepair and have now been demolished.
All that’s left today is one solitary grandstand,
and a slightly confused cat.
There is one team still keeping the legendary venue alive though,
and it’s not Racing’s rugby team,
even though they’re on all the posters;
they moved out in 2017
after becoming far too successful to play at this old place any more.
So we’re watching the slightly less successful football side instead.
And this afternoon they’ve got a big local derby.
And to be fair, they’re currently sitting top of the league table,
But that table is the regional Paris division
of the fifth tier of French football.
(Like I said, not quite what they used to be.)
At this level, they’re competing against a mixture of amateur teams from the Paris region,
and the reserve sides of the professional clubs around here.
Which admittedly means pretty much every game they play is a local derby of some sort.
But this is the big one,
because they are up against none other than the mighty Paris Saint Germain.
(Reserves.)
Erm.
Yeah, it’s not going to be Messi and Mbappé out there today,
it’s going to be Gael Nlundulu and Louis Lapouge.
But it’s still 1st against 4th,
it’s a big game,
and there’s a cracking atmosphere inside the stadium as Racing kick off.
And within 5 minutes,
the home team are already 1-0 up
through Adama Camara,
a man with more As than my school exam results.
The early goal helps to settle any nerves,
and Racing start to control the game.
Still can’t beat the first man at a corner though.
To be fair, most of these players are part-time or amateur,
they’ve all got jobs outside football.
But what’s confusing me a bit, as British football fan,
is that this is true for PSG players too.
I thought they were going to be a bunch of youngsters from the academy,
and maybe even a few first teamers coming back from injury;
but no, that’s not how it seems to work here.
The players in dark blue are just regular amateur footballers
that happen to play in a PSG kit
and get to share training facilities with Sergio Ramos.
Not that he’s taught them much about defending,
as Racing go 2-0 up with a lovely chipped finish
(that I didn’t get on camera)
from Congolese striker Arnold Vula.
And that’s how it stays at half-time.
So how exactly did a proud historic team like Racing
end up in the same division as PSG reserves?
Well it all went horribly wrong in the 1960s.
At the dawn of the decade,
Racing were still competing right at the top of French football,
but they cruelly missed out on the league title on the last day of the season in 1961,
and then again (!) in 1962.
And after that, the wheels came off in spectacular fashion.
In the next four years the club was relegated,
then almost went bankrupt,
lost its professional status,
and ended up dropping right down into the amateur divisions.
This left the city of Paris without a top division football club,
which famously led to the creation of Paris Saint-Germain in 1970.
Racing supporters were then forced to watch on
as the new boys hoovered up all of the fans and all of the investment
and took their place as Paris’s biggest football club.
As a result, it’s fair to say PSG are not the most popular team around here.
What is popular around here, though,
is Racing Club beating any sort of team that turns up wearing PSG shirts.
And once again they manage to score early in the half,
as winger Merwan Ifnaoui pops up to head in a third goal
just six minutes after the break.
It’s now the kind of scoreline that makes you think of what might have been:
Racing Club 3 Paris Saint Germain (Reserves) 0.
But on this kind of form, and going 13 points clear at the top of the division,
Racing might just be beginning to dream of playing against the real Paris Saint Germain one day.
And the thing is, it wouldn’t be the first time;
they actually made a brief return to the top flight in the 1980s,
when the businessman Jean-Luc Lagardere bought the club,
and invested in big-name international players like
Enzo Francescoli and Pierre Littbarski
– a young David Ginola even turned out for them
for a couple of seasons -
but unfortunately, it was a classic case
of the whole being significantly worse than the sum of its parts.
The star players underperformed badly,
Lagardere eventually got fed up and pulled out,
and without his financial backing,
Racing dropped straight back into amateur football,
where they’ve been ever since.
But they do at least seem to be going in the right direction this season.
Experienced midfielder Moriba Traoré makes it 4-0 after 72 minutes with a lovely little finish.
Racing are 4-0 up against PSG (Reserves) with 20 minutes still to go!
You have to say, it’s the performance of champions.
And if you need any more evidence that this is Racing Club’s year,
how about an amateur footballer hitting a half-volley from 25 yards
and pinging it straight in the top corner.
It’s a strike worthy of gracing any stadium in the world,
and the one-hundred-year-old grandstand shows its appreciation.
But if Racing do go on to be promoted this season,
which it looks like they will (PEEP PEEP!)
and say, they start moving up the leagues, and attracting more investment,
could we ever see their home return to its former glories too,
and one day big crowds could once again fill the stands of Colombes?
Well, yes, actually!
But not for that reason.
The rebuild is happening already,
and that’s because of the Olympics.
The Games are returning to Paris in 2024,
and brilliantly, after 100 years,
Colombes is going to be an Olympic venue once more.
The stadium itself will be renovated and rebuilt next year,
but it’s going to be rebuilt, wait for it...
as a hockey field.
Yep they’re hosting the Olympic hockey tournament here.
To be fair, it is one of the many sports that has been played here over the years.
Half of the matches will be played on a temporary field at the rebuilt historic stadium,
which will look something like this,
and the other half in a brand-new purpose-built venue next door.
So there we go,
if you want to come and celebrate the Olympics triumphantly returning
to this legendary athletics, football and rugby stadium,
buy tickets to the hockey.
If you’d like to visit Colombes before its Olympic makeover,
and witness Racing Club’s Fifth Division Footballing Revolution,
it’s a 15-minute walk from the station at Le Stade,
and match tickets cost just 3€.
For those of you in wheelchairs, accessibility is limited at the moment
- I think they just put you down at the front -
but that situation should improve after renovation.
And if you’re watching this video after the 2024 Games,
ticket prices have probably gone up by now,
but the football club should have moved back in.
And as always, thank you all for watching,
and I will see you soon.