In recent months, chatter in France’s bars and cafés will rarely have drifted from the Rugby World Cup, since for roughly half the French population, it is rugby not football that possesses near religious status.
One such fan with his sights set firmly on the start of the competition – on 7 September – is Will Mosenthal, a 20-year-old student from Bath who has been experiencing what it’s like to be un rugbyman, while working for a French company during his gap-year in Paris.
For the past year, he has been playing for the British Rugby Football Club of Paris, a team comprised from ex-pats and local Frenchmen playing in Paris’ corporate league. Asked why the French wish to play for a British rugby team, he explains: ‘It’s definitely our social spirit. Other French teams play on Saturdays, train during the week and do little else. For us, the pub is as much a part of rugby as the playing field.’ The team’s unofficial clubhouse has become The Cricketer’s pub in Paris’ 8th arrondissement.
Playing around Paris against teams of pompiers, gendarmes and bankers from Credit Agricole, Will says his British and French team-mates have formed an excellent camaraderie: ‘After matches, we share baguettes with cheese and saucisson with the opposing teams over a few glasses of red-wine.’
Will says the spirit is shared by the players’ wives and girlfriends, who watch matches, help with the food and accompany the players out in the evenings.
Having previously played for Bath University, Will doesn’t feel there’s any great difference between rugby in England and France: ‘We all want to win, but what’s most important to us and the teams we play, is how we play the game,’ he says. ‘We all share a sense of what the French call, le fair play. There are exceptions but you get dirty teams in England too.’
While the French possess the same ideals of sportsmanship as their British counterparts, not every aspect of the game is the same on the other side of la manche. Of rugby’s eight traditional superpowers, France is the only country that has never had links to the Commonwealth and as such the French like to play their rugby a little differently.
Unlike England, where rugby is strongly associated with the middle classes and public schools, French rugby possesses no elements of elitism. In France, the game has solid foundations among the farmers and labourers of the southwest; even if the Parisian clubs have a reputation for attracting playboys and city-slickers.
If you’re attending a game in France another small but significant difference you may notice is the difference in the standard of the catering. If you’re accustomed to paying exorbitant sums for soggy pies accompanied by watery beer, you’ll be surprised by French match-day food. Local specialities are sold in the stadiums by clubs who pride themselves on their cuisine. A recent inter-club cookery contest between 50 of France’s biggest clubs saw players preparing dishes such as roasted pig’s throat with white wine and parsley.
The French themselves often attribute their fervent passion for rugby back to the game of Soule. This barbaric pastime required men from opposing villages to meet at their parish border and fight to take a leather ball or pig’s bladder stuffed with hay, back to their village church doorway. The bloody clashes often left hundreds wounded and the practice was outlawed in the late nineteenth century.
The parochial spirit fostered by Soule is widely believed to account for the fanatical support French fans give to their local rugby teams and the intense loathing they harbour towards their near rivals. The loss of Soule also left a gap which rugby neatly filled in the affections of a people devoid of a national sport.
There is wide speculation as to the origins of rugby in France, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that the first ever game was played in Le Havre in 1870 between British students and merchants. The first rugby club, Taylors RFC, was formed by British businessmen living in Paris in 1877.
Rugby really took off in l’Hexagone in 1890, when French rugby’s newly created governing body, the Union des Societes Françaises de Sports Athletiques, launched a national school championship. The game immediately captured the imagination of France’s schoolboys, who had never previously played any sport at school.
During the next decade, rugby spread like wildfire across France. New clubs sprang up in Bordeaux, Le Havre, Toulouse, Pau and Paris. With many British workers and businessmen joining these teams, international fixtures were arranged against opposition from England and then from Wales and Scotland.
Traditional interest in French rugby is centred around the southwest and south of France in the regions of Languedoc-Rousillion, Midi-Pyrénéees, Auvergne and Aquitaine. This autumn, the opposing teams will no doubt be glad the French side is not playing any matches in the great rugby cathedrals of Montpellier, Toulouse and Bordeaux, where the partisan atmosphere would have been at its most intimidating.
But if you’re attending a match at any of these venues, the close proximity to the rugby strongholds of Brive, Pau, Perpignan, Toulon and Montferrand will ensure you’ll enjoy an authentic experience of French rugby culture. You can also indulge in an environment of rugby fanaticism in Lyon, Grenoble and most notably Paris, where the French team will be playing the majority of their matches.
Le quinze de France played their first official test match on New Year’s Day of 1906, when they lost 38-8 against the New Zealand All Blacks at Paris’ Parc des Princes. Irregular fixtures against the home nations followed, until they joined England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales to form the Five Nations Championship in 1910.
Today rugby is one of the most popular sports played in France, with more than 200,000 registered players playing at its 1,700 clubs. If you live in France or are moving there soon, your children will be able to begin playing in their schools or local clubs from as young as six years of age. Like in England, rugby is mainly a male-dominated sport; although if you have a daughter, she’ll be able to play mixed touch-rugby at a young age. There are also an ever-growing number of ladies teams attached to established clubs across the country.
But whether young or old, male or female, the level of interest in the support at club level remains enviably high. Matches attract significantly higher crowds than in the UK and unlike in England, Scotland and Ireland rugby has an equal following to football. For half of France it really is rugby that is the beautiful game.
Kick off
The French National team kick off against Argentina on the 7th of September, in Paris, heralding the start of the 2007 Rugby World Cup. By the time the teams kick off for the final on the 20 October, held at the Stade de France in Paris’ northern suburb of Saint-Denis, 47 matches will have been played. The tournament is being held principally in France, with matches in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Lens, Nantes, Toulouse Montpellier, Bordeaux and St-Étienne; although three games will be played in Cardiff and two in Edinburgh. The 20 teams in participation involve representatives of all six continents including Japan, USA, Argentina, South Africa, the current champions England and tournament favourites New Zealand.
Stuff of legend
Biarritz
Every sizable town in the southwest has a famous rugby team and few are bigger than Biarritz Olympique. Serge Blanco, one of the greatest attacking fullbacks in rugby history played at the club for 18 years between 1974-1992.
www.bo-pb.com
Club Athlétique Brive Corrèze Limousin.
Winning the French Championship on four occasions, CA Brive won the European Cup in 1997. They narrowly missed out on winning back to back titles, finishing as runners up to Bath the following year.
www.cabrivecorreze.com
Stade Toulousain
One of the most successful clubs in the history of French rugby, Stade Toulousain have won the French Championship 16 times. They have won the European Cup on three occasions, making them the most successful European rugby side of all time.
www.stadetoulousain.fr
Stade Français
The current French Champions have won the Championship 13 times and have twice finished as runners up in the European Cup. Their current manager is the legendary former French captain, Fabien Galthié.
www.stade.fr
FACT FILE
If you are living in France and wish to play rugby yourself, or have children who would like to learn to play, you can find you nearest club at www.ffr.fr or by calling 0033 (0)1 53 21 15 15
World Cup Tickets: Ticketmaster UK 0870 264 2007
www.france2007.fr
World Cup information: www.rugbyworldcup.com
Midi Olympique, France’s national rugby newspaper: www.rugbyrama.fr