From Charles Richardson in the DT
I spent a fortnight watching French rugby ? here is what the Premiership can learn
The English can no longer ignore their cross-Channel cousins, whose thriving domestic game offers many tips for revitalising the sport here
Arcachon could never be described as the heartland of rugby ? French or otherwise. The bay, just south of Bordeaux on France?s west coast, is idyllic and upmarket. The town of just over 10,000 inhabitants also possesses a rugby club. A modest one, by French standards anyway.
There is the customary circumferential running track, a stand and a clubhouse. There is a creperie, a bar and a barbecue within the stadium walls of Bassin d?Arcachon. And, on this Sunday afternoon, the stand is booming. The beer sloshes like the nearby Atlantic as the vociferous crowd puff on their Gauloises.
They all know the club?s chant by heart and, after the culmination of the colts? curtain-raiser, the brass band kicks in. Auch ? that famous club which counts Jacques Fouroux, Antoine Dupont, Anthony Jelonch and Gregory Alldritt among its alumni ? are the visitors and, of course, arrive with their own corps of drums in tow.
Auch's brass band bring the noise to their away match at Bassin d'Arcachon Credit: Charles Richardson
Auch, according to the table ? and esteem ? should win at a canter. But things somehow never quite work out like that in France. At half-time, just as with Saint-Jean-de-Luz's victory over Anglet a week before in the same league, there is a scrap. The crowd ? notwithstanding their allegiances ? are incandescent and, no matter the outcome of the brawl, the referee is always the villain of the piece.
Eventually, the underdog hosts vanquish their venerable voyagers in front of at least 1,000 people, all captivated by their local heroes beneath the soft spring sun.
Arcachon play in the fourth tier of French rugby, Nationale 2, are coached by Simon Mannix ? formerly of Gloucester and Pau ? and have 15 professional players. With that, one might be forgiven for thinking that English rugby ? with its stricken top flight, barely functioning second tier and catastrophic amateur cup competition ? is doomed. With that, it becomes easier to rationalise the steady stream of England internationals exploring their options over the Channel and, in some cases, concretising them.
Twenty-one miles might separate England and France but culturally, politically and socially, they are worlds apart, possessing vastly differing ways of life that rub off on all their sporting edifices ? including rugby.
The scene depicted at Arcachon is archetypally French and a wholesale reproduction in England would not be realistic. The Premiership's issue, however, is that whenever the prospect of English rugby learning from its cross-Channel cousins is raised, the first response of fans, coaches and executives is usually that it just simply would not work.
There are too many factors that are uniquely ?French? that have played a significant part in its success. From its geography and greater pride in individual localities, to its penchant for style and its close rapport with fine food and drink; comparing certain elements of English and French rugby is akin to comparing chalk with one of Charles de Gaulle's famous 246 varieties of cheese.
There is a degree of truth in such a hypothesis but dismissing all that has contributed towards a thriving domestic rugby scene in France as mysteriously, indefinably ?French? would be uninformed to the point of laziness.
Geography is always the reason that receives most airtime in discussions about the differences between French and English rugby. While the geographical spread (or lack of) of rugby clubs in France ? with a density in the south and a paucity in the north ? is irrefutable, anecdotally it is somewhat of a red herring. When mere geography is extolled as a reason for French successes, those uttering those three syllables seldom address the flip side of the coin ? that geography is actually holding French club rugby back from even greater heights.
Enabling community players to watch their local pro team seems blindingly obvious
Just over five kilometres separate the stadiums of Biarritz, in the second-tier ProD2, and Bayonne, in the top-flight Top 14. Such a scenario is not uncommon, mirrored in the city of Toulouse and throughout several of the regions and departements of the South West. A density of rugby fans in these areas there might be, but when boiled down to club level, there is also dilution. Imagine the size of Biarritz's fan base and average attendance if Bayonne did not possess its own club, for instance.
Blagnac and 1999 Heineken Cup finalists Colomiers are two fully professional clubs located on the outskirts of Toulouse, but imagine how much grander the behemoth of Stade Toulousain would be if they had a rugby monopoly in their own city?
Many contributing factors to French domestic rugby?s hegemony could not be emulated without fundamental cultural shifts. England, whose league structure only began in 1987 and has just nine winning clubs across those 35 years, cannot compete with France's prestigious Bouclier de Brennus, first awarded in 1892 and featuring 27 winners in those 130 years.
But there are nuggets within, as my fortnight driving tour of French rugby highlighted, that are easily pilferable. My journey took me to Agen, Bayonne, Anglet, Toulouse, Colomiers, Angouleme, La Rochelle and Arcachon, as well as across the border to San Sebastian in Spain for Bayonne v Pau, highlighting that there is not one large concept that can be stowed in the back of a van and carted back through the Eurotunnel, but a plethora of small tweaks that could add up to a significant gear-change for English rugby.
The first has already been hinted at. Back on France?s Atlantic coast, in Bassin d?Arcachon, their fourth-tier fixture took place on a Sunday afternoon, free from clashes with either the Top 14 or ProD2. So, the 1,000 people in attendance ? plus the officials, players and volunteers ? would have been free to watch Bordeaux's Top 14 match the day before as well as all of the second-tier fixtures on Thursday and Friday night.
In France, the second tier play a solitary, featured match on Thursday, with the rest on Friday; and the top flight plays a solitary, featured match at 9pm on a Sunday with the rest staggered throughout Saturday. The grass-roots and community game plays on Sunday.
It really is not rocket science. With both the Premiership and Championship desperate for grander attendances ? and BT Sport, presumably, keen for more eyeballs on their coverage ? aligning English rugby so that those turning out for Hinckley or Taunton in the National League can also watch their local professional team (in this case one of Leicester or Exeter) on the same weekend just seems like a blindingly obvious measure.
It is not presently financially viable ? or, at least, it does not make economic sense ? for any of English rugby's community players to purchase a season ticket for a Premiership club because they would miss too many matches. That is not the case in France. The presence of youth fixtures as curtain-raisers to senior matches is another novel idea. Why could the Premiership?s academy sides not emulate that?
Those aforementioned Sunday, 9pm kick-offs in France are despised by players and away fans ? but they are adored by the neutral. Just as in France, England has a sporting black hole on Sunday evenings that the NFL is trying to cannibalise. Canal+ identified this across the Channel and stumped up more cash for the two leagues? television deal because of it.
Players and away fans may baulk, but the viewership tells its own story; those Sunday night games in France regularly receive over a million viewers ? on a subscription channel, too. Those viewers are, presumably, fans of other clubs, fans of the two teams involved but, also, and crucially, generic sports fans craving Sunday night theatre. There is seemingly not much stopping the Premiership from introducing Sunday 8pm kick-offs and, concurrently, some new fans to the sport. Perhaps Exeter v Newcastle, where travelling fans are limited anyway, could be the match to set the trend.
Canal+?s influence on the league does not stop there. This might seem superficial and, as a stand-alone measure its effect would be minimal, but alongside the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (the French leagues? governing body) and its sponsors, a theme music or ?hymn? was created to accompany television coverage. It is similar to BT Sport?s jingle when the broadcaster?s coverage returns from a commercial break, except it is a bespoke composition solely for French domestic rugby. It is instantly recognisable to any French rugby fan, and is even blasted across the public address system at Top 14 and ProD2 matches as the players head out onto the pitch.
Just as with European rugby?s orchestral adaptation of Jean-Michel Jarre?s Industrial Revolution Part 2, the French composition ? not dissimilar in tone to its European equivalent ? further establishes an identity for the leagues and the coverage of them; something for the fans to align with.
The in-stadium experience is arguably as prescient a microcosm of the dichotomy between the two nations' set-ups that can be found. The bands of Auch and Arcachon are no anomaly and there is an intrinsic link between music and rugby in France, just as with the Celtic nations. That link also exists in England, where in the bars and clubhouses of amateur clubs, songs are devoured as quickly as pints. If you were to find footage of the 1978 John Player Cup final at Twickenham, in which Gloucester defeated Leicester, the Cherry and Whites took a booming brass band with them to south-west London. Where are they or their ancestors now? Could their repertoire be resurrected at Kingsholm?
Food and drink is a sacred domain in French culture and there is no chance of a full-scale reproduction in England, but there is more learning material. At La Rochelle, it is possible to enjoy six oysters and a glass of wine in their fortress Stade Marcel Deflandre for the paltry price of ?11. For roughly ?9 in the Premiership, one would struggle to buy a pie and a pint. It would require an entire cultural reset to be able to purchase cheap oysters in English rugby grounds, but my travels to the second and third tier did underline something from which the Premiership?s clubs could learn.
More often than not, prices in English rugby stadiums are so high because food and beverage services have been outsourced to external operators who, naturally, charge a premium for their (mediocre) services. In France, no such enterprise exists, except, perhaps, in Racing 92's Space Jam-esque arena. At Angouleme in the second tier, for instance, the food offering was a simple merguez sandwich and frites that, along with a pitcher of beer, set myself and my companions back around ?20 in total. The beauty lay in its simplicity and, therefore, value ? and it was cooked by club members, organising the barbecue as if they were at an English village fete. And people were actually there to buy it. The food-and-drink spaces at the stadiums are almost always pleasant, and fans arrive at the stadiums early to eat and drink with their friends before the match begins.
Rugby clubs are community hubs. The clubs actively hunt for local sponsorship, and those businesses who do part with their cash to support their local team are proud to be doing so. Although the Top 14 possesses its fair share of sugar daddies, even at that level ? on a purely sponsorship plane ? there is a tangible link between the rugby club and the local businesses of the town or city. There is an elevated level of pride in locality in France, something that England cannot just simply ape with a click of the fingers, and the fabled esprit de clocher (bell-tower psyche) is no myth; citizens support their rugby team because the club belong to that town.
A good starting point for English clubs would be to engender greater links with the businesses in their respective localities to create a tighter sense of community. The English have always been conditioned to be somewhat ashamed of their status as citizens of England ? which is another complex debate ? but community has always been one of this country's strengths. While that might have been diluted in a society that is becoming increasingly global, it still does exist.
Such pride and community inevitably leads to rivalry. French rugby rivalries are well known as some of the fiercest in the world, but England has a few of its own, too. Nurturing those ? as France has done with its derby weekend, where all fixtures take place between local rivals in the Top 14 and ProD2 ? is crucial for the Premiership. In France, rivalry and healthy jibing are encouraged and rarely scorned. When rivalries do spill over and turn sour, it is usually dismissed as a moment of parochial hot-headedness. Little pearl-clutching takes place.
A cavalier attitude to health and safety this might be but, in the sold-out stands at Colomiers, we were able to quaff from a bottle of the local vin rouge. A glass bottle in our seats with barely a steward in sight. And this in a league system that deploys student sections of stadiums, a clever tactic to keep revellers separated from families while maintaining an engrossing atmosphere.
The openness between players and reporters in France is also something to behold, and with fans, too. At Castres, the post-match function for players and officials is held in a marquee on the grounds of the stadium. There is food, wine and a DJ. About two hours after the final whistle, something magical happens. Supporters are welcomed into the marquee to analyse and dissect the match with their favourite players and coaches. The atmosphere is convivial and completely alien to the English rugby aficionado.
Ironically, in a country with four professional leagues, the amateur, "Corinthian" ethos still burns brightly. Perhaps not as fiercely as it once might have, but it is more than just a flicker. It is no wonder that Arcachon and its creperie held a certain allure. And, in its ultra-professional era, the Premiership might just have lost a touch of all that.
It is retrievable, however, and the inspiration is waiting across the Channel.
Topic: French lessons ? attracting people (to rugby) (Read 1839 times)
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