The reverse facing Ruei did not prevent the slams from ensuring its maintenance in National 2. Its president Serge Tristam briefly took stock of this season, already evoking the next one.
It is your first sports support in NM2, what feeling does it give you?
Serge Tristram : It is true that we are talking about it often and that was the goal this season. It was not easy, with a strong choice that we had to make at the start of the season by changing coach (Sébastien Bozon replaced Salah Koné after five days last October, editor’s note). A great regret, but we did it with a single obsession: maintenance. I would have liked to do it with victory, we did not go far, but the important thing is assured.
It was very hard, there were doubts, then this victory in Gravenchon, last week, did the greatest good …
SG : This unexpected victory came to cancel the counterperformances and it is clearly to the opposition of what we proposed in Tours. We knew that our direct competitors had the pressure. We wanted to win so as not to look elsewhere, but ultimately we’re going to be satisfied with it. We fell against a very beautiful team from Rueil, I would have liked to offer the public victory, but they at least saw a beautiful match.
There is a home game left against Le Havre to offer them victory …
SG : We want to finish on a great party with an audience, I hope, even more numerous to have a party like facing Courbevoie last year. We will try to finish on a good moment of communion for Amiens basketball, but also in the Somme. A club that is maintained at this level in a town like Longueau and Amiens Métropole is a real message that we send. The club must continue to move forward and it involves sports support. Why not do a few games next year at the Coliseum.
Will this allow you to work more serenely on the rest and with Sébastien Bozon?
SG : We are going to be more serene and we will be able to really look at the next season with the goal of showing another face to satisfy our audience which was too disappointed for my taste this season. We really have to stabilize at this level with easily acquired supports before wanting to go higher. We will chat with Sébastien (Bozon), but he is part of the project we want to set up. I think he has to bring more to the club. As I have always said, you cannot have a coach with its CV and its experience, the only mission of which is the maintenance of the first team. He must help the club grow and, as announced in the Club project, the latter will grow that if we arrive that young people feed our first team.
He risks having a big project this summer to rebuild a team …
SG : We will first chat with the players and we already have ideas, but we will have to make the right choices and avoid being too mistaken. If we look individually, we have nice guys and we did not have to manage major behavioral problems this season. But if we look at compatibility in the field, it’s something else. There will be changes, but how much, we don’t know. What we want is to have a team with a big collective and united.
Aurélien Finet
Photo credit: Kevin Devigne, Reynald Valleron – Gazettesports.fr
 – Serge Tristram: “I would have liked us to maintain ourselves with victory”){kind=link}