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During an interview for Girondins4Ever, Julien Bée, journalist, author and match commentator
Girondins de Bordeaux on ForEver Radiopresented us with his fifth work entitled “33 historical anecdotes about the FCGB”. We asked him where he got this energy from to write this fifth book.
“The energy comes from the love and passion of the club. It’s true that when I started writing the first books which, basically, talked about Parc Lescure, we worked on the history of Parc Lescure with Laurent Brun, since at the time we were working on all the two. Then, while searching, we obviously found archives. In fact, it was by digging, by looking for stories, by bringing to the surface things that even the club didn’t remember, that we put certain stories aside. We were not able to put everything in the different works. So on this last book I really wanted to centralize a little bit everything I had found and everything that was a little bit anecdotal, which allowed for the big story. In the book, for example, there is the story of the false record. This is the story of the false record at Stade Lescure, on the day of Bordeaux – Juventus. In fact, the record we know for attendance at the stadium is false. It was created by a journalist. So I tell the story and this anecdote allows me to talk about this event, which was still one of the biggest events in the history of the stadium, that is to say the arrival of Juve. We beat them 2-0, we did not qualify for the final of the Champions League, the Champions Club Cup at the time. But the anecdote of this match is this false record which is linked to the attendance, which was decided by a journalist. So in this chapter I tell this anecdote which is part of the story. Until we arrived at Matmut Atlantique, at the Stade René Gallice, this record held as the club’s official attendance record, when in fact it is a false record. There are plenty of stories like this in the book. These anecdotes are often part of a story that has helped forge the legend of the club.”
He also gives us a little anecdote:
“I’m talking about Gallice and Swiatek. René Gallice we know him since his name is unofficially given to the stadium, and his friend and friend Jean Swiatek who was part of the 1950 team and who was captain of this team. Both of them, at the end of their careers, created a sports store called ‘Gallice et Swiatek’ and which was an extremely well-known store. Everyone who is over 55, 60 years old, knows ‘Gallice and Swiatek’. It’s funny because everyone, especially young people, was going to look for sporting goods without knowing that the two managers of that store were two huge legends of the Girondins de Bordeaux. So there are lots of anecdotes like that that I tell in the book.”
Before returning to the question at the beginning:
“To come back to the basic question, it’s really passion that makes me want to.”
Transcription Girondins4Ever
Reminder of the 4 previous works:
- SUPPORTERS, the fabulous adventure of Girondins supporters in Bordeaux (2017)
- LESCURE & LES GIRONDINS the meeting of legends (2017)
- LESCURE 80 YEARS of stories, sports and events! (2018)
- 100 GIRONDINS, the players who marked the history of FCGB (2022)
The book is for pre-order on legirondin.com.
Available from May 18 in bookstores and therefore on the 17th in club stores.
