Liam Rosenior probably does not have, in his library, volumes telling the history of Calais. Nor the memory that between 1347 and 1558 – until the liberation of the port city by Henry II – his British ancestors had made this corner of France a territory acquired from the Perfidious Albion. But the Strasbourg technician, a Londoner at heart, knows that “ the magic of the cup » – an expression that he threw out on Saturday evening, in the mazes of the Stade de l'Epopée – had crossed the 32 kilometers separating the cliffs of Dover from the beach of Calais. “ I think you also have this formula here, the young forty-year-old said. Calais showed a great image of Football in terms of character, attitude and gave us a hard time. At the end of the first period, we were starting to get tense and fortunately Karl-Johan (Johnsson) made this very nice save. »
It was at this moment, when the doubt and the thrill of a cup evening began to hover in the Calais sky in the middle of gusts of wind that would disorient a seagull, that the Alsatian goalkeeper relaxed (0-0, 39e). « If we give this penalty, it's not the same outcomereplayed Olivier Laridon, the coach of Racing Club de Calais (N3). But we'll never know. » Returning from the locker room, Andrey Santos on a corner (0-1, 57e) then Sékou Mara twice (0-2, 73e ; 0-3, 89e) finally extracted theirs from a trapping web despite the four divisions difference. After greeting his family in the VIP lounges in the Calais area, Olivier Laridon sent one last sentiment: “ We made people happy, I think. »Settle the debt
This is because in Calais, the breath of footballing pleasure was for almost 15 years (last 32e in 2009) off the radar. Dark years marked by the seal of parochial quarrels, financial largesse and the chronic inability to redress the situation. Entering the popular imagination in the spring of 2000, the CRUFC (Calais Racing Union Football Club), bogeyman of the fourth division and finalist of the Coupe de France (after having beaten Lille, Cannes, Strasbourg and Bordeaux before losing in the last moments against Nantes at the Stade de France), was the standard of a city. A beacon, right up to the administrative relegations and dismissals of managers worth several tens of thousands of euros which led the entity – although also a quarter-finalist in 2006 – to the courts as well as to judicial liquidation in September 2017. time, mayor Natacha Bouchart (various right) swears that “ the CRUFC killed itself ».
For a long time, the ears of the elected official will ring about this day when the municipal tap was cut off. “ From 2010, I recovered a club placed in safeguard procedure with a million euros in debtrecalls the city councilor today. We held the CRUFC at arm’s length every year. But at one point, the weight of the debt was too great and we had to say stop. » and « heartbreak » for Bouchart and a trauma for generations of Calais residents lulled by evenings of euphoria at Julien-Denis, a cauldron of the city center (up to 4,000 spectators on average in CFA), at one time supporters could leave the stadium at half-time head to the local bistro to regain strength to return to sing a quarter of an hour later.
Fusion express
The liquidation opens a new era. A mixture of emptiness, hopes, a difficult handover in a city of 67,000 inhabitants where the migration crisis too often shines the spotlight and where at least ten neighborhood clubs coexist. “ Bringing everyone back to the table was not easy », agrees Natacha Bouchart. The Calais journalist Baptiste Vendroux hatched the project “ Calais Ambition 2030 », and this Arlesian from a big club is gaining weight again. Marseille has its “ grants » every summer, Calais its « Grandclub » every six months. “ They laughed in my face at that moment “, still remembers the mayor. Leaders who, until now, were not looking in the same direction no longer look away. And as here, everything is a story of merger (like the birth of CRUFC, in 1974), Grand Calais Pascal (from a century-old club) and Calais Hauts-de-France imagine the Racing Club de Calais in the summer of 2023.
“I cannot imagine a presidency of 20 or 25 years, like Aulas and Martel where the aftermath was complicated. »
Today, there are 700 licensees, a rise in N3 from the first season acquired last summer in front of 6000 supporters and an average of 1500 to 2500 spectators in the championship. “ It went very quickly », Analyzes Nicolas Bouloy, neo-president of Racing who borrows the historic colors of Calais football, black-yellow-red. Nicolas Bouloy, it’s 38 brooms, “ three hours of sleep a day », a holding company of 14 IT companies for around fifty employees, a football enthusiast capable of pursuing two licenses simultaneously (in Montrouge in the Paris region, and Brêmes-les-Ardres in the Calais countryside) during his studies. This hyperactive entrepreneur – number 10 when he played – lists “ Ronaldo, Beckham, Zidane » or the “ great Real of the time » in reference, tastes fries in the Xercès stand at Bollaert and promises that “ the day I no longer bring anything to Calais, I will leave the place. I cannot imagine a presidency of 20 or 25 years, like Aulas and Martel where the aftermath was complicated “. Sports director Sylvain Jore – CRUFC coach during the 2000s – speaks of it as a “ great professional “, the main interested party sees it as a “ want to move the club forward with people who are not there out of interest. We make mistakes and we will make them again, but we have to improve so that it doesn't go to waste. Today, we must strengthen ourselves with a financial director, for example. Calais does not have a great professional history (a season in D2 in 1981, Editor’s note), but this city must at least be in N1. In two or three years, if we already manage to stay in N3 ».
Calais is not « Qatar du N3 »
No point talking to him about Ligue 2,” it's a big milestone » which Dunkerque succeeded and could once again make Boulogne (leader of N1), the two neighboring references, a reality. “ If we want ambitions, we must be armed with local investors. Today, the Calais economy is perhaps in more difficulty for the professional world. But National 1 is possible “, he believes. Behind his good face, the boss causes humility, does not want to hear about “ Qatar you N3 » according to its detractors because of the 850,000 to 900,000 euros budget (including 30% municipal subsidies, compared to 50% the previous season) and wishes to remove the horrors of the opaque operations of the past. Today, federal contracts (with a few Calais residents, training center dropouts and the ex-Lyonnais Claudio Beauvue still active) spread the payroll between 1000 and 2000 euros per month according to the president: “ We are not waiting for public money to arrive and moreover, it is used for traininginsists the manager. Kids who went to Boulogne before stay with us now. »
The objective, too, is to no longer systematically look in the rear view: “ History means that for years, we will continue to talk about the epic 2000 and we were all proud to be Calaisians at that time. But today, the success of the merger is not that of CRUFC. We are erasing ourselves from this story, even if we will always have great respect for it. It's up to us to write ours now. “Not this year, but against Strasbourg,” the players were able to measure the importance of the Coupe de France, here », appreciates Sylvain Jore. For one evening, in a reminiscence of a fervor too long contained, 11,000 silhouettes converged from Calais Nord, the city center, the working-class neighborhoods, towards the Épopée stadium. Which, since its inauguration in September 2008, had not welcomed such a crowd for the flagship club. “ I experienced everything in Calais: the epics, the climbs and finally being pushed asidefinishes the sports director. There, the train is moving. » In the hope that he doesn't go off the rails again.
Can the Greens rebuild their reputation?
Related News :