the essential
He is one Of those who created Union Tarbes-Lourdes in 2010. Today co-president of the club with Didier Yedra, René Mancho is a valuable leader through his experience and knowledge of the field. It’s not for nothing that many of his friends followed him on the adventure.
How is the evening going?
Sportingly, given this magnificent victory in Boulogne, it looks good. But we only won by two points, and this match is not going to be easy. Our players are fighters. When we were down 7 with 3 minutes remaining, we could have worried, but they took us to overtime and to victory. Which puts us in good conditions.
And from an organizational point of view, with the TGB semi-final which took place the day before?
That presents a problem. Normally we start installing our equipment the day before the match, making the advertising stickers. And the next day, we only take care of the marquee, which is already not bad. There, a double problem arises. So much the better that the TGB is playing its way to the final. But usually the TGB people don’t use the marquee, and they asked us. So we have a lot of work since we can only work the morning of our match. I brought in a lot of guys to do all that. On the other hand, for us, at the last match, there were a lot of people, we suffered from a lack of space, so we created spaces, new points of sale etc.
This enthusiasm, this influx is good news, right?
Of course this is good news. On the other hand, if we have to play again on Sunday… The TGB asked us for the marquee to broadcast their return match in the Landes. We said we couldn’t. It’s very upsetting for them and for us. I hope it will be resolved this evening.
Two clubs, Pont-de-Chéruy and Rueil, announced that they could not continue their adventure in Nationale 1. What does this inspire you?
The Federation says that there are more and more clubs in difficulty, but the budgets continue to increase. We are in the lowest bracket with almost 900,000 euros, which is not bad for a city like Tarbes. But several clubs are more than 2 million, and they tend to dominate the division sportingly because they have the means, and a payroll which allows them to have very good players that we cannot afford. . When you see that you have players who earn 8,000 balls per month… We, with that, pay ourselves three or four. We’ve been here for around ten years, you have to want to stay there. This year we reached group A and it’s really great. Why not continue like this?
You still have to have ambition to stay at this level, right?
It takes a lot of ambition and will. You have to look for money, take care of the budget all the time. In addition, we have increasingly expensive travel. There is no longer Dax, Bordeaux, La Rochelle… Our travel budget has exploded. It’s difficult. But it’s interesting. The level of this division has risen. There’s some gear.
There is still recognition through the presence of a large audience… Isn’t that encouraging?
We manage to invite teams of young people, who come with their parents. It generates desires to come see us, see us again. I hope the room will be full this evening. Partners are more numerous and active. And then there is the atmosphere under the big top. People are singing… During the last match, I said to Didier Yedra: Do you realize the happiness we give people with this club?
