We were up by 7, out the house by 8 and chilling in the Gare de Lyon around 9, ready to go. We were literally quite chilly in just our shorts and t-shirts as every other Racing fan was in jeans and jumpers – by Marseille it was us who was appropriately dressed though.
The TGV was very fast indeed. To travel all that way in 3 hours is impressive and we arrived at the Gare Saint Charles on good form. We started walking in the direction of the Old Port. Given we were the first Racing fans out of the station, and therefore the first that Marseille had seen, we bore the brunt of the abuse. “Careful with the sun!” several mocked, clearly a classic gag. We also came into contact with the first Montpellier fan bus, which had them all banging on the windows at us and inviting us to join them. To be fair, we were inviting this sort of banter with our 4 flags (between 2) and hats...
Marseille is not a very pleasant town. It has a hotch-potch feel, the underlying aggressiveness of a bandit frontier town, which of course it always was. We found our way to the old port and had our lunch in a restaurant filled with fresh rugby fans looking forward to today’s match as well as Toulouse/Clermont fans who had clearly just woken up and were taking their first tentative steps into the midday sun, nursing their heads.
On our way into the stade we came across a man with a microphone followed by a cameraman. He poked the microphone in Callum’s face. He panicked, told him he didn’t speak French and pointed them to me. He asked the sort of open question these sorts of reporters ask, “You’re just arriving into the stadium, how does it feel?” I told him that the atmosphere in the metro was superb, we had come all this way and we were ready to win. Allez le Racing... The reporter thanked me for my time, clearly hoping that the weird foreigner didn’t get broadcast and wondering what two foreigners were doing there, one carrying so many flags he looked like he was selling them.
The stade was impressive and built in such a way that could only work in the south of France, with 3 stands open to the air. We were burnt before the kick-off. I won’t give a match-report but Racing lost 25-26 in the end. Having allowed Montpellier to get to 23-6 early in the second half, they got back to 25-23. It was like the Heineken Cup Final all over again. Suddenly we took to our feet and the Montpellier fans (actual Montpellier fans and Marseille neutrals, south loving, Paris hating ignorants) weren’t making noise. The couple of thousand Racing fans silenced the 54,000 others for a few minutes. Could Racing see out the final few minutes? No, Montpellier kicked a penalty and then the Racing stand-off missed a last-minute drop-goal. It was nearly as heart-breaking as the defeat to Brive. I vowed to return next year to see a victory.
The train home was livened up by trips into the bar where the Racing players were drowning their sorrows with sycophantic fans. We bought our food, I said a few hellos, commiserated then went back to our seats. We both agreed that it had been a fantastic day, with one of the finest rugby occasions we had been to, never mind the extraordinary match that left us with no voice, sun-burn and that gutting feeling.
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