Here in Lyon I seized my opportunity to make France the 11th foreign country in which I've attended a professional football match. (It'd be 12 if I included Scotland.)
Olympique Lyonnais ('OL', just like Olympique Marseille get called 'OM') are one of the bigger French clubs, 6th on the all-time title-winning list. I had hoped they'd be playing Toulouse, so that I could make a witty pun about "to lose", but it wasn't to be. Anyway the home team won 2-0. For the first goal I thought the striker should have chipped the keeper when he was 1-on-1; in the event, he did it the harder way, but he did it well.
OL's home ground is now named after their sponsor Groupama, but it used to be called the Stade des Lumières, ie the 'Stadium of Light'. It's literally about 8 miles out of town - as if Sunderland had built their own Stadium of Light in Murton. The Groupama has a capacity of 60,000 but the crowd was still smaller than what Sunderland attracted against Crystal Palace the night before. Just saying.
As is almost always the case when watching football abroad, I was impressed by the atmosphere and the constant singing, but I couldn't help noticing that the singing in question was a) rigidly orchestrated by drums & loudspeakers, and b) completely unrelated to the game. It's always the same songs, over and over again. Whereas I think there's something genuinely precious about the way British football crowds constantly refine their repertoires in response to what's happening on the pitch. In 2003 I was at a match where we somehow managed to score three own goals in eight minutes: the crowd erupted into 'Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life', and then when one irate fan (who hadn't seen the funny side) got forcibly thrown out by the police, he was serenaded with 'there's only one lucky b*****d'.
Incidentally, did you know that for several years there was a French TV programme covering the English Premier League called 'Match Of Ze Day'? Priceless. It was presented by former Newcastle-based shampoo salesman David Ginola. Sample here.
Anyway I promise that there'll be no more football-related content in this year's blog. And there won't be any beer-related waffle, because France is a bit of a desert where good IPAs are concerned. Fortunately the wine situation is rather more satisfactory. I'll endeavour to enlarge on this and other more wholesome topics in the coming weeks.
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| Lyon from on high |
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| Court of Appeal. Roughly the reverse of the photo above. |
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| On the banks of the Rhône |
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| Western entrance to the Tête D'or parc |
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| Hôtel de Ville |
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| Roman amphitheatre (estimated date of construction is 15BC) |
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| Pre-match shenanigans at Olympique Lyonnais |
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| Edd vs Food #165 Set menu for lunch at the Midipopote cafe, 140 Ave Félix Faure, Lyon 69003 Tender beef shoulder bourgignon with carrots & pasta. Creamy broccoli / chorizo / cranberry / walnut / red onion salad on the side |
