Andy Mitten’s Euro 2016 diary: St-Etienne is steeped in rich football history, just ask the English

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  Bayern Munich’s Franz Roth, right, tackles St-Etienne’s Jean-Michel Larque as Gerhard Muller looks on during the European Cup final at Hampden Park in Glasgow. AFP

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  St-Etienne club museum. Andy Mitten for The National

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  A young Michel Platini in action for St-Etienne on display at the club museum. Andy Mitten for The National

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  Former players for St-Etienne on display at the club museum. Andy Mitten for The National

Andy Mitten is taking the alternative route around France for Euro 2016. While most journalists will be packing press boxes, Andy will follow the fans and the buzz to bring you an alternative take on the tournament. Here is Day 9 from Saint-Etienne.

SAINT-ETIENNE, France // England fans asking for information outside St-Etienne’s train station before Monday night’s final group game against Slovakia will be handed flyers suggesting they visit a free exhibition celebrating the fortunes of the local heroes, AS St-Etienne.

A five-minute walk from the town hall and 25 from the Geoffroy-Guichard Stadium, much of the exhibition covers the rise of the green-shirted team who were the strongest in France when they lifted nine Ligue 1 titles and six French Cups between 1962 and ’81.

“We’re very proud of the team,” explains the man selling ice creams – in several shades of green – in the nearby square.

“We love football in this city and we welcome visitors, but we are a little worried about the English because of the trouble we saw in Marseille and Lille.”

Read more of Andy Mitten’s dispatches from France

Day 8: Inside the Croatia storm with a 'sports terrorists' minority

Day 7: Atmosphere is just the ticket for Northern Ireland and their fans

Day 6: Marseille booming again thanks to France and Albania

England, Slovakia, Portugal and Iceland flags are flying in a city which does not usually see many tourists.

Bigger French metropolitan areas with more hotels and a better infrastructure including Nantes, Strasbourg or Montpellier were overlooked in favour of St-Etienne as a host for Euro 2016.

Being one of France’s biggest football cities went in its favour as did having one of the country’s favourite football grounds, with four steep stands.

St-Etienne has been synonymous with football since the 1970s. In 1976, the team from an industrial city of 172,000 located 50 kilometres west of Lyon in south central France reached the European Cup final, the first French team to advance so far.

St-Etienne is spruced up with a sleek tram system and mining museum, but for decades it was a bland industrial town of factory chimneys and warehouses.

“Proudly working class, proud of our industry,” explained restaurant owner Norbert de Bastiani, “our football team was our light.”

They reached the semi-finals of the 1975 European Cup, losing 2-0 in Munich after holding the brilliant Bavarians in France.

After another French title in 1975, the team of Robert Herbin went back into the European Cup. The city’s museum lists them as “an outsider” for that season’s competition, but that is underplaying it.

They did face stronger opponents than the previous year, overcoming Rangers 4-1 on aggregate before meeting the Russian champions Dynamo Kiev and their star Ballon d’Or winner Oleg Blockin.

Heavy snow in Kiev meant the game was shifted south to Crimea, where the Stephanois lost 2-0 in front of 40,000, a crowd comprised predominantly of Russian soldiers. They avenged the defeat in the second leg, winning 3-0 in France after extra time with a winner from Dominique Rocheteau.

“The cries of joy that filled the cauldron are indescribable,” recalls the museum. “There’s no stopping the Stephanois.” PSV Eindhoven were next in the semi-finals. They won 1-0 at home and drew 0-0 in Eindhoven to qualify for the final.

Bayern Munich awaited them at Glasgow’s Hampden Park. The Greens were without the injured Christian Synaeghei and Gerard Farsion, while future France manager Jacques Santini wore No 10. The captain was Jean-Michel Larque, who won a record seven French titles. Thirty thousand French travelled to Scotland, only 5,000 from Munich. Most of the Scots were with the French and joined in chants of “Allez Les Verts”, their famous battle cry.

Bayern won 1-0, a third successive European Cup, but St-Etienne had chances to score and hit the crossbar. Fans cursed Hampden’s square posts, players cried at the end.

Museums are supposed to be impartial in tone, but the exasperation is clear in the description of the game’s only goal.

“In the 57th minute, Gerd Muller pushes Osvaldo Piazza: but a free kick is awarded [for Bayern]. While the Stephanois wall backs away, Franz Roth slams the ball into the back of the net, despite Ivan Curkovic’s spring. The frustration is enormous in the French camp. Les Verts have lost with honour but have won the hearts of millions of French people.”

Indeed. The following day, France became green. The national news was transmitted against a green background and its two presenters also wore green. French newspaper Liberation, which didn’t have a sport section, highlighted the St-Etienne phenomena.

“The intellectual community isn’t indifferent to the ‘peoples opium’ of football,” writes the museum.” The scholar Bernard Pivot talked about his passion for the Greens in interviews. The president Valery Giscard d’Estaing met the team which paraded down the Champs Elysees.

There would be no more domestic wins for five years. In 1977, St-Etienne did win the French cup and met English Cup winners Manchester United in the following season’s Cup Winners’ Cup, the first leg marred by football violence.

“Some of the English were hooligans and some of the French threw bread at them and fought with them,” explained restaurant owner de Bastiani who was in the stadium, “The police were involved but it was over quickly.”

With parallels to current events in France, the English were branded thugs, yet United were promised adequate segregation when there was none.

“The main protagonists in St-Etienne were the CRS, France’s paramilitary unit who were let off their leash to quell fighting on the terraces and resorted to fifteen minutes of baton-wielding Anglo-bashing,” recalled Pete Molyneux, a steward on one of the nine United coaches.

United were kicked out of Europe, but their manager Sir Matt Busby appealed and Uefa relented on the insistence that the return leg was played at least 200 kilometres miles from Old Trafford.

“Few in Britain knew how long a kilometre was then, some of us still don’t,” explains Molyneux, “but the rough translation was 125 miles. Uefa said they had considered the second leg being played behind closed Old Trafford doors.”

The game was actually played in Plymouth, 446 kilometres from Old Trafford and United triumphed.

St-Etienne faded as richer clubs bankrolled by millionaires moved to the fore of French football, but they tried to get back to the top. In 1979, they signed the outstanding Dutch winger Johnny Rep and he starred in a side which including a young Michel Platini. They won the league for the last time in 1981. Platini was sold to Juventus a year later, out of contract and on a free transfer.

In 1983, St-Etienne’s legendary red-haired Parisian manager Robert Herbin stepped down after 11 years in charge.

As a coach, his key was to develop youth, his vision backed by club president and businessman Roger Rocher, who also left in ’83.

Their place in the cultural conscious remained in British pop music when the group St-Etienne named themselves after the club and the team who finished sixth in Ligue 1 last season, with the fourth highest crowds in France of 30,328. They’re remembered fondly by football fans who recall the ’70s.

What a shame, then, that the 100,000 foreign football fans arriving in the city for Euro 2016 are not able to buy the famous green St-Etienne shirt in the busy city centre which is full of visitors, but only in the club shop behind the stadium. That is an opportunity Rocher and Herbin would not have missed as they made the team from a town of chimneys one of the most famous in the world.

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