Oh the memories...
CAST your mind back 10 years to France '98 and you will remember one of the endearing features of the tournament was the picturesque Stadia, including the old but impressive Parc Lescure (now Stade Chaban-Delmas) in Bordeaux.
Watching the highlights of the Coupe de France semi final between Amiens and Paris St Germain on Europsorts a little earlier, I stumbled across another little beauty, the Stade de la Licorne, home of French Ligue 2 side Amiens.
The pity for Amiens is that they couldn't win at their impressive stadium, PSG putting aside their terrible domestic form, and the disturbing use of tear gas by some of their fans (half an hour in the match was held up for 10 minutes), to win 1-0 thanks to a goal to Yannick Boli. Remember that surname? Yes, Yannick is the nephew of the great Marseille defender and 1993 champions league match-winner Basil (was that really 15 years ago?).
If you want to sample a bit of atmosphere inside the stadium, before the game, then check this out.
And one last bit of nostalgia from the highlights I saw. The ball they used looked like this;
Watching the highlights of the Coupe de France semi final between Amiens and Paris St Germain on Europsorts a little earlier, I stumbled across another little beauty, the Stade de la Licorne, home of French Ligue 2 side Amiens.
The pity for Amiens is that they couldn't win at their impressive stadium, PSG putting aside their terrible domestic form, and the disturbing use of tear gas by some of their fans (half an hour in the match was held up for 10 minutes), to win 1-0 thanks to a goal to Yannick Boli. Remember that surname? Yes, Yannick is the nephew of the great Marseille defender and 1993 champions league match-winner Basil (was that really 15 years ago?).
If you want to sample a bit of atmosphere inside the stadium, before the game, then check this out.
And one last bit of nostalgia from the highlights I saw. The ball they used looked like this;
posted by The Round Ball Analyst at 7.5.08
8 Comments:
Thanks Tony. Great intimate stadium and awesome atmosphere.
Would have been great to see the Gold Coast stadium in season 4 - hopefully the following year.
As an architect, the Stade de la Licorne is one of my favourite stadiums and would one day love to see it in the flesh so to speak. The architects who did this stadium have done a number of other quite good looking stadia although at the moment their name slips my mind.
Another favourite is the Estadio Olimpico in Venezuela by Carlos Raul Villanueva, the sculptural nature of the main stand is breathtaking.
My apologies for the architectural lesson, its my other great passion.
Great post Tony! (and Neil, no apologies necessary!).
The name Yannick rang a bell as soon as I read it - but I'm buggered if I can remember the exact time or place!
And the ball - well, I still own an extremely worn out one that must be close to 20 years old. It's the one I use whenever I want to hit a ball against a brick wall - it has certainly taken some punishment over those two decades!
This ball has another memory for me. One year when I was playing aussie rules (I played both codes when I was younger), I was driving with 4 team mates to a ground in the bush (common in country footy). Whenever someone had to stop for a piss, we got the round ball out and we had to do two hackey sacks before getting back into the car (keeping the ball in the air for two complete rounds with everyone touching the ball). Because the other four were all pretty hopeless, it often took a little longer than it should have!
My memory is that I got to the ground late and had to start on the bench!
By the way, just in case some watched the Adelaide game tonight, and didn't catch the Melbourne game, I've put up a bit of a post on my blog:
http://pippinu.blogspot.com/
Love that Stade de la Licorne stadium. With that picture it looks more like a square stadium than a rectangular one.
Is some ways it echoes the design of the new bubbledome stadium that it is being built in Melbourne.
nothing compares to the 'theatre of dreams'
If anyone wants to know, the architects for the Stade de la Licorne were Chaix + Morel, a french architectural firm.
Tony, I think you may inspired me to do my own writing on football stadiums.
great 2 read that neill, look fwd 2 readin it, and dont apologies, i just had 2 comment about licorne wen i saw it. Wow. Just gettin a few days of r&r up in port macq and will respond in more detail 2 comments wen im bak
wow I used to belt the hell out of balls that looked like that - at least in my dreams - top right from left and top left from the right... you know the sort of thing...
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