French foreign legion lend support
Some of them will even be told en francais by native Frenchmen.
Among the red hordes making the journey to the Catalan region this Sunday will be half a dozen devotees from the Aix-en-Provence town of Collobrières, situated four hours drive to the east of Stade Aime Giral.
The man responsible for this love affair is Jack Fitzgerald, whose attachment with the town in the Massif des Maures first began quarter of a century ago when he ended up lining out for the local team during a short visit.
It wasn’t long before he bought a house in the area and he has been returning ever since. A former London Irish player, the gospel of Irish and Munster rugby travelled withFitzgerald and the locals were eager converts. “They have a tremendous affinity with the Irish temperament,” he explains. “They noticed the difference between the two English-speaking peoples straight away and they were coming over to Ireland for the France games after a while.”
It was all very cordial from the off, not least because Ireland were hardly seen as a threat to the French on the pitch and the same line of thinking pervaded when the Heineken Cup began to get off the ground.
That all changed in 1999 when Munster beat Colomiers, their first win in the tournament in France, and the new reality really dawned when Toulouse were defeated in thesemi-final in Bordeaux the following year.
The celebrations in the city’s Connemara Bar that night opened the eyes of the men from Collobrières and they travelled to Toulouse, Castres, Perpignan, Stade Francais and Clermont in the years that followed.
Distance, it seems, has never been an issue. The Stade game involved a 1,700km round-trip and those who make the journey to Perpignan this weekend will clock up 800km by the time they return home.
“The Munster thing surprised everybody,” says Fitzgerald. “What they took on board was the sheer courage, commitment and honesty of the Munster lads who were a group of ordinary Joe Soaps that were starting to be paid for their hobby.”
Toulon, half-an-hour up the road, is still the locals’ first love but the demand for Munster jerseys in thevillage has been constant, with John Hayes’s No 3 and Foley’s old No. 8 among the most sought after.
The local Chez Borollo bar is adorned with countless Munsterphotos and signed balls and the kinship between the area and Munster has led to all sorts of spin-offs away from the sporting fields and bars.
Numerous children from Collobrières have spent time in Ireland learning English and people from half a dozen clubs in Limerick, Cork, Kerry and Kilkenny have taken the trip in the other direction. Though long-smitten, the relationship was cemented some years back during a trip to Dublin, when Fitzgerald’s old friend Brian O’Brien wangled a few passes into the Irish team hotel for some of the Collobrières crew. Before long, Mick Galwey, Peter Clohessy, Keith Wood and Anthony Foley were deep in conversation with their visitors about hunting and shooting, a hugely popular pastime in that area of Provence.
“The craic and comradeship at Munster games is very different to what they would have experienced at French matches,” says Fitzgerald.
“Everyone has an experience and a story about some complicated trip to away matches as well.”
The men from Collobrières have a few of their own by now.
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