Basque brothers, Catalan cousins
APRIL 2005. Seems like an age ago, doesn’t it? Tony Christie was top of the charts with ‘Is this the way to Amarillo’, the Celtic Tiger was still roaring, and Munster took on Biarritz in what was to be first professional rugby match ever played in Spain.
Rugby became a little less parochial that day as upwards of 10,000 Munster supporters descended on San Sebastian for a Heineken quarter-final that marked the end of an era for Alan Gaffney as coach of the Irish province. However it forged the beginnings of a love affair between Biarritz and its Spanish-Basque neighbour, a relationship that is now being cultivated by the Catalans of Perpignan and Barcelona.
First and foremost, money remains the key reason for moving these games south of the border. Both clubs talk fast and loose about the shared cultural heritage between say, Biarritz and San Sebastian and Perpignan and Barcelona, but the reality is much more complex. As public interest in French rugby has grown over the last couple of decades, so too has the interest in capitalising on a club’s natural hinterland. For Biarritz, and to lesser extent Bayonne, playing games south of the border was and is an experiment in growing and exploiting the Basque brand — albeit in an area that has traditionally had neither huge interest in rugby nor in supporting what are seen as ‘French’ teams.
That revelation came to light back in 2005, when some Biarritz supporters were startled to find that the locals were supporting the visitors over their French cousins. Part of that may have been down to the shared sense of goodwill that the Basque people have with the Irish but more of it could be explained by the antipathy directed towards the French and the huge differences in economic development along this coast. Shared culture or not, there is no hiding the international and socio-economic border that cuts the two down the middle.
Despite this, the San Sebastian experiment has been a huge commercial success for Biarritz. All talk of brand-building aside, the fact that Anoeta (Capacity 32,000) is double the capacity of the comfy Stade Aguilera remains the key reason for the move. With the potential of an extra €250,000 to be made per match, Biarritz’s local Bayonne rivals moved a Top 14 match there for the first time last season and plan more in the future.
In general the day out ‘down south’ seems to have become a major fixture for Biarritz supporters, and there are many who are beginning to regard the venue as equal in importance as their historical home at Aguilera. Biarritz’s 40-10 hammering of Bayonne in Anoeta a few weeks ago was the first derby ever played between the sides there. Hundreds of coaches ferried the thousands of fans over the border and the occasion was made more interesting by the decision of Bayonne to change from their light blue strip into the colours of local football side Real Sociedad. Banners hung from the stands extolling the new importance of the venue for the Biarritz supporters. “Anoeta, c’est chez nous” or “Anoeta, it’s our home,” read one. In terms of results on the pitch, it’s become something of a fortress since that first game in 2005 and with Biarritz currently experiencing a rich vein of form in the Top 14, it’s hoped the winning run will be continued against Toulouse on Sunday.
For Perpignan, the choice of Barcelona for their quarter-final was a huge coup for club president Paul Goze after many years of attempting to make it happen. Similar to the Basque County, Catalunya is split in two by the international border between France and Spain. Called Rousillion traditionally in France and located in the Pyrenees Orientale department, the area around Perpignan only came under the French banner in 1659, when Spain ceded the territory to its northern neighbour. As in the Pays Basque, successive governments of the French Republic did their level best to try and stamp out the local culture in northern Catalunya. It didn’t work and the people of this region, one of the poorest in France, remain proudly Catalan first and French second, something that can’t be said about the wealthy Pays Basque.
Perpignan’s courtship with the footballing giant began back a decade ago although only recently has the football club begun to reciprocate in any meaningful way. In 2006, Perpignan chose the Camp Nou for a press conference to publicise their quarter-final against Munster. Sporting a Barcelona jersey, then club captain Bernard Gouts was paraded to a handful of press high up in the stands as the pitch was deemed out of bounds for the Catalan rugby men. In the absence of then Barcelona president Joan Laporta, they were instead given a tour of the club museum.
How times change. New Barcelona president Sandra Rosell has been far more interested in a meaningful partnership with their French Catalan neighbours, seeing it as a way of promoting the club’s Catalan identity and cross-border links with France’s 300,000 Catalans. “The USAP (Perpignan) match will be a festival for the whole of Catalan rugby, both north and south,” says Rosell. “We want it to be a festival for Catalunya, with strong values for FC Barcelona as well as for USAP. It’s important we show our love for USAP, and the fraternal bond that unites us.”
That fraternal bond didn’t quite reach towards the playing of the game at the famous 98,000 capacity Camp Nou however — Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola scuppered those plans when worries surfaced about the potential for damage to the playing surface at the iconic stadium. But the football club did throw its considerable weight behind the playing of the game at the Estadi Olimpic de Montjuic, the 55,000 capacity former home of football side Espanyol and home to the 1992 Olympics. The club has also been behind a major marketing push of the game in Barcelona, with the result that the game is expected to be a sellout.
With upwards of 30,000 fans expected to descend from France for the match, a festival atmosphere is expected in the Mediterranean city for what could be the game of the round. The hope is that the authorities in Barcelona will have looked to their compatriots in San Sebastian to see how a rugby match of this size differs from that of football. It was certainly something that the Basque city learned from experience. Back in 2005, there was a degree of worry over how the notorious local police would deal with 10,000 Munster supporters.
Toulouse publican and Munster supporter Roger Rooney recalls the atmosphere as intimidating: “We walked down the long avenue from the ground back into town but the streets were lined with riot police. We’d never seen anything like that before. They were all wearing balaclavas with padding from head to toe. They were obviously expecting a football-type atmosphere. We decided to walk a little faster after that.”
However such was the success of the initial foray that the Mayor of San Sebastian publicly thanked the teams and supporters for their visit, and suggested that the city might even bid for the final of the Heineken Cup some day in the future. Since then Biarritz have returned over a dozen times, boosting its profile hugely in France, Britain and Ireland. Rugby here has benefited too and while the game remains small compared to its northern neighbours, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that it is growing in the right direction.
With 219 clubs and over 20,000 registered rugby players at all levels, Spanish rugby’s proximity to the powerhouse that is the French Championship could see the sport flourish in the next few years. In 2008, the Spanish authorities announced the formation of the semi-professional Liga Superibérica, a league made up of 10 franchises from Portugal and Spain. However petty squabbling has done its best to derail the competition with no Portuguese involvement in the two years to date. If they can get that up and running, along with the increased profile that the Heineken games in Barcelona and San Sebastian bring, it is hoped that the game will really take root.
It’s also worth remembering that the stadium at Montjuic was the scene of Spain’s first international in 1929 when the home side beat Italy 9-0. A sign of things to come? Well maybe not in the next decade but then again it’s pertinent to remember that there were plenty of people who scoffed at the suggestion Italy would beat the Grand Slam champions within 11 years of joining. Time will tell if we will be toasting a Spanish victory over a Grand Slam-winning Italian team in the years to come. Funnier things have happened.
IT CAN’T be easy having a comic book character as a boss. Joe Van Niekerk is an irrepressibly good guy and here he is trying to pull his team along in the right direction while the biggest threat comes from inside the club. It seems a positive outlook on life can reward you in so many different ways, something the South African No. 8 has discovered during his three-season hiatus in the south of France.
Toulon have struggled for form recently and a few weekends ago, after a hard-fought 18-12 loss away to high-flying Castres, president Mourad Boudjellal went on the offensive, using the media to publicly berate his players and question his coach. He told a local paper that the players were “spoilt children who do not deserve their wages” and warned coach Philippe Saint André if he did not tell them, he’d tell them himself.
Typical fare then from Monsieur Boudjellal, who has made post-match rants an art form in recent times. From goading Munster about being funded by the IMF to accusing ERC that the Heineken semi-final draw was fixed, Boudjellal, who made his millions through his comic book business, has rarely been out of the papers. In the face of all this, you’ve got to wonder how Van Niekerk keeps the dressing room focused.
“There have been a lot of negative things said about the defeats,” admits Van Niekerk. “There’s been a lot of things said outside the team which have been dividing the inside of the team. I think we’ve been playing quite well but not been getting the results. That can all change with one weekend.
“You’ve got to roll with the punches over here. You have the owner of the club and he makes the calls. I think the boys who are here now, who pull on the jersey, are the important thing. I think we have to focus on playing for each other.”
The 32-16 win against Munster seems like a long time ago at this stage and the fact that the club have lost four of their last seven games is not lost on anyone at the club, particularly Boudjellal. And while it’s probably not the ideal time to be taking on Perpignan in their new Catalan home of Barcelona, Van Niekerk admits that this, above anything else in his time here, is what it’s all about.
“To be involved in such a historic day will be fantastic,” he declares. “When you’ve the big atmospheric games, you’ve got that force behind you. For a player these are the types of games you want to be involved in. These are the moments that you live for.
“It’s been a roller coaster ride this year with highs against Munster and lows against the Ospreys. It’s an intriguing thing, the Heineken Cup. It’s Europe’s premier club competition and you get a better idea of where you stand as a player. ”
For Van Niekerk, the move to Provence from Cape Town and the Stormers was more about personal growth than just rugby. Living in France has made him much more open minded about life and rugby, a totally different environment to what he had experienced before. It’s probably also the reason why he can put up with Toulon’s comic book club owner.
“I think your attitude has to be one of an open nature in France,” he says. “You’ve got to really try to integrate into something different. You have to accept that this is a different place. You’ve got to take everything with a smile.
“If you take the negative aspects on too much, then you’re not going to enjoy the experience. People coming here have to have an open mind and not let the small things let you down.
“It’s more than just rugby. Coming to a place like this and being open, that’s the greatest thing I’ll have taken away and learned.”
In that respect, learning the lingo remains the single most important part of integrating. Van Niekerk pays tribute to team-mate Jonny Wilkinson in that regard for his tireless approach to self-improvement. Be it tackling, goal-kicking or speaking French, it seems Wilko’s application shows why some players make it in France and others don’t.
“When I hear Jonny talk, now that’s top notch. It’s like anything in life; no matter what you come up against, you put your head down and go for it. A lot of guys might be afraid of making mistakes and not put it out there.
“If they sit there worrying about every single grammatical error, then you’re never going to say a word anyway. If you make mistakes, take it on the chin. People will respect the fact that you give it a go. That’s France.”
With that in mind, you can understand why Van Niekerk enjoys his time at Toulon and says he’s planning to stay beyond the end of his contract next year. Life in France working for the comic book man — he should write a book about it.
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