The Wilderness and Les Verts
Les Bleus: The History of French Football
Course 1 · Chapter 5 · The Wilderness and Saint-Étienne
After 1958 the national team went through two decades of disappointment, while at club level a mining and steel city in the Loire valley became the most successful French side of its era. This chapter covers the lean years, the clubs that carried French football in the 1960s and 1970s, and the story of AS Saint-Étienne, the "Greens" (Les Verts), whose defeat in the 1976 European Cup final at Hampden Park in Glasgow made them national heroes. Names, dates and scores are from general knowledge and flagged "check".
The Wilderness
Missing the World Cups
France played in the 1966 World Cup in England and went out in the group stage. It then failed to qualify for the World Cups of 1970 and 1974, and reached 1978 in Argentina only to go out in the first round again (check). The generation of Kopa and Fontaine had retired or been injured, and no equivalent group replaced it for years.
Why
Historians and journalists give several reasons: the weakness of the national coaching and selection structure, the departure of leading players to foreign clubs, the quality of clubs' youth work, and a federation that gave little priority to the national side (check). There is no single agreed answer.
The clubs
Club football flourished while the national team did not. Nantes won the league in 1965 and 1966 and several times afterwards, with a short-passing "Nantes style" under the coach José Arribas (check). Marseille won in 1971 and 1972 (check). The most successful club of the period was Saint-Étienne.
Saint-Étienne: The Greens
| Point (check each) | Detail |
|---|---|
| The city | A coal-mining, arms and cycle-making city in the Loire, which suffered economic decline. The club and its stadium, the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, known as "le Chaudron" (the cauldron), became a symbol of the town. |
| The titles | Ten league titles, between 1957 and 1981, most of them in the 1960s and 1970s, a French record at the time (check). |
| The coaches | Albert Batteux, who coached the club briefly in the late 1960s, and above all Robert Herbin, a former player who coached it for many years from 1972 (check). |
| The players | Dominique Rocheteau, nicknamed the "Green Angel" for his long hair and speed; Jean-Michel Larqué, Patrick Revelli and Dominique Bathenay in midfield and attack; the Yugoslav goalkeeper Ivan Ćurković (check). |
| The colour | The green shirt became a trademark of the club, and Les Verts is a nickname for the club and was used for the whole team. |
Hampden Park, 1976
- The run. In 1975 to 1976 Saint-Étienne beat Rangers in the first round, PSV Eindhoven in the quarter-finals and Dynamo Kyiv in the semi-final to reach the final of the European Cup (check each).
- The final. It was played on 12 May 1976 at Hampden Park in Glasgow, in front of about 54,000 people. Bayern Munich, the European champions in the two previous years, won 1-0 with a goal by Franz Roth from a free kick (check).
- The posts. Saint-Étienne hit the woodwork twice. Hampden's goalposts were square, unlike the round ones used in France, and the phrase "les poteaux carrés" (the square posts) became a French expression for bad luck (check). It is still used today.
- The reception. When the team returned to France, the players were welcomed by large crowds in Paris and in Saint-Étienne, in a celebration out of proportion to a defeat (check). It was, for many people, the first time that a French club had captured the whole country.
- The legacy. The side was a model for the French national team, and its players, including Rocheteau, Bathenay and Janvion, were part of the squad that Michel Hidalgo built in the late 1970s (Chapter 6, check).
The 1978 World Cup
France qualified for the World Cup in Argentina in 1978, the first time since 1966. It lost to Italy and to the hosts, beat Hungary, and went out in the first round (check). A story is told about the match with Hungary: both sides had brought white shirts, and France played in green-and-white stripes borrowed from a local club (check). It is a detail that is repeated in many accounts, and a useful case of an anecdote to check against a contemporary report.
The Black Fund
The Saint-Étienne success ended in scandal. In 1982 an investigation found that the club's president, Roger Rocher, and other officials had kept a hidden fund (la caisse noire) of money, and that players had received payments outside the contract system (check). Rocher was arrested and later convicted, the club's leadership collapsed, and the great side broke up (check). The case is an example of how the money in French football was often handled informally, and it came back in the Marseille affair of the 1990s (Chapter 6, check). It should be reported only to the extent that it is documented in court and press records.
Exercises
Suggest two reasons why a defeated finalist can become more famous than the winner, using Saint-Étienne in 1976 as the example, and say what evidence would test each.
Test the anecdote of the "square posts" or the borrowed green shirts of 1978 as a source: what supports it, who told it and when, and what would you want to see?
Compare the rise of Saint-Étienne with a Scottish club of your choice (Celtic in 1967, Aberdeen in 1983 or another): what did each have in common and what was different?
Quick Reference
- Wilderness: missed 1970 and 1974; out in the first round in 1966 and 1978 (check)
- Saint-Étienne: ten titles, 1976 final lost 1-0 to Bayern at Hampden Park
- People: Robert Herbin, Dominique Rocheteau, Jean-Michel Larqué, Roger Rocher
- Phrase: les poteaux carrés (the square posts)