In the Bagatelle park, in the northern part of the Bois de Boulogne, it is the influx of great days, on this Sunday in March 1892. Two thousand people took advantage of the arrival of spring to go green and attend a sporting afternoon. On the meadow, the Racing Club de France challenges the Stade Français for the first final of the French rugby championship. The crowd is there. The organizers ensure that spectators stay behind the wooden barriers built for the occasion. The smartest take advantage of the cacophony to gain a building that borders the land, just to climb on the roof and better appreciate the show. On the green rectangle, the Racing players, who already wear their famous sky and white striped tunic, listen attentively to the instructions of the referee of the day, Baron Pierre de Coubertin. The meeting is harsh, close, between the thirty actors. The Hauts-de-Seine players finally win 4 to 3, and raise, for the first time, the shield of Brennus. The rivalry between the two major clubs in the Paris region has kicked off.
129 years have passed and this trophy, fixed on a thick wooden board, still recognizes the winner of the French rugby championship. An object coveted throughout France, which crystallizes the rivalry between the two Ile-de-France formations whose recent history is peppered with tensions.
Return of Ile-de-France derbies
While the professionalization of rugby is coming to the fore in the mid-1990s, clouds are beginning to cover the sky over Colombes. Racing, a historic club still champion in 1990, began its inexorable descent. The sports results are disappointing. In 1996, the team was relegated to the second division. Despite an express rise among the elite, disillusions are linked on the lawn of the Yves-du-Manoir stadium. In the spring of 2000, the Hauts-de-Seine formation was downgraded again. The club is struggling to regain its former glory. Its main rival is on a much more positive dynamic.
At the turn of the 2000s, in a few seasons, the French Stadium of President Max Guazzini established itself as one of the essential teams of the elite. A prosperous period, punctuated by several titles of champions of France (1998, 2000, 2003, 2004, among others). On the other side of the ring road, Racing 92 is trying to rebuild itself. The arrival of Jacky Lorenzetti at the head of the club in 2006 marks a change of dynamics, with a much larger budget. In 2009, Racing went back to Top 14. It was the return of the Ile-de-France derbies.
The skies and whites manage to climb to the heights of the ranking. Even better, the club gleaned a league title in 2016. But the story does not end there between the two mastodons of rugby in the Ile-de-France region, whose paths cross again regularly. Two recent episodes rekindle the rivalry: the failure of the merger project and the recent transfer of Gaël Fickou to Racing 92, made official during the season.
The failed merger
On March 13, 2017, hand in hand, the two Ile-de-France presidents – Jacky Lorenzetti and Thomas Savare – organize a press conference for an important announcement. The reason ? A merger project is being developed between the two clubs in Ile-de-France. In the process, the vice-captain of the Stadistes, the international Pascal Papé indicates that “99.8% of players have deposited a unlimited strike notice». Many supporters of the French Stadium also criticize the initiative, believing to detect a redemption disguised as a merger. The former French Stade players committee dismantles the company: “We do not anathematize 135 years of history and 14 Brennus shields. No one today has the power to close a book that so many men have helped write. ” To calm the sling, Jacky Lorenzetti, President of Racing, hastens to send a letter to all subscribers to justify his choice. Without much success.
Under popular pressure as well as former and current players, the two presidents decided to back down. “I did not expect such resistance, especially internally, then indicates Jacky Lorenzetti. In any case, the social, political, cultural, human and sporting conditions are not met. ” Same speech on the side of Thomas Savare, the president of the French Stadium, who also prefers to back down. It is impossible to wipe out more than a century of rivalry with the wave of the hand. Asked by the team a week ago, Stadiste Jonathan Danty did not hesitate to call the failure of this project his “Best victory for the club”.
The transfer that irritates
The flame is rekindled again in March 2021. As the season is in full swing, Gaël Fickou, three-quarter center of the French Stadium and the Blues, is transferred to the rivals of Racing 92. The transfer is made possible by the extension of the transfer period until April, decided by the National Rugby League in due to the health context.
Interviewed by RMC Sport in May, Gaël Fickou returned to this episode. If the center understands the disappointment of the supporters, he recalls that his future has been endorsed by both parties. Before adding on the conditions of his departure, and the relationship he has with his former teammates: “The hardest part for them was for me to go to the enemy. And that’s understandable. ” The reunion, this Friday evening on the ground of the Arena 92 in play-offs for the semi-finals of the Top 14, promise to be muscular. Kick-off at 8:45 p.m.
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