Freshly elected to the presidency last August, Sébastien Franck looks back on the year at Amiens UC Badminton and discusses the club’s prospects for 2026.
After a record-breaking 2025 season, with a number of members beyond all expectations (more than 430), Sébastien Franck said to himself “satisfied with the enthusiasm around badminton in Amiens”et don’t hide your pride “to be the first club in Hauts-de-France. » Long-term work, thanks to “volunteers who made it possible to organize three national-scale tournaments (Duo Mixto, Hortillons and Jeunes Gargouilles), including for the first time a competition that could host the top French elite at the Coliseum. »
The success of an entire club, which is also based on the good performances in competition from the five teams which were involved in 2024-2025, namely: a third place for the Pre-National, a second place for teams 2 and 3, and first place for teams 4 and 5. But for the neo-president, « human unity, particularly among volunteers” remains an essential link, “without whom nothing is possible”.
A perpetual search for partners
Currently, Amiens UC Badminton is the only badminton club in the Somme to have a full-time coachin addition to a part-time APA educator. And this employer aspect is often the most difficult to manage for managers who must ensure they find resources to maintain these jobs with complete peace of mind. For Sébastien Franck, the biggest challenge remains financial, “in a context where it is complicated for everyone, and where it is even more difficult to find funding from individuals or private partners”
The manager is satisfied, after a more or less complex year, to have succeeded in setting up a few partnerships with companies such as Crédit Agricole Brie Picardie, Orpi Valenti, Seille InfoTech, Le Tower’s Pub and Métropole Couverture, even if the latter does not wish to limit itself to this list in this complicated context, where the prices of consumables, and in particular steering wheels, are soaring and can jeopardize operating models.
An essential continuity
The Samarian intends to get the club to continue its momentum : « I want to consolidate the work and projects implemented over the last two years by our former president, keep a united unity between all members and continue to offer the best possible gaming offer for all“. A complexity sometimes, when the means remain the same, in the face of a growing demand and need.
On a sporting level, the club hopes for good competitive performances from the 7 teams entered among the seniors, as well as among the youth individually, while perpetuating the sports health and sports disability projects, where Amiens UC Badminton offers slots dedicated to structures or associations, with the aim of introducing people to the practice of badminton over cycles of 8 sessions on average.
In any case, from 2026, the Samarian badminton pennant club is back in action with the organization of its Hortillons national tournament which will be held on February 28 and March 1and which will once again welcome players who are members of the French top 100. An unmissable event for the president, for whom “ The most important lesson to learn from the success of this past year is that it is all the members of the club who make it what it is today! Without cohesion and solidarity it cannot exist. The slightest action has its importance and is a small stone added to the building« which allows the AUC to make Amiens badminton shine throughout France.
Dorine Cocagne
Photo credit: Jean François Boidin – AUC Badminton / DR
