Paris

Paris St Germain – Parc des Princes – Capacity – 48,712 All Seater

The Stadium – Parc des Princes
24 Rue du Commandant Guilbaud, Paris 75016
The Parc de Princes was for so long the jewel in French sports grounds, boasting the biggest capacity and best facilities. Named after the Monarch’s hunting grounds that it sits on, it was originally opened in the late 19th century as a multi-purpose venue. It hosted athletics, cycling (it has been used for the final stages of the Tour de France), football and rugby.

It was also for long periods of time not used by any club side – the current tenants Paris Saint-Germain have only been formed in 1970. The ground was chosen by UEFA in 1956 to host the first ever Champions League final as Real Madrid beat Stade Reims. The stadium has gone on to host the European Cup final in 1975 when Bayern Munich beat Leeds United and again in 1981 when Liverpool beat Real Madrid. Two European Cup Winners Cup Finals and one UEFA Cup Final. In the late 1960’s the local city council wanted to demolish the stadium to make way for the newly constructed Paris Ring Road. Local opposition saw a huge demonstration mobilised against the plans and a compromise was found where the stadium was redeveloped by turning the pitch around allowing a tunnel to be built underneath.

The new remodelled stadium opened in 1972 for the French Cup Final between Marseille and Bastia, and the newly formed Paris Saint-Germain moved in 1972/73 season. The stadium was modernised again in 1984 as one of the host stadiums for the European Championships, which was won by France by beating Spain in the stadium – possibly the ground’s finest moment. In 1998 it also hosted a number of games in the World Cup Finals. A year later it hosted group matches for the Rugby World Cup including England’s quarter final defeat to South Africa. It will again host the Rugby World Cup next year.

The stadium can create an excellent atmosphere on match days. All of the stands are close to the pitch, and all seats in the two tier stadium offer unobstructed views. The hardcore PSG fans, the Boulogne Boys are located in the south stand. For games versus their hatred rivals Marseille the stadium is whipped up into a cauldron of noise and colour hours before kick off and is one of the great sights in football. Few stadiums in Europe can match this atmosphere.

Who Plays There?
Many people associate PSG as the most successful team in France. This fact just underlines the power of the media – the team actually ceased to exist until 1970 when two local teams – Racing Club Paris and Saint-Germain Ensoon merged and gained some favourable decisions from the FFR in gaining firstly a place in the top division, and secondly being given a state of the art stadium in the newly remodelled Parc de Princes. One of the major backers in the team at the outset was media giant Canal Plus who used their channels to push the team’s image across Europe.

The early years were less favourable to the team as they struggled to make an impact, although they were up against some very good teams such as the Michel Platini-inspires St Etienne club. During the 1980’s the club started to make some progress on the field, although they were still struggling to attract the fans. They won their first trophy in 1982 when they captured the French Cup with exiled Ossie Ardiles pulling the strings. They won their first championship in 1986, although their debut in the European Cup lasted 180 minutes as they lost to Karvina 3-2 on aggregate. In 1991 they club were technically bankrupt, and it took some huge investment from Canal Plus to keep the team afloat. In 1993 the new look team featuring stars like Louis Fernandez, George Weah and David Ginola delivered trophies in the golden period for the club. The French Cup was brought home in 1993, 1995 and 1997 and they cup won the championship again in 1994.

European football was next on the agenda for the club and they started with the UEFA Cup in 1993/94. An impressive run of victories over PAOK Salonica, Napoli (with a fit again Maradona) and Anderlecht got them through to the Quarter-Finals versus Real Madrid. In one of the most famous games in the club’s history, PSG turned around a 3-1 defeat from Spain with a 4-1 victory, winning 5-4 on aggregate. In the Semi-Finals they lost 3-1 to Juventus, despite having number opportunities to snatch a winner in the 1-0 second leg home defeat. After the championship victory in 1994 they gained automatic qualification for the Champions League group stages put the club in the European spotlight for the first time. They did not disappoint initially, becoming one of the first (and subsequent only) teams to win all 6 group games against Bayern Munich, Spartak Moscow and a Shevchenko/Rebrov powered Dynamo Kiev.

In the Quarter-Finals they got a tough draw against Barcelona. However, a 2-1 win in Paris took them through 3-2 on aggregate and into the last four. Unfortunately this turned out to be the club’s peak as a 3-0 defeat to AC Milan saw them miss out on the final.

Undeterred, Louis Fernandez’s team picked themselves up and started an assault on the European Cup Winners Cup in 1996. The club easily brushed past Molde of Norway, Celtic and Parma to reach their third successive European Semi-Final. This time they managed to convert their chances and a 2-0 victory over Deportivo La Coruna took them into the final in Brussels versus Austria Vienna, and winning 1-0 with the goal being scored by Bruno N’Gotty – securing the club’s first ever European trophy.

The following season the club set out to retain their title in the European Cup Winners Cup. They easily beat Vaduz of Liechtenstein in the first round, before beating Galatassaray in another classic at the Parc de Princes (overturning a 4-2 1st leg deficit to win 6-4) and AEK Athens to take a place in the semi-finals for the fourth consecutive year. There, they met Liverpool and in a completely one sided home leg powered to a 3-0 lead. Despite some very nervous last few minutes at Anfield, a 2-0 defeat saw them reach the final again in Rotterdam. This time, Ronaldo’s penalty was the only difference between the teams.

The club took its place in the Champions League in 1998 again after winning the championship, and in a group featuring Bayern Munich, Besiktas and Gothenburg surprised a few by finishing joint top of the league with the Germans but with only two of the 6 runner’s up assured of a place in the Quarter-Finals they missed out on goal difference – the 5-1 hammering they received in Munich proving to be decisive.

Just when it seemed the club were ready to take their place amongst some of Europe’s greatest teams, the investment dried up, and so did the honours. Apart from a few brief appearances in the UEFA Cup, European football has gone too as the club slip further behind Olympique Lyonnais in terms of domestic success. A solitary Cup Final win in 2006 was the first for three seasons. The current team contains a number of young French players, although the most notable player is Portugal’s Pauletta.

The crowds have at least stayed with the club, averaging over 40,000 for the past five seasons. This year the club have started the season under Guy Lacombe with poorly, putting pressure on him with a number of defeats to teams they would normally be expected to beat. A season that yields two cup finals can normally not be a disaster but in PSG’s case they came so close to losing their top level status. If they would have lost away at Sochaux instead of winning in the final game they would have been relegated instead of Lens. A League Cup final win may be some reward and does bizarrely mean UEFA Cup football next year but the fans will not tolerate such performances again.

How to get to the Parc Des Princes
The Stadium is located to the south west of the city centre, right (technically above) the inner ring road. The easiest way to reach the stadium is by metro as it is served by both Line 9 to Pont de Sèvres and Line 10 to Boulogne-Pont de st-Coud. The stadium is signposted as you leave either station. You can also get regular bus services to Porte de St Cloud via the 22, 62 and 72 routes.

For an overview of who plays where in Paris, go to Footiemap.com to access their excellent website and their map of grounds in the French capital.

How to get a ticket for the Parc Des Princes
Tickets are available for most games. The game which is always going to sell out is the one versus Marseille where you will need to buy along way in advance. Tickets can be bought from the Club’s megastores at the stadium or in the Champs D’Elysee. The club also sell the tickets via http://www.ticketclic.fr. Tickets range in price from €60 for a seat in Sections CD Rouge (Upper Tier in the middle) to €19 in the Boulogne end where the Boulogne Boys are located. A good safe bet for the neutral is in the HIJ sections which cost €32.

The Stadium – Stade de France – Capacity – 79,959 All Seater
Cornillon Nord, La Pleine, Saint Denis

About the Stade de France
In 1992 FIFA announced that France would host the 1998 World Cup Finals. One of the conditions of awarding them the finals was the provision of a stadium that could hold more than 70,000 fans. With only Marseille’s Stade Velodrome anywhere near this, and the fact that it was almost unheard of for a capital city not to host a World Cup Final (only Washington DC in modern times have not hosted the final after being awarded the competition), work started almost immediately on finding a site to build a state of the art venue. Once a site had been located in the north of the city, and funding put in place, construction started in 1995. What was unique about this project was the amount of resource allocated to the construction which meant that less than two years later, the stadium was ready and being used.

The stadium has a number of unique features such as the roof that appears to float above the stands – it is actually 42metres above the playing surface and gives complete cover from the elements to the 80,000 spectators. The lower tier is built in such as way that 25,000 seats can slide back into the middle tier allowing events such as Speedway and athletics to take place without compromising the views for Football and Rugby. The stadium is one of the best in the world in terms of spectator facilities and the sightlines are excellent.

Paris Saint-Germain were given the opportunity to move there, but decided to stay in the south west of the city. For a few games Red Star Paris played here and actually attracted a crowd of over 45,000 for a league game versus St Etienne in 1999. The stadium also hosts the annual Rugby game between Stade Francais and Toulouse, which is normally sold out.

The stadium not only hosted the famous World Cup Final between France and Brazil in 1998, but has also hosted the majority of the French football and rugby national games since opening. It has also hosted two Champions League finals – firstly in 2000 when Real Madrid beat Valencia, and in 2006 when Barcelona beat Arsenal. It will also host the final of the Rugby World Cup in October 2007. The stadium offers daily tours for €10 including two per day in English at 10.30am and 2.30pm. Click here to see a video taken in the stadium when France played England in March 2008.

How to get to the Stade de France
The stadium is located in the Saint Denis area just north of the inner ring road, and almost adjacent to the A1 motorway that runs up towards Calais. It is very well served by public transport with the authorities deciding to build access points at either end of the stadium – a fact that the planners of Wembley Stadium have overlooked. RER station Stade de France-St Denis is on the Green line that passes through city from Creteil in the south, whilst RER station Le Plaine-Stade de France links Paris CDG airport in the north with Orly airport in the south on the Blue Line B. Both stations are one stop from Gare du Nord and the journey time is about 7 minutes. Metro line 13 also serves the stadium through the stop at St Denis-Porte de Paris.

If you want to travel by bus to the stadium then use lines 139 from Porte de la Villette or 173 from Porte de Clichy. A taxi from the centre of the city will cost around €20.

For an overview of who plays where in Paris, go to Footiemap.com to access their excellent website and their map of grounds in the French capital.

How to get a ticket for the Stade de France
Depending on what the event is will depend on the ease of getting a ticket for the stadium. Most French Rugby internationals are sold out and tickets never go on general sale. Tickets for the French League and Cup Finals go on sale around 4 weeks before the events via http://www.ticketclic.fr. They also sell tickets for the French Football team internationals and it can be possible to get these within a day or so of the game.

Nearest Airport – Charles De Galle (CDG)
Telephone: +33 1 48 62 22 80
Website: http://www.aeroportsdeparis.fr

Paris CDG airport is located around 25km to the north east of Paris, adjacent to the A1 motorway that runs up to Calais. It one of the biggest airports in the world in terms of size, and the second busiest in Europe behind Heathrow. It has five terminals in total – although they are split into two hubs – A & B. The airport is connected to Paris by the RER rail line which runs to Gare du Nord and Les Halles in around 25 minutes from the station in terminal 2B. The station also serves TGV trains to Lille, Lyon and Marseille.

The airport has not been without its incidents in the past including the crash just after take off on a Turkish airline, carrying England Rugby fans in the early 1970’s as well as the fateful Concorde crash in July 2000. Also, shortly after Terminal 2E opened in 2004 part of the ceiling collapsed and killed four people. The airport is also famous for being the real-life location of the man depicted in the film The Terminal – where Tom Hanks’ character is denied entry to his destination, but then cannot leave the airport due to visa restrictions. The real life character Merhan Karimi Naseri still lives at the airport, despite being free to leave. The following airlines currently use Paris CDG.

Terminal 1
BMI – Leeds/Bradford and London Heathrow
BMIBaby – Cardiff and Nottingham/East Midlands
Flybe – Exeter and Norwich

Terminal 2B
British Airways – London Heathrow
BA Connect – Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester

Terminal 2F
Air France – London Heathrow and Manchester
Brit Air – Newcastle and Southampton
CityJet – Birmingham, Edinburgh and London City

Terminal 3
Easyjet – Bristol, Liverpool, London Luton and Newcastle
Jet2 – Leeds/Bradford

Alternative Airport – Paris Orly (ORY)
Telephone: +33 1 49 75 52 52
Website: http://www.aeroportsdeparis.fr

Orly Airport is becoming more important as a route to Paris as CDG starts straining at the edges due to over capacity. It is located closer to the city than CDG, although journey times tend to be the same. There are a number of ways to reach the city centre. The most direct is to catch the transit from either Orly Ouest or Orly Sud to Antony station which takes 8 minutes. From there you can then catch RER line B to Les Halles in less than 25 minutes. There is also a bus that runs to Denfert Rochereau in the city in approximately 30 minutes. The airport has two terminals – South and West. The following airlines fly to Orly – Easyjet from London Gatwick, Thomsonfly from Bournemouth, Coventry and Doncaster-Sheffield, and Air France from London City

Alternative Airport – Beauvais Tille (BVA)
Telephone: +33 892 682 073
Website: http://www.aeroportbeauvais.com

Whilst being around 60 miles north of Paris, Beauvais airport earns the right to call itself Paris as much as Luton or Stansted do to call themselves London airports. The airport was originally a military base until 1956 when it opened to commercial flights. Ryanair became the first major airline to start using the airport in 1998. They currently fly here from London Stansted and Glasgow Prestwick. A bus meets all inbound flights, taking 75 minutes to reach the city centre at Port Maillot. Tickets cost €13 each way.

Our last visit – March 2008

Late in 2007 the FA announced that England would play a friendly against one of the qualifiers of Euro2008. They had announced a game already in November against the old enemy, Germany, and having played Netherlands just a year previously it was a toss up as to whether it would be the Czech Republic in Prague, Italy in Rome or perhaps Sweden in Gothenburg. A couple of options it wasn’t gonna be was Russia, Croatia, Turkey or Romania..which of course basically left France. And so with a great fanfare they announced a friendly against them…typical! Well at least they could play somewhere different. Toulouse maybe, Lyon would be nice and of course there was always the Velodrome in Marseille. But no, it had to be Paris, bloody Paris.

In the past six months I had been to the Stade de France on four occasions. Granted they were to see rugby matches, and granted I had only seen one football match in stadium before (France v Romania in March 2002), but Paris again? But in my quest to get as many caps under my bet as possible it was never going to be a game I was going to miss. I have always publically stated how I hate Paris. A year of working in the city is enough to show the real Paris behind the tourist facade, and it not beautiful, its not chic and its not cultured. It is full of rude people who have no idea of fashion or work ethics. So the temptation to spend more than an hour in the city was not appealing to me so I planned a very quick trip. I managed to get a crossing via Eurotunnel for 2pm, returning at 2am meaning I could take a half day off work. I then started filling the car with willing passengers. Surprisingly I had no problems filling the car for this short journey. The original plan was for Red Rob, his mate Jonno, Knighty from work, Karl the Yid and CMF. With six in the car the cost of the trip including the ticket would be less than £50 which was acceptable even for such a shit place.

The talk leading up to the game was whether Fabio Capello in only his 2nd game in charge would grant Beckham his 100th cap. The big surprise though was that somehow Robert Green had been called into the squad for the first time in 9 months. Green is recognised by most who watch the Premier League on a regular basis as the most consistent English goalkeeper, yet in that 9 month period he has been overlooked in favour of 37year old David James, Paul Robinson, Ben Foster (still to play a game in the Premier League) and Scott Carson (He would be overlooked later in the year by Joe Hart and Peterborough’s 19year old keeper Joe Lewis).

Due to childcare issues CMF was unable to attend, and so the five of us left SE9 at lunchtime. The forum was already full of stories about ridiculously priced beer in Paris, people being mugged and absolutely no atmosphere. There had been a big fan party arranged, in an Irish Bar of course and it seemed that people were complaining that it could have been anywhere in the world – doh you think so? I find it so ironic that when these groups of mindless fans get together abroad they always head for an Irish Bar, drink Guinness and sing “No Surrender to the IRA”.

The journey was textbook. With little traffic on the motorway down to Paris we covered the 200 or so miles in less than 3 hours and arrived at the stadium 3 hours before kick off. I had pre-booked parking at the stadium via Francebillet.com. However, it appeared that I needed to pick up my ticket from the “shop”. What shop,where did it say that ? Nothing in this crap country is straight forward. Why couldn’t I print out the ticket online? Too simple and straightforward. A kindly man (must have been a Belgian) took pity on us and gave us a spare ticket and we parked underneath the stadium. The area around the stadium is filled with temporary bars on a match day, and whilst many England fans had booked up the hotel chains around this area, it still wasn’t too busy as the majority of fans had not yet left the city centre.

We headed into a restaurant to have some food and a couple of beers. With an hour to kick off we headed inside. I had only seen the stadium from the upper tiers and the press area and could not believe how much of a dump the lower tiers were. Toilets overflowed with urine, rubbish was piled up everywhere and there was virtually nowhere to eat or drink.

The teams were announced and Beckham was in. Ferdinand was named captain in the latest idea of the Italian to rotate the armband, and the rest of the team almost picked itself. David James was in goal, and I had bad memories from the last time he kept goal against France, in Euro2004 in Lisbon when he brought down Henry in the last minute to hand victory to the French. And sure enough, history repeated itself in this game as James brought down Anelka and Frank Ribery slotted away the spot kick.

Despite the likes of Rooney, Gerrard, Barry and Joe Cole occupying the midfield England did not create one change in the first hour, and it took the introduction of Bentley, Crouch and Owen to spark them into life. However,with the 4,500 England fans counting down the minutes until they could get back into the bars it was no surprise that the players were as lethargic as the supporters. It appeared that no one wanted to really be there, but some of the behaviour of the England fans was appalling. Some felt it acceptable to abuse fellow fans who wanted to sit down, or those who didn’t want to sing or chant. So what is the issue with this? Some of these moronic fans would be the ones who feel that “No Surrender” is still the anthem of the England team, and that abusing foreign players because they are not English is acceptable. And of course our FA, who are completely blameless in this all. They can see from some of the posts on the forum the racist and xenophobic nature of certain individuals yet they decide to ignore these individuals but instead warn those who offer to swap tickets for the likes of Euro2008. Of course they are not only interested in the money the “idiot” element provide – they have the interests of the game at heart really.

The game ended on a whimper and we headed back to the car and the inevitable queues to get out of the stadium. Our timescales were tight. We had 3 hours to get back to Sandgatte and the traffic jams were not helping. Eventually we made it onto the motorway and put our fate into the hands of the TomTom satnav that took us in completely the wrong direction, then told us to turn around and lead us straight back into the traffic jam at the stadium. Time was ticking and it called for drastic action. Bribery……We needed to turn left, a policeman was directing all traffic right so we bribed him with a €5 note and he turned a blind eye and we were back where we started some 30 minutes previous. 205 miles in just under 2 hours proved quite a challenge. Not only was I a bit tired (after all it was now after midnight) but the French toll system meant that speeding was difficult as the toll booths work out your average speed and alert the authorities if this was excessive. So it was a balancing act in speeding on the non-toll areas. We made the crossing with 10 minutes to spare, and through a bit of luck actually boarded the Eurotunnel train first in the top row,meaning that when we disembarked some 35 minutes later we had officially become the first England fans back in England who had been to the game (probably), After a few drop off points on the way home I entered the bed of CMF at 4.35am. Was it worth it? No for the football, no for the travel and no for the time wasted but it had been an enjoyable afternoon and evening of football banter. One thing was certain though – England had missed out on Euro2008 on merit based on this performance. With almost a first team out from the 1st minute they had failed to create one single chance against one of the oldest defences to have qualified for the European Championships, and with no Plan B Capello will struggle to achieve anything with this group of players. Still, only 10 years to 2018!