June 7th and I'm going back 24 years to 1997 and a match between France and England in Montpellier as part of the pre-World Cup rehearsal known in France as "Le Tournoi".
Le Tournoi was a four team round robin competition involving four of the top seven sides in the world at the time: France, England, Brazil and Italy. There were six matches in total and I went to the lot with my mate John Kerfoot.
The programme is interesting in that it wasn't freely available for sale at any of the games and was only given away for free in the VIP areas at each game. Fortunately for a programme collector like myself, we found ourselves in the VIP area for the two matches in Lyon (just along from Arsene Wenger if you please) and I hoovered up as many of the programmes as I could find. They're worth at least £25 each today but possibly quite a lot more as you rarely see them for sale.
Montpellier's Stade de la Mosson was one of the four venues used for the tournament and was hardly packed that night with an attendance of only 23,000 (capacity 32,900). England fans didn't travel in great numbers and the French didn't appear to be that bothered about watching their team either. How different it would be the following summer! The stadium had been renovated for the 1998 World Cup and hosted six games. It has since been used as a venue for the 2019 Women's World Cup, the 2007 Rugby Union World Cup and also occasionally by the Catalan Dragons Rugby League side.
The match was settled by a single goal scored right in front of us by the opportunistic Alan Shearer who latched onto a loose ball which had been spilled by the French keeper Fabien Barthez. I always felt that Barthez was a little suspect between the posts but he had a very good and highly decorated career and was almost a lucky mascot for France during the World Cup in 1998 where he had his shaven head kissed by Laurent Blanc before every match. Sir Alex Ferguson was surely a better judge of a player than I am and he signed Barthez who played a total of 139 games for Manchester United winning two Premier League titles along the way. Shearer didn't exactly kiss Barthez in scoring his goal but if the ball is there to be competed for then you have to be brave. Barthez recognised his error and nursed his injured hand as well as his pride following Shearer's goal. Barthez's time would come.
CRB Match No. 1117
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