Today I'm going back 22 years to 1999 and PSG's Ligue 1 game against Rennes at the Parc des Princes in Paris, played in front of a crowd of 43,991. The programme is of the newspaper variety but was given away free so I shouldn't complain about the format too loudly.
The programme cover star is (wait for it) Eric Rabesandratana (now that's good hand in scrabble!) and, according to the programme he is a rock. So a rock star if you will. Actually, before he joined PSG he was a bit of a Nancy boy. Well he began his career at Nancy and moved to PSG in 1997 where he helped the club to win the French FA Cup, League Cup and Supercup (a Charity Shield equivalent) in his first year before eventually becoming club captain. Nicknamed "Rabe" for obvious reasons, he stayed with PSG until 2001 making 101 Ligue 1 appearances (5 goals) and has since played for Chateauroux (France), Mons (Belgium) and Agioi (Greece). Rabe is currently operating as the caretaker manager of the Madagascar national team (FIFA ranking currently 101).
This game took place in 1999 remember so it was sometime before PSG turned into the oil rich state sponsored super club that they have since become. In 2011 the club was taken over by a company controlled by the Emir of Qatar and the club is now recognised as being one of the richest in the world. Rennes, from Brittany, are a much more modestly financed football club and they have never won the French Ligue 1 title.
I've mentioned here before that I lived and worked in France from 1998 to 2000 and, just occasionally, I was allowed out to watch a football match. PSG were the nearest big team to where we lived and match tickets were relatively easy to get hold of from the local FNAC. The featured game was played on a Sunday night with an 8:45PM kick off so any Rennes supporters travelling to the capital wouldn't have made it home until the early hours of Monday morning. Given that Rennes went down 1-0 I suspect that most Rennes supporters would have preferred to watch this one from their armchairs.
PSG finished the season in second place, runners up to Champions Monaco who won the league by seven points. Stade Rennais came 13th in the 18 club French top flight, just one point more than those Nancy boys (I'm really milking this one aren't I?) who were relegated.
CRB Match No. 1173
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