AS Saint-Étienne supporter: instructions for use
The supporters of France in the spotlight on sofoot.com. We went to meet those who keep our stadiums alive, who celebrate for their club, who cry for their club. In short, those who live for their club. Today, the time has come to focus on those who make the salt of the Cauldron: the supporters of Saint-Etienne.
Philippe Gastal, 60, doctor of pharmacy, curator of the Musée des Verts, supporter in front of the eternal
“I’m a Cantalou, so I support the Stade Aurillacois. But since childhood, one of my passions has been football and AS Saint-Étienne. As a child, I grew up in Aurillac, then in Montpellier, but in both cases, my father always took us to the matches in Saint-Étienne. He was a fan of the great Reims of Albert Batteux, so when Batteux arrived in Saint-Étienne, he followed the Greens. We started in the 504 or by train, direction Le Chaudron.Our weekends were punctuated by ASSE, we left on Saturday morning and came back on Sunday evening.We also followed the Greens outside, which was rare at the time. I discovered the cities of France, the geography and their history thanks to ASSE. Finally, the match was the icing on the cake. My very first, it was actually a trip, since it was the final Coupe de France against Nantes in 1970. At the Chaudron, the first was a friendly against Feyenoord Rotterdam, just European champion, and the he first European Cup match against Cagliari.
“The Marseille-Sainté of the 1970s were indescribable. Once, the Greens left in a bus loaned by supporters because their windows had shattered. Today, that would not happen again.” Philippe Gastal
From 1970 to 1982, I had to attend 80% of the matches of the Greens. ASSE has marked my life as a teenager and an adult, until today. I lived the good years as closely as possible. At the stadium, barely out of the car, we could already hear the stands singing, full, long before the match. Places were complicated to get, but my father worked in public works like President Rocher, that helped. We were there all the time, we sometimes had access to the players, I entered two or three times in the
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