That’s hockey at the end of the World for my non-French speaking followers.
I once watched (via the internet) England playing a World Cup qualifier in Chile on a pitch with huge jagged peaks around. And I once played a memorable match in Cromwell, on South Island New Zealand, as the sun went down on a background of high snow-covered mountains. They both seemed more at the edge of the world than La Baule – but sometimes it feels like we’re there as well.
The Loire passes through Nantes and reaches the sea at St. Nazaire, turn right and you’ll find La Baule, a classy seaside town with a great beach and, in the Salines area, a sports centre with a huge boulodrome, an indoor sports hall and a rugby pitch that doubles for a hockey pitch (their lines are white and ours are pink). We are the most westerly club in France – miss us and the next time you’ll see the game will be in Boston or Baltimore in the US.
Hockey has about 85,000 regular players in the UK, France has just 7,500, many of them around Paris and the region to the north. Clubs are much more geographically spread out in the Pays de Loire league that we play in – the guys can’t believe it when I tell them that I could have played for five teams within 15km of where I lived in Fleet, each of them with three or four teams. Last weekend we travelled to Laval to play – about 140 miles – for a 10:00 am start. In thirty-five years of playing hockey I’ve never had to meet at 7:30am for a match, 6:45am really as it took me 45 minutes to get to where I met the team in a Supermarket car park.
We had ten players (it’s always difficult with a single team club to cover absences) but started OK, although I got a bit worried when the umpire called me over before the match started - but it was only to check my licence number against the team sheet; I never did find out which of my team tipped off the umpires to do that! I was “Le stopper” (centre-back) and Christophe our gardien (goalkeeper) made two good saves early on then after 25 minutes Adrien, my defensive partner playing “Libero” (sweeper) made the terrible mistake of saying “it’s not going too badly is it”, ten minutes later at half-time we were four down :o( The team is very enthusiastic, maybe not all are as fit as they need to be and they play on Astroturf like a grass pitch team. We grabbed a couple of breakaway goals in the second half but shipped four more including a penalty stroke I conceded, my French doesn’t permit much “discussion” with the umpires yet so, I was restricted to pointing out it wasn’t a certain goal and ask why hadn’t he seen my sweeper behind me on the goal line.
This week my first home game on the rugby pitch, the style of play on grass is not one I’ve ever come across before. It’s a bit like how Wimbledon used to play football, very direct. And it was 1-1 at half-time and quite some way into the second half before Chris put two goals away (including a crowd pleaser into the roof of the net) and their keeper (who was, as Sioux would say, as old as God’s dog) helped us to another and a 5-1 win. But the defence is getting better organised although it’s only Chris (our other English player) and I talking during the game – something about the English maybe ….
It’s a very sociable club, I’m hugely impressed with this group of people who manage to keep the presence of a minority sport alive here, think nothing of driving all over the west of France to play, are extremely sociable and friendly and have accepted a rosbif into their midst.
Another example of the very sociable nature of the club and France in general was when the father of Ugo (our captain), who had simply come to watch, recognised a new player and came and introduced himself to me on the sidelines and had a chat – that wouldn’t have happened in the UK. Another example of the British failing to get to grips with the French social etiquette was when I said “Salut” and kissed a girl who was watching in our dugout who I thought I had met before but it turned out to be someone I’d never met previously (in which case it should have been “bonjour” and a handshake) – oh well.
8:00am meet and away to Angers next week ……. on we go!
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