Racing 92

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Racing 92
logo
Full name Racing 92
Founded 2001 (1882)
Stadion Paris La Defense Arena
Places 32,000
president Jacky Lorenzetti
Trainer Laurent Travers
Homepage www.racing92.fr
league Top 14
2018/19 4th Place
home
Away

Racing 92 (until June 2015 Racing Métro 92 ) is a rugby union team from the French department of Hauts-de-Seine west of Paris . It was created in 2001 from a merger of the traditional rugby union departments of the Racing Club de France with the US Métro and plays its home games in the specially built Paris La Défense Arena in Nanterre in 2017 . The 92 used in the name is the ordinal number of the department, from which its supporters primarily come. The team is represented in the top 14 division and was last French champion in 2016.

history

A game between Racing Club de France and Stade Français in the 1890s.
Home ground in Nanterre, the Paris La Défense Arena (2017).

The Racing Club was founded as an athletics club in 1882 and changed its name to Racing Club de France three years later. As the first multi-sport club in France, it grew at regular intervals to include new departments (in 2006 there were 17 departments with around 20,000 members). The rugby union department was established in 1890 and two years later took part in the first ever French championship; until 1898 this was only open to associations from Paris. Only two teams were involved in the first championship, in the only game the Racing Club de France won 4: 3 against Stade Français .

These two clubs also faced each other in 1893, but this time Stade Français won the final 7-3. In 1898, the championship was decided after one round of each against each without knockout games; Racing ended the season in second place behind Stade Français. In the final of 1900 Racing faced the Stade Bordelais club from Bordeaux and won with 37: 3. Two years later, the two clubs met again in the final; Racing won again, this time 6-0. A decade passed before Racing was back in the finals; the Parisians lost 6-8 to Stade Toulousain in March 1912 .

Due to the First World War , the championship was canceled and the replacement was the Coupe de l'Espérance . Racing won this competition in 1918, beating FC Grenoble 22: 9 in the final . Regular championship operations resumed in 1920 and Racing advanced to the finals for the first time in eight years, but lost 8-3 to Stadoceste Tarbais .

From 1931 the club organized the Challenge Yves du Manoir , which developed into the most important French rugby competition after the championship. Racing could never win this competition, which was held until 2003, and only made it to the final once (1952). In 1950 Racing had some success and was back in the championship finals for the first time in 30 years, but lost 8:11 to Castres Olympique . The 1957 final was also lost, with Lourdes FC winning 16:13. After a break of 57 years, Racing was able to win the fourth championship title in 1959, in the final Stade Montois was defeated 8: 3.

Again more than 30 years passed before the next final. In 1987 Racing lost to RC Toulon at 12:15 in the Parc des Princes in Paris . Three years later, Racing became French champions for the fifth time, after beating SU Agen in the final 22:12 . Despite this success, Racing struggled to adapt to the new conditions of the professional era and subsequently lost touch with the leaders. At the end of the 1995/96 season, Racing rose to the second division. Although the promotion was achieved in 1998, but in 2000 Racing was relegated again.

In 2001, the rugby department of the Racing Club was separated from the rest of the sports club and merged with the rugby department of US Métro , the sports club for public transport employees, to form the new professional team Métro Racing 92 (renamed Racing Métro 92 in 2005). Both clubs involved continue to operate independent amateur teams.

In 2009 he was promoted to the top division, the top 14 . In June 2015 the club name was shortened to Racing 92. A year later, Racing became French champions again for the first time since 1990 with a 29:21 win over RC Toulon. Because of the 2016 European Football Championship, the final did not take place in the Stade de France , but in Camp Nou in Barcelona in front of a record crowd of 99,124 spectators.

identity

In France, organized sport was initially a matter for the rich. The Racing Club became the epitome of the exclusive sports club, based in the middle of the Bois de Boulogne in affluent west of Paris. It was modeled on the English models, whose ideal mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body) corresponded very much to the ideas of the club members. Many of them were aristocrats and four nobles took part in the first championship final. Although the Racing Club has meanwhile also opened up to other strata of the population, it still has an image of exclusivity and thus stands out from other sports clubs.

The Racing Club has always defended the amateur ideals of the game and the sport in general. With the creation of the Challenge Yves du Manoir , the club wanted to celebrate these ideals when, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, French rugby was marked by violence and creeping professionalism. The player Yves du Manoir symbolized the romantic side of rugby, its carefree dimension, le jeu pour le jeu (the game for the sake of the game).

In the 1980s, that spirit was revived by a talented generation of gamers, albeit in a somewhat unorthodox way. They impressed on the field and brought the club back to the top. But they also wanted to bring the fun back into the game. They did this with a mixture of serious play, humor and self-irony. National players Franck Mesnel and Jean-Baptiste Lafond were at the forefront of this movement. For example, they wore berets during a game in Bayonne as a tribute to Aviron Bayonnais' tradition of attacking play . A group led by these players, called le show bizz , attracted attention through other deposits such as B. black make-up, dyed yellow hair, wigs and long white pants (to look like the players of the old days). In the 1987 championship finals, they wore pink bow ties . Just before kick-off, Lafond presented President François Mitterrand , who was always present at the finals, with one such fly. They also wore these bow ties in the 1990 final; At halftime they drank a glass of champagne on the field to recover from the exertion of the first half and then won their last championship title. The group was also known for its excessive nightlife, which earned them a lot of criticism as they also had engagements with the national team. These events contributed to the Racing Club's image as an eccentric institution, but these players were also role models for the club president of Stade Français , who a few years later took up the provocative and innovative spirit to raise the profile of his own club and to promote conservative traditionalism of French rugby.

When the club made regular headlines, five players took advantage of the notoriety and founded a now very well-known sportswear company called Eden Park (named after the rugby stadium in Auckland ) in 1988 . The logo is a pink bow tie and the company has taken a leading position in sportswear in France thanks to the combination of elegance and eccentricity. The company received an extra boost in 1998 when Eden Park became the exclusive supplier to the French national team . The Welsh national rugby union team has also been wearing Eden Park since 2003 .

successes

Racing Club de France championship finals

date master 2nd finalist Result place spectator
March 20, 1892 Racing Club de France Stade Français Paris 4: 3 Bagatelle, Paris 2,000
June 19, 1893 Stade Français Paris Racing Club de France 7: 3 Bécon-les-Bruyères, Courbevoie 1,200
1898 Racing Club de France Stade Français Paris - - -
April 22, 1900 Racing Club de France Stade Bordelais 37: 3 Levallois-Perret 1,500
March 23, 1902 Racing Club de France Stade Bordelais 6-0 Parc des Princes , Paris 1,000
March 31, 1912 Stade Toulousain Racing Club de France 8: 6 Stade des Ponts Jumeaux, Toulouse 15,000
April 25, 1920 Stadoceste Tarbais Racing Club de France 8: 3 Route du Médoc, Le Bouscat 20,000
April 16, 1950 Castres Olympique Racing Club de France 11: 8 Stade des Ponts Jumeaux, Toulouse 25,000
May 26, 1957 Lourdes FC Racing Club de France 16:13 Stade Gerland , Lyon 30,000
May 24, 1959 Racing Club de France Stade Montois 8: 3 Parc Lescure, Bordeaux 31,098
May 22, 1987 RC Toulon Racing Club de France 15:12 Parc des Princes, Paris 48,000
May 26, 1990 Racing Club de France SU Agen 22:12 a.d. Parc des Princes, Paris 45,069
June 24, 2016 Racing 92 RC Toulon 29:21 Camp Nou 99.124

player

Current squad

The squad for the 2019/2020 season:

Front side (forwards)

pier

hooker

Second row striker

Third row striker

 

Back line (backs)

Half of the crowd

Connection half

Inner three quarters

Outer three-quarters

Goalkeeper

Well-known former players

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Only two teams took part in the championship.
  2. ↑ The championship title was awarded after one round everyone against everyone with six teams. Stade Français finished first with 10 and Racing second with 6 points.
  3. ↑ TotalRugby Team: TotalRugby - rugby in front of 100,000 at Camp Nou - Ireland with historic chance - England still dominant. In: www.totalrugby.de. Retrieved June 26, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Racingmen season 2019-20. Racing 92, accessed November 21, 2019 (French).