May they be thanked forever!
Anne Deplace, Gilbert and Yannick Beaubatie have undertaken a somewhat crazy mission.
Ask all that the Ovalie has great players and great thinkers, artists and aficionados, to tell them about their rugby.
Why this vocation, this love, this faith?
A choice.
They threw their nets all over the place and the fishing was miraculous.
Seventy personalities have, on a voluntary basis, sent their contribution to this trio of enthusiasts, to this association of benefactors, which published this sum (we were going to add the ultimate…) to Mille Sources, a small publishing house located in Tulle.
In this 500-page book, it is good to wander from a letter to his son signed Michel Yachvili to economic and nostalgic considerations by Xavier Lacarce.
We come across the last text on the subject written by Denis Tillinac.
Or the childhood confessions of Claude Puel, a rugby ascendant on his father's side.
The Prix Goncourt Jean-Paul Dubois is obviously not missing.
For an ode to his heart club.
“The Stade Toulousain is for me much more than a rugby club which has won everything and for so long.
It is the invisible part of an intangible heritage, the hard core of a collective memory which, sometimes, remembers everything. ”
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Lucien Mias, eternal glory of the XV of France, prefers to work on the "third half".
“A term that did not exist in the fifties.
After the game, we went to the club headquarters, usually a café, to have a drink with the players of the opposing team, listening to the speeches of our respective presidents.
It was "the post-game reception".
Each, then, returned to his home, because it was mealtime, remembers the former captain of the Blues.
But in those postwar years, when food was scarce and manual labor required a lot of energy, snacks would soon be part of the third half.
As a result, the cuisine of the time sought more to stick to the body than to satisfy gourmets: I adored it.
I was telling myself that cassoulet or rabbit stew weren't necessarily allies, but the one who retreats before the enemy is a coward, isn't he? "
“
At almost 27, my international career was over.
I was not worn out physically but mentally ...
"
Walter Spanghero
Smile understood and it is time to stroll through the words offered by André Boniface to Anne Deplace.
"The pass, in my eyes, must be" an offering "When you consider it from this angle, that of the gift, of the spirit of sacrifice, for the benefit, moreover, of a person whom you love, you show a lot of delicacy in your movement;
you don't throw the ball in his face.
There is the look, the gesture ... We do things as we feel them, because we want to feel them. "
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A zephyr has passed.
Make way for a storm with a rolling accent.
Walter Spanghero lists his memories.
For the homeland.
“I remember that in the France team we touched ... handshakes.
7 francs a day ... Three days: 21 francs.
It didn't even pay for the stamps! ”
More distressing: "I remember that it happened to me several times, after a match of the Tournament in Paris, to leave the capital around 4 o'clock in the morning at the wheel of a rolling truck, but slightly damaged for Narbonne, by the national roads and the Rhône corridor!
In one shot !
Sometimes the windows were smashed, there was no heating and the cold invaded the cabin.
I arrived refrigerated, a piece of ice.
I couldn't move, I had to get out of the cabin. ”
Or terribly current.
“I remember that in 1969 I was really at the end of my rope and for me, at almost 27, my international career was over.
I wasn't physically worn out despite many injuries, but mentally.
The seasons were very full.
With Narbonne, we played the final stages every year.
However, there were no replacements and the same, except injury, were on the field every Sunday ... "
Unpublished drawings by Roger Blachon
The stroll continues.
A bit of road each day, at random pages.
Discoveries.
The heart beats.
Then the eyebrow is raised, anger points.
No time to regret the good old days that the emotion climbs in the eyes.
Before a joyful smile while discovering, at the turn of a chapter, these unpublished drawings by Roger Blachon, offered by his widow to the trio of relentlessly, or this delicious unpublished news of Philippe Guillard, known as La Guille.
A wonderful journey through the Ovalie.
Or rather a certain idea of the Ovalie.
"Rugby, there remains only the specter of its authenticity", asserts the philosopher Robert Redeker.
A whole authenticity contained in these now unavoidable "Mixed Propos".
How to get Mixed Talk about Rugby
Nearly 500 pages, 260 illustrations.
Overwhelmed by the feedback, the enthusiasts behind this book project preferred to see the big picture rather than eliminate testimonials.
In the end, an incredible trip that will satisfy all lovers of the oval balloon.
Published by the small publishing house Mille Sources, it can be obtained at the price of 45 euros (free shipping) by sending a message to Anne Deplace: annedeplace@gmail.com
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