For its 50 years, PSG hands the pen to supporting authors

Paris SG was officially born on June 17, 1970 with the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the Association Paris Football Club and the Stade Sangermanois.

The club of the capital, which envisaged a year ago to celebrate its half-century of existence with great pomp (concert at the Parc des Princes with Ed Sheeran, match of legends of the club in particular) had to review its copy, crisis health requires.

To mark the occasion despite everything, the champions of France are releasing at the end of the year the official book of Paris SG, a paving stone that will serve as this new bible for all regulars of the Parc des Princes.

Because if the title is not frankly in the originality ("The 50 years of Paris Saint-Germain", Solar editions), the writing approach is, on the other hand innovative, the club having called upon a collective of twelve supporting authors (writers, journalists, supporters or club employees) to fill in the 528 pages of the book.

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The official book of the 50 years of PSG (Solar Editions)

“We wanted to get out of the classic and traditional book scheme with a chronological plan over five decades.

We are not going to lie to each other, when a club releases a book on its history, its outlook is often subjective on events.

The goal was to give supporters the means to write for supporters.

This is why we approached Virage (a supporters' site), to have the testimonies of authors imbued with the culture of the Parc des Princes, ”

Jérôme Touboul, the club's director of sports communication

, explains to

.

Sometimes tasty anecdotes, often little known

The book comes in the form of around thirty chapters to peck, often presented in the form of Top 50 themes even if there is no desire to prioritize.

The exercise could have resulted in sterile and interminable controversies.

Let us quote in bulk 50 goalkeepers, 50 historic transfers, 50 European Cup matches, 50 titis from the training center, 50 famous fans, 50 punchlines, 50 expulsions or even 50 extraordinary stories.

All this, accompanied by four photo notebooks signed Christian Gavelle, the historic photographer of PSG, but also by extensive annexes, a small gold mine of statistics (with a census of all the players for five decades).

"It's a partisan book and we claim it"

The illustrations are signed Christian Gavelle, historical photographer of PSG.

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“It's a partisan book and we claim it but it's not a book to make explosive revelations.

We first went to ask the supporters to dig into their memories and emotions, ”explains Jérôme Touboul, responsible for setting an editorial line and delimiting a framework not to be exceeded.

“When you are a supporter, you speak with passion and with the heart.

We can also have excessive judgment and we have made sure that there is no slippage ", adds the former journalist who did not have to cut in the writings, or very little, on two or three unscrupulous passages. 

"Nasser Al Khelaïfi has enormous respect for his predecessors and there shouldn't be settling of scores and one or two spades that had no place in this book."

“There were a few small details that have been changed because a supporter may have a form of resentment against a former leader deemed not close enough to the ultras groups.

Nasser Al Khelaïfi, has a lot of respect for his predecessors and there should not be settling of scores and one or two spades that had no place in this book.

But the authors had total freedom and we find through the pen this love, sometimes a little irrational, ”slips Touboul, also in charge of the club's official magazine.

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About thirty chapters across seven main parts make up the story.

As a result, speech is undoubtedly free and the stories, airy and synthetic, hardly ever fall into the trap of jargon and sanitized speech.

There is often tone and commitment even if the theme of thorny, sometimes even explosive relations between supporters and the club, is carefully avoided in the book.

We have understood that this is not the time for quarrels and disunity at the end of the year.

Paris SG will have gone through an exceptionally prosperous year (four national titles and a Champions League final) almost cut off from its base of supporters, “The 50 years of Paris Saint-Germain”, in addition to being a great tribute to all those which made the history of the club, is a hyphen which comes at the right time in the unprecedented difficult context, and sometimes depressing, of sad matches behind closed doors.

"A decade to dream bigger", the survey on the Qatari version of the PSG

The investigation of Clément Pernia and Mustapha Boullime.

Author of an excellent popular history of PSG retracing 50 years of the history of PSG a year ago (Editions Hugo Sport), the Paris United team returns once again with "PSG, a decade to dream bigger" (Editions Talent Sport), which, as its name suggests, dissects the last ten years of the club.

An immersion behind the scenes of the French champions to understand how the club managed to change dimension at lightning speed.

XXL growth that has not gone smoothly or without crises.

The authors, Clément Pernia and Mustapha Boullime, who claim to be supporters, sign an in-depth, well-documented investigation thanks to their (sometimes mysterious) relays within the club with the help of several players in the field: Unai Emery, Jérémy Menez, Mathieu Bodmer ... A painstaking job which also makes it possible to measure all the struggles of influences within the PSG galaxy.

The icing on the cake, the book ends with a nice exclusive interview with Javier Pastore, magician of the Parc des Princes today at AS Rome and founding player of the Qatari version of PSG. 

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• File: Paris Saint-Germain, 50 years of football passion