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“Sorry, we are late.” Stood in front of the Gym’s official store, Keith and David had thought of everything they needed for the final home game of the season against Caen: the shirt, the scarf, and a huge amount of good humour. They had, however, forgotten one detail: their phones, which forced us to search high and low, looking for those British “looks” amongst the people on the concourse.  

 

Despite being dressed in full Nice memorabilia, it would have been difficult to miss their arrival. The first to speak was wearing the shirt from last season: “Hi, it's you? I'm Dave and I am sixty-one”. Three years older than him, Keith came in the 2001-02 kit, the promotion season. He begrudgingly answered “is that important, how old am I ?” - before laughing: “You can write 24”. The tone was set. The conversation continued in English, with smiles all round.  

 

“My first match? In ‘68 at Valenciennes”

 

Dave comes from Portsmouth, Keith from Brighton. Two coastal cities in the south of England, “like Nice!” They met thanks to “famous Nice supporter” Serge Gloumeaud, who has told the stories of the trips made by Nice fans, in several books.

 

In one of them*, you can see a photo of Keith, with his wife Anna, at an “away match” in Lille. 50 kilometers away from where it all began for him : “It was in 1968, at Valenciennes. Nice won 0-1. It was my first match, but I fell in love with the city and the little club during my holidays in Nice.” For Dave, the passion has developed more recently, but is just as strong: "I went to my first game at the Ray about ten years ago. I immediately got the bug.”  

 

“Wasquehal, Sedan... Some strange places” 

 

In England, only a few of the Gym’s games are on TV. Something which forces the two men to take things into their own hands. The first is to choose “holidays in Nice, based on the club’s fixtures” in order to appear into the red and black crowds at the Allianz Riviera. The second is to frequent the away games. “This season, I visited Montpellier, Strasbourg, Angers, and Lille” explained  Keith. “Beautiful grounds”, for the man who visited the stadia of D2 and its “strange places: Wasquehal, Sedan, Le Havre”. Without forgetting the “derby” in Boulogne: “I only had to cross the Channel, it was cool”.

 

In the country of football, their love for the Gym surprised at first. “But now, my friends follow the Nice results, told Keith. They say to me: "Oh, you won this weekend!”

With a season ticket at Chelsea, Dave “always talks about OGC Nice at Stamford Bridge”. The sixty something, who likes to sit near to the Populaire Sud, likes to talk about “the fantastic atmosphere that the Nice fans bring”.

 

”To see the Gym in England" 

 

This match against Caen (4-1 win) was their last game of the season. A “long“ season but that didn’t affect their joy, as Keith promised: “The players move on, but the club remains. The supporters need to be the same when things go less well”. A return to the good days is what the two friends predict for the 2018-19 season: “We believe 100%”, promised Dave, who will need to find something to keep him busy until the season gets underway. “The 11 August, it’s a way away. It’s not great... We are waiting for the fixtures so that we can plan our next tour of France. And we hope to get the chance to see the Gym play in England again.”   

 

Fabien Hill

 

*”A season with the Gym, the road maps of a Nice supporter”  S. Gloumeaud, Baie des Anges éditions, 2009.

 

They don’t walk alone 

“We aren’t the only ones” explains Dave, who would soon like to see the creation of an “English Supporters Club”. The two men welcomed Jim’s story (photo above) with a huge smile, which amused the French public after he was seen wearing a Gym shirt during a Bournemouth match: “It was excellent”.