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Fan Diary: Bath Rugby's Weekend In Toulon
Lifelong Bath Rugby fan and season ticket holder Emma Sparks made the journey across the channel on January 10, as the Blue, Black and White locked horns with French powerhouse Toulon. Check out her weekend diary for Total Sport below...
After attending the original Bath-Toulon fixture back in November, which was postponed as a result of the Paris atrocities, we arrived back once more at the same hotel as the first fixture. The sights, sounds and surroundings were, thankfully, all too familiar. I think that this helped in my decision to book to come out with Bath Supporters Travel without consulting friends and ask if anyone else was coming too. Having booked it was great to hear that I won’t be ‘alone'.
I decided against the supporters’ travel trip to Marseilles and wine tasting on the Saturday, as I wanted some relaxing time on my own and not to be rushing around like a loon.
Having already been to this city I didn’t feel the urge to sight see. Instead I wandered around the harbor a little and had coffees and hot chocolates and people-watched; by far the best activity.
The day was somewhat overcast as well and so the photos would not have beaten those taken on the last trip. There were certainly not the mass of Bath shirts present in every bar and cafe as there were back in November and I had traveled over only with 17 others and not the previous 40 odd. It was rather sad but then also understandable that those that came last time might not have been able to have made the return journey.
Match day finally came around and I sat in the harbor with a beer beforehand soaking up the match day atmosphere.
There were many more Bath Supporters around town at this point in all of the bars and restaurants as well as the Toulon fans – the harbor had returned to the hive of activity that it was the last time that we were here.
The sun was out and you couldn’t really ask for a more glorious day for rugby. My friend Virginie had driven all the way over from Montpellier (which I later found out was a 4 hour drive – had I known it was that far I would not have suggested her coming all that way!) and arrived about an hour before the game.
Once inside the stadium we found our seats relatively easily and took in the ground and the surrounding area. While the city is beautiful, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the stadium has lots of beautiful views, its mainly several blocks of flats many of whom would have excellent views over the ground, for free!
The seats were as uncomfortable as ever. I still don’t understand why the French stadiums never have the supporting back to the seats – just the scooped out seat.
It was interesting to notice as well that the crowd were once again fenced in. I assume to stop anyone from running onto the pitch either during or after the game?
We had ordered our tickets from Toulon direct and so we were not surrounded by Bath fans, but there were a few dotted around us. Before the match was anywhere near started we had sung both of the National anthems of both teams. I found this rather strange but apparently it is what they do at Toulon before each European Match.
We had a song that was sung by about six gentlemen in the middle of the pitch which Virgine had described as the song of the Provencal region. That seemed to go on and on with not a huge amount of audience participation but there were still quite a number of supporters from both sides to enter the stadium.
The final chant before the kick off was the Pillou Pillou, essentially Toulon’s version of the Hakka. I had no idea what he was saying or if indeed if it is meant to be understood but it was sung/chanted by ALL of the Toulon crowd in unison. And then kick off happened and we were under way.
As per usual I received many confused looks from nearby supporters because of the volume of the shouting coming out of the mouth of a female. But I was, as always, determined that the Bath boys would hear that although we might not be mighty in numbers we were mighty in noise and passion.
A fairly even match was played and certainly a performance from the boys that as a supporter you could be proud of. We may not have ended up winning but we showed that we CAN play as a team and show some passion, something that has been sadly lacking from our game as of late.
Spirits weren’t too down heartened post match as we could have been slaughtered. Sadly we are highly unlikely to win or even come runner up in our group to progress any further in Europe this season, but then maybe that what we need a a team at the moment – just to concentrate on one competition?
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