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    St Etienne on BT Sports 3 right now (that's for viewers in Scotland), losing 1-0 at Bordeaux in an all-white away strip with a tiny detail of a v-necked collar which I am sure is just black and white but - my god - the historic associations are messing with my sight: Frozen the screen four or five times now and can't be 100% sure it's not a red, white and blue ...

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      Green and black. Ligue 1 wouldn't allow them to use the tricolor.

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        Originally posted by Alex Anderson View Post
        Yeah - I'd just add that to what Seand says a couple posts underneath yours Sam. With ALL the caveats asterisked*.

        I'm in with the real addicts here. Love it. Spew out a 2,000-word rant on how difficult it is to set fitba trivia questions involving geopolitical entities and it's neither pointed nor boring enough to distract anyone from anything other than the imaginary fitba trivia question contained within it, for a nano-second - to be used purely as an example.

        We've turned group therapy into co-dependency here. Yer all rabid ... I could have been clean if it wasn't for all you ... I had plans ... a job ... a wife ...

        Now? Now? Now all I have is the need to tell you *my knowledge of World Cup finalists and the primary landmass commonly understood as denoted by the name of that country is excellent but my knowledge of overseas territories, dependencies and any other shit which could constitute "border sharing" goes no further than what I said above about Brazil and French Guiana (1998) and knowing Spain and the Netherlands (2010) spent large chunks of their history sailing everywhere on the planet and annexing stuff. Germans had their moments too, of course, but they always handed theirs back in to the shop they nicked it from.

        Please - can we just stick to borders AT THE TIME of the World Cup Final in question ...
        Forget it, I was trying to wind you up because I thought the original question specified a land border, but it doesn't. Bugger.

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          Green and black! Corresponding with the feature on the arm and the top-and-shorts worn at Hampden in 1976. Cheers ursus. Didn't think it could be red, white and blue but glad it wasn't just black-white-black - my eyes saw some colour in there and wouldn't let it go.

          Goggled "ASSE maillot" and came up with the third kit but rather than search any further or sending an SOS out to denishurley, I've got them paused coming back down the tunnel at Bordeaux - repeatedly tapping the slow-mo Fwd on the remote as Les Verts pass the tunnel cam one by one, unaware that back in the city of their only European final, some people are more concerned about what their collar looks like than the fact they're 2-0 down at the break ...

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            Originally posted by Sam View Post
            Forget it, I was trying to wind you up because I thought the original question specified a land border, but it doesn't. Bugger.
            Come on, Sam. The old "I'm only here for a laugh" shtick? Whatever gets you to the meetings, mate but - like I say - we're all real addicts here ...

            #NotJustARiverInEgypt

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              Haha. No I really was trying to trigger another meltdown. The fact Argentina and Uruguay's actual land border is only a couple of kilometres long, and didn't exist at all until some time in the mid 1980s, is one of my favourite bits of trivia to confuse visitors with.

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                Oh that's inspiring a meltdown alright, Sam. The mind-blowingly exciting type, along the lines of my "I'd never realised the red, white and blue collar was worn by the champions of France". One of those things that's been right in front of me all my life but I've been looking at it so closely I never looked either side of it and clicked. Others would call it not being able to see the woods for the trees (or the land border for the Rio de la Plata) - I prefer to think of it as the moment in The Matrix when Keanu Reeves realises what's actually going on ... although, in my low rent case, of just being plain thick, it's actually more like the moment in Ghost where Patrick Swayze realises he's, ye know, a ghost.

                Yeah I grew up reading all the stories of the boatloads of Argentina fans coming across the River Plate for the 1930 Final - being searched for weapons by Uruguayan police as they disembarked, etc. Bloody loved it. The fact no-one in any of those stories came by car or foot never really sank in.

                Sank.

                Anyway, military bases and embassies ...

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                  So, what were future winners Olympique de Marseille wearing the season they first appeared in the Continent's most prestigious competition?



                  Lovely, isn't it? I think most people know that "but" means "goal" in French; it was the name of a weekly that tried to compete with France Football.

                  Of course, OM couldn't wear the sponsored version in Europe.



                  Stade de Reims, Saint Etienne and OM appear to be the primary proponents of the tricolour collar and cuffs; Monaco and Bordeaux appear to have eschewed it, while Nantes wore it in the 70s, but not the 80s or 90s.
                  Last edited by ursus arctos; 29-11-2017, 15:01.

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                    Aw man. That is just bloody gorgeous. The blue socks v Ajax pushes it into porn territory.

                    It's also helped me work out what it is with the collar 'n cuffs that's so extra special - it gives any strip more of a cycling jersey aesthetic. Very French but more so.

                    On Nantes' canary-yellow jersey and St Etienne's green it's pure Tour (Perhaps the cup winners should wear polka dots from now on).

                    The campaign starts here. I'll write to Ligue 1 - ursus, you petition Monaco: They could bring out a new collar for Xmas.

                    No BUTs.
                    Last edited by Alex Anderson; 29-11-2017, 15:30. Reason: think denishurley posted pics of Nantes with theirs - beautiful contrast with the yellow

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                      Nantes eschewed the cuffs the first time around



                      before getting with the programme a few years later



                      In the 90s, they attempted to introduce a scudetto-inspired version that did not catch on



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                        Tout l'Univers... Fantastic stuff, my parents bought the whole series when I was young (I supposed you had to buy the complete series as it was in alphabetical order!), they bought it along with another one, can't remember which one, there were 3 or 4 similar ones on the market, all they were all very popular - and expensive too (it was sold by erudite-sounding door-to-door reps, they fascinated me). A bit of a one-upmanship thing developed over time between people with these encyclopedias in the 1970s, i.e it wasn't so much which car you drove but which encyclopedia you owned... I can't remember exactly hwo the encyclopedia pecking order went but I think the Larousse one was considered the most "intellectual" one, well it defo was more intello than, say, the Tout l'Univers one (which was mainly for teenagers it has to be said although it was very informative and suitable for anyone really, was great for school).

                        It always hacks me off a bit when I see these old photos of Saint-Étienne, Nantes etc. because I once had the whole pukka range of stuff on Sainté, Bastia, PSG, on Les Verts players whom I met (at training sessions in Saint-Étienne), on Delio Onnis, Mustapha Dahleb (even Salif Keïta and Josip Skoblar!), French football etc. I had the whole paraphernalia, the Sainté kit (which I got for Xmas 1976), the shirts, the pennants, the signed photos, the flags (including a few giant ones), the match tickets, the autographs, the books, the magazines, the scarves, the Panini albums, the football board games, the vinyls, the school exercise-books full of football scribblings and doodles, the little momentos and keepsakes, etc. etc.

                        But because my parents divorced, twice, and remarried, and then moved house several times, downsizing to temporary or smaller accommodation in the process (all this while I was a student – and therefore rarely home – and then while I was abroad, permanently, so I had little control over my treasured possessions, which of course at the time didn’t feel treasured at all, they were just "stuff") and then, some time later, said dear folks got back together (!) and remarried, all my football stuff vanished into the ether (I suspect some of it was chucked away by my stepmother who disliked me, along with the rest of humanity).

                        I am mildly cross at myself now for not having cherished these things and protected them better, but then again I was never into "things" and I liked the thrill of living off a suitcase so it’s not such a big wrench I suppose. But still… (I know, I could probably buy the same vintage stuff on ebay or Le Bon Coin but what would be the bloody point?).

                        Goes without saying naturally that I am very chuffed and relieved that it all ended reasonably well for my parents in the end after so many years of pain and chaos. Fuck, if anything, the whole thing made me realise how horrible it was to marry/shack up with the wrong person and/or be trapped in the wrong life.

                        Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 29-11-2017, 17:14.

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                          Players with highest scoring ratios, minimum 20 goals, in order are Gerd Muller, Altafini, Puskas, Di Stefano, Messi, Ronaldo, van Nistelrooy, Papin, Eusebio.

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                            This is like listening into a conversation between my dad and his buddies. Some time in the 1980s about half a dozen of them from the power station where he worked pooled their resources and bought a décodeur to watch the football live on tv. They would pile round to Gérard's house – Gérard's missus having wisely abandoned him long ago – and spend the evenings boozing, smoking, eating a foul-smelling carry-out, grumbling about refereeing decisions from the 1960s and poking fun at PSG. (It was a long time ago.) My vocabulary was, let us say, enriched on the occasions when I was dragged to Gérard's.

                            The gang was a mixture of OM and Sainté supporters, and one of the key topics of disagreement was the aesthetics of the respective kits and players. This was certainly the only time I ever heard my dad express an opinion about fashion, and it was always the same: an urchin-like individual such as Platini was transformed into a figure of elegance simply by putting on the green jersey; Gérard's white shirt, on the other hand, with its Droit Au But motif, showed up his fat tummy. My dad was the only one who spoke enough English to know the meaning of Waddle, and it became his Other Joke.

                            If you thought the likes of Lopez and Sarramagna were chic, you'll love their other halves.

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                              I will take that as one of the best compliments I've ever received on here

                              But why is Gilbert Gress posing with the Sainté WAGs?

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                                Ha! That's uncanny. And just like Gress to be right next to but set back from the trophy. Not sure he could have been persuaded to dress that soberly though.

                                Those evenings in front of the décodeur were definitely a chance to see a different side to my dad: the rest of the gang were well below him in the EdF hierarchy, a couple of them were machine operators and one was just a dogsbody (mais crois-toi, c'est le moins con de tous), while dad had risen to management. But whatever socioeconomic barriers had pulled them apart, the football made them invisible for a couple of hours a week. So I'm glad you took the comparison as a compliment.

                                However, Alex has used more words in this thread than my dad in his whole life. (La langue de ton papa, c'est pas dans la poche, c'est plutôt coincé dans son cul.) (I mentioned about the vocab.)

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                                  Parents and football; Sainté and OM; romance, sex, love! Just like that goddam Coupe des Clubs Champions Européens, we all know who invented it. Those libidinous Frenchies! Settin up their shamefully glamorous competitions, with sun-tanned, snake-hipped Latin types and hirsute, laconic Gauls in shockingly billow-free shorts, all doing sensual things with a leather orb - all under seedy night lights ... then comin' over 'ere with their tight-fitting, silky shirts and racy collars ...

                                  No wonder us British kids grew up confused! By the time Brazil 82 came along, just shy of my 13th birthday, my last vestiges of British restraint and decorum were strangled to death by the tightest, lightest blue shorts and rangiest tanned legs ever witnessed ...

                                  Mary Whitehouse had enough on her plate, post-war, but if she'd had time to see what that Gabriel Hanot was up to in the city of red windmills, open-air urinals and huge metal phalluses insulting good old Blackpool Tower, she'd have nipped it in the bud far more effectively than the FA managed (Just one year?! We should NEVER have taken part. A bloomin orgy it was!). And if she'd seen what happened when the TV started showing it over 'ere ... in colour pictures too ... !!!

                                  In-between times, if I ever glanced the rugby on telly, there was our proud British style: Fashion for real men. Red-white-red for Wales, Dark Blue-white-dark blue for Scotland, White-white-blue for England and the British-ish Irish in Green-white-green. But then we'd see a game at the Park of Des Prancer and ... WHAT THE HELL WERE THOSE BLOODY FRENCH DOING??!!

                                  Not enough that they should play rugby in a soccer ground in the middle of a cycle track. No. They had to have all that - all that "stuff" on their strips! Bits of white, with lines of red and all sorts of flashes and "trims" and "detailing" and bagginess and elan and chic and ... good god, man! This was supposed to be rugby! One colour for your shirt, one colour for your shorts, and one of those two previous colours for your socks. Not too loose a shirt, very tight shorts - a badge; all in a horribly fibrous material with a solid matt finish. That was it. Good, staunch, Protestant dourness. But no - not for the bloody French. They turn up, ruin a perfectly good four-nation format, and then wear kit that could only be described as - well - as "20th Century". Disgrace!

                                  Was telling someone just last week that the first time I ever heard my dad using the "language not from his pocket" (I've put that expression in various search engines, laverte and found myself on websites run by guys who dress like Gilbert Gress in that photo - that second photo - in a pathetic effort to acquire some of his heroism) was on the slopes of Hampden when he took me to our national stadium for the first time, in October 1980. I was aged 11. He was a GPO engineer, stood with his mate Michael while me and Michael's son stood on the ash-packed sleeper in front, delighted with the naughtiness of it all.

                                  That was against Portugal. But I was on the same spot 20 years later, on a seat under a roof this time, watching World Champions France defeat Scotland in a friendly (I've seen Scotland beating France far more often than not though - auld alliance) but my main memory of that evening was the French students behind me with the bed sheet banner - green paint on white duvet: I only knew enough French to know it said "24 years ago our greatest moment was here". But, of course, it was more the football vocab I knew rather than the French. The "Allez les Verts" opener, was a phrase known by millions who didn't understand any other words of French. What a fucking team. To build a mythos like that.

                                  Those students were younger than me and they made my heart sink. I was 11 the first time I went to Hampden. But four years earlier, the night St Etienne played there in that final, could just as easily have been my first Hampden trip - the European Cup final could have been my first senior football match. My dad, had he been the right kind of drunk the previous Friday - or had I been one year more advanced in the football fever that would soon grip me for the routine it promised my weekends - could have persuaded to promise to take me. He likes a drink coz his dad died when he was just 14, and didn't believe in insurance, and, after a hard week's work, my father has earned the right to a guaranteed result.

                                  Everyone on here has heard me tell this story. I might have spoken more words on this thread than your dad ever did, laverte, but I've said nothing original for years ... since maybe even the night I saw OM in the first ever round of Champions League matches (I'd seen them there, for the first time ever, in a friendly just months earlier), bringing the red, white and blue collar ursus reminded us of back to Glasgow - and Ibrox. In 1975-76 St Etienne beat Rangers on the way to the final. My uncle (who would take me to my first Rangers game in April 1977) maintains the Rangers fans that night sang "You'll never walk alone". I saw the PSG ultras (I can never remember which end is which) had a banner declaring the same last week, against the Glasgow club with whom that song is now most firmly associated.

                                  But all I could see those nights against Marseille (who I saw back at Ibrox this summer in another pre-season friendly) were the baggy shorts. Down-to-the-knees. Cool as fuck. Again - those bloody French. Sexy bastards. Again, on their way to the final via Ibrox. This time to win it.

                                  But I tell everyone, on every page of this thread, that the first European club match I ever remember watching - on TV - is the first European Cup final I remember. And it was 1977. And I made my mum go into the local Ayrshire sports shops - who at that time stocked the strips of Rangers, Celtic, Scotland, Liverpool and NO-ONE ELSE - and ask if they had the Borussia Moenchengladbach kit. In a kid's size. I had never seen anything like that Teutonic strip. The subtlest green and black trim and collar. It sent me wild for European and German football. That lust lasted a lifetime.

                                  Imagine it had been the previous year's final I saw on telly though. That lust for the Moenchengladbach kit is how I know I wasn't ready to get into football until the spring of 1977 - If I had been ready one year earlier, as I approached seven years old rather than eight, I would have been mesmerised by Bayern's strip but probably blown out the water by St Etienne's.

                                  However, had my dad taken me to Hampden that night, that Sainte strip would have made me ready for football whether I wanted it or not - Herbin's boys running about in that dazzling green and black with the red, white and blue edges would have burned itself into my consciousness.

                                  So glad your dad and his mates were talking about these things too. Their nights around the décodeur are reminding me of the time I sneaked in to see my dad and his pals watching a 1970s FA Cup final in our living room rather than the pub. Smoke, beer, bad language and adults validating what you and your school pals are talking about in the playground. Intoxicating. But it's your dad and his pals who're validating my obsession with the kits. And I was talking to my wife last week about the sleekness of the current PSG strip. I said I was probably being swayed by the fact it was being worn by some of the best players in the world - classy football makes any strip seem extra chic ...

                                  And then I stopped, as she looked at me doubtfully not for the first time in her life ("yer talkin oot yer arse again big man" would be the vocab here). Nah. Those French just know how to put a strip together. Everyone else is always trying to catch up.

                                  Kev7 might love the light luggage lifestyle - me, I have stuff. Far too much stuff. I've lost a lot since 1977 but kept most of it. We have no kids but will shortly be moving to a bigger house - enough said. My parents are still together - approaching 50 years of denying my dad can't live without half a pint of whisky in his bloodstream at any one time. Me, caught in the middle of people who just would not split up despite ruining most of my weekends, cocooned myself in pennants, scarfs, team group pics, programmes and ticket stubs. Yet Kev7 and me have both ended up carrying around the same amount of football stuff in our heads.

                                  I'm not going to say "... and in our hearts" - that would be as trite as attempting to make a Ligue 1 scudetto from the French flag. But I haven't consulted one of my pennants or pin badges for anything I've written on these pages. That's maybe why I'm not saying anything original but it's what I'm reading from everyone else that's my new form of "stuff".

                                  I'll remember this page was the first place I learned to call St Etienne "Sainté", discovered who Gilbert Gress was, became even prouder of the complete Arthur Mee opus passed down to me by my dad, had the gorgeous meaningfulness of the red, white and blue collar and cuffs definitively seared onto my consciousness - and remained as intoxicated as ever by the fact I have yet to see St Etienne - the club which, for me, symbolises the start of football history versus my personal football history - in the flesh.

                                  Delayed gratification. I bet the French invented that too.
                                  Last edited by Alex Anderson; 30-11-2017, 20:36. Reason: Haven't seen Reims either. But now I need to see Nantes too.

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                                    Just realised that last post started off like a horrific attempt at impersonating the Wing Commander. Luckily it's so long no-one will even start reading it, so stunningly shit no-one would notice anyway - and so staggeringly, obviously within his oeuvre that had I realised I clearly wouldn't have continued that far into it.

                                    By way of distraction, here's a picture of an unknown young striker celebrating at Ibrox in 2007-08 on the night I saw Lyon in the flesh. Away kit. Reigning champions but no champions collar.



                                    And here, from the corresponding fixture in France, is a picture of why it's so hard to tell with Lyon home strips of their championship-winning years.



                                    What happens when your actual colours are red, white and blue?

                                    I should have asked Paul Le Guen.
                                    Last edited by Alex Anderson; 30-11-2017, 20:30. Reason: ... but he was here so briefly.

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                                      For rampant homoeroticism, Italy's goal celebrations in the 1982 semi and final. Almost literally balls out.

                                      Not sure if any Scottish teams ever got that point of sexual intensity. Ally MacLeod could get emotional but I don't recall him kissing Don Masson.

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                                        That was just macho Italian males on the prowl, Satchmo. Not a patch on anything one would see in any provincial disco on any given weekend.

                                        And certainly not in any way homoerotic. As hetero alpha male as one can be. Just ask Francesco Coco and his boating companions.

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                                          Arguably narcissism in Tardelli's case with the alleged screaming of his own name.

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                                            Alex, OL missed out on the entire tricolour collar and cuffs era.

                                            They only one their first title in 2001-02, then going on to win seven in a row.

                                            What they did generally wear during those years was a special version of the LFP sleeve patch roughly analogous to the one worn by Premier League Champions

                                            Here's an example from 02-03



                                            and one from 07-08, when the badge had taken on the shape of the trophy presented to the Ligue 1 champions



                                            Their women's team has its own version



                                            And since you mentioned PSG, this is what they wore last season

                                            Last edited by ursus arctos; 30-11-2017, 21:53.

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                                              I enjoyed that, Alex. And I'd be poorly placed to say there was anything wrong with wordiness, repetition, plagiarism or writing about footballers' shapely legs. Desecrating a conversation about panache and Saint-Étienne with pictures of that other team, though, will be harder to forgive.

                                              If my dad and his band had unfurled a banner behind you at Hampden, it would probably have read: “Putain de poteaux carrés !” My dad is still alive, just about, but he can't really make himself understood; even so I expect him to find the strength to say as his last words Ils auraient dû faire rentrer l'ange plus tôt. [“They should have brought Rocheteau on earlier.”] Are there other 'legendary' teams whose greatest moment was a defeat? I think even l'éternel second Scotland would celebrate Archie Gemmill or some dismantling of goalposts.

                                              And in case I've given the impression that my introduction to football was a smoky bachelor pad full of cussing engineers with an eye for elegant sportswear, I'd like to note that the first football game I attended in the flesh was at the distinctly un-Chaudron-like Cappielow Park. It was bitter in August with the wind swirling up the slope, there were sectarian songs which my uncle hadn't thought to warn us about, and St Mirren won 4-1.

                                              Romance, sex, love!

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                                                Are there other 'legendary' teams whose greatest moment was a defeat?
                                                I would say no, and offer as evidence



                                                It that wasn't the largest and most fervent celebration of a losing team in the history of the sport, it was certainly the largest and most fervent hosted 500 km away from their home city.

                                                L'épopée des Verts was unique.

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                                                  Eintracht Frankfurt.

                                                  Bayer Leverkusen.

                                                  It's a Hampden thing.

                                                  Comment


                                                    Originally posted by laverte View Post
                                                    ... even so I expect him to find the strength to say as his last words Ils auraient dû faire rentrer l'ange plus tôt. [“They should have brought Rocheteau on earlier.”]
                                                    I thought their strip and that second leg against Dynamo Kiev were the most devastatingly beautiful things I'd ever know about St Etienne. Wrong.

                                                    Originally posted by laverte View Post
                                                    ... first football game I attended in the flesh was at the distinctly un-Chaudron-like Cappielow Park. It was bitter in August with the wind swirling up the slope, there were sectarian songs which my uncle hadn't thought to warn us about, and St Mirren won 4-1.

                                                    Romance, sex, love!
                                                    "Cappielow", of course, being the Gaelic for same. Or the very epitome.

                                                    From St Etienne trashing Lyon to the Renfrewshire derby. I did not see that coming.

                                                    Sorry about my latter pics but your posts - and your dad's patter - have just redoubled my love for a thread I'm already a tad smitten with, laverte.

                                                    It's no Geoffroy-Guichard - no - but Cappielow's in the veins of any time-served Scottish punter, especially a Clyde Coaster like myself. One of the great grounds.

                                                    St Mirren went for a more prosaic translation, and it was at plain old Love Street, exactly one week after my first game at Hampden, St Mirren hosted St Etienne in the UEFA Cup.



                                                    A battle of the saints. St Mirren - like Morton, Falkirk, Dunfermline and Airdrie - one of those Scottish clubs who've almost been champions of Scotland at some point in their history but forged their true legend in the Scottish Cup: Their greatest moments have all come at Hampden too (well, Airdrie won it at Ibrox and one of Falkirk's was at Celtic Park but, well, they've both lost finals at Hampden too so they're just like St Etienne, really, in that respect - they have a generation of fans who both loved and hated their biggest day out).

                                                    Point is, I've had my chances to see ASSE. But so many close calls increases the allure, maintains the enigma - cranks up the mystique.

                                                    And you won't often hear that said in relation to Paisley.

                                                    Well, maybe Bob Paisley. Only manager to win the European Cup three times with one club - the first coming in 1977 - just one year after ... ENOUGH, ALEX! Enough.

                                                    68 European finalists under my hat. Bordeaux were the last I bagged. HSV are the only European Champions I've yet to catch live. But I know which one's just moved to the top of my personal Must See list.

                                                    Last edited by Alex Anderson; 02-12-2017, 11:16. Reason: Putain de poteaux carrés! I am SO SORRY about those posts back then. And my very square posts here now.

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