As the Portsmouth coastline disappeared behind us we wondered what we were sailing into. This was our boldest footballing pilgrimage yet; one that would involve a six-hour crossing to a country where we didn’t speak the language and it didn’t speak ours.
Still, as the old saying goes, football is a universal language and we were in search of a good conversation. Poetic bulls@£$% aside, we were two Leicester City fans making our first trip to Normandy to show our support for a club unlike our own, despite modest beginnings.
Stade Malherbe Caen was founded exactly 100 years ago in 1913 but was an amateur club until 1985. Named after Norman poet Francois de Malherbe, the club has bounced between France’s top two divisions in recent years. The club’s fiercely loyal support believes Malherbe to be a top-flight club and is endlessly restless when they aren’t there. Sound familiar?
My interest in the club began while studying for a degree in Journalism. Wanting to specialize in football like the rest of the world and his brothers, I decided I would attempt to gain a good knowledge of all major European leagues. I figured the easiest way to do this would be to pick a team and chart their progress. Interests in Schalke 04 and Chievo Verona fell by the wayside but it was Malherbe that stayed with me. Chosen purely because they wore the same colours as FC Barcelona, a club I have followed since I was seven (a story for another day), Malherbe had captured my attention.
Years of representing Caen on Pro Evolution Soccer led me to idolize such club icons as talismanic striker Sebastien Mazure and current Toon favourite Yoan Gouffran. My enthusiasm appeared infectious as my housemate and fellow LCFC die-hard adopted Malherbe after taking them to the French title on Championship Manager.
We were now heavily involved and just playing as our heroes would not be enough. A little research later we were pleased to learn we could catch a ferry direct to Caen from Portsmouth. We found the forum of the club’s biggest supporters group, the Malherbe Normandy Kop 1996, and voiced our intentions to come over for a game. Skeptical at first, forum members in their broken English quizzed us on our intentions in following Malherbe when we could quite easily have chosen such powerhouses as Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Some forum members warned others that we could be wolves in sheep’s clothing or even under cover members of the hated ultras of local rivals Le Havre and Rennes.
We will always remain grateful to our friend Nono who was the first to reach out to us and agree to get us tickets for the upcoming game against PSG. Malherbe were enjoying a spell in Ligue 1 at that time and we couldn’t think of a better game for our first. So there we were a few weeks later on the ferry heading to a place we had never been to. Nono had told us he would meet us off the ferry at the terminal and we had no idea whether he would stay true to his word.
When young lads get together they tend to get ahead of themselves and invent ridiculous scenarios of how things could possibly go. That was us in abundance prior to our first trip to Normandy and we really didn’t know what to expect. We had never experienced anything that had surpassed our crazy fantasies until now. We imagined Nono as a rotund man in his 40s, fanatical about Malherbe, who spoke no word of the Queen’s, who would smile, hand us our tickets and welcome us. How wrong we were.
Nono was a young guy who wore a smile that made him constantly look like he was on a wind up, our kind of guy basically. He had with him Seb, another part of the MNK’s loyal core. While Nono was 100% Norman and proud, Seb was half English and was obviously dragged along because he was fluent in our mother tongue. We shook hands and Nono drove us all into Caen, 12 miles from the port of Ouisterham. We begun to see how influential these two guys that had just picked us up actually were in the town as Nono’s car would stop every few minutes to shake hands with someone else he knew and our limited French allowed us understanding that he was telling everyone he had “picked up the English guys”.
After we were dropped off at our basic hostel type hotel en le centre ville we told Nono and Seb we would just be a few minutes to get changed. Overlooking the street, we could see from our hotel room that more and more MNK members had begun to amass, both male and female, mostly in their early twenties. Feeling like celebrities and a little nervous, we walked outside to be greeted by no less than fifteen new faces who all addressed us as “Caenglais boys?” the name we had registered on the MNK forum. I’m sure you can decipher the pun.
The day we had arrived in Caen was the day of the game so now we had all gathered it was time to make our way to the Stade Michel D’Ornano, Malherbe’s neat and tidy ground. Built in 1993 as a replacement to the Stade Venoix next door, the D’Ornano holds 21,000 and frequently hosts French U-21 matches.
Arriving outside the ground we had only imagined until now, we made our way to an adjacent bar in what was blistering April heat. Here we met Dada, an angling fanatic whose limited English seemed to centre around this subject, and the affectionately named Bruce Lee owing to his dual heritage. As well as these two characters that would later become good friends, yet another 20 new faces greeted us. Nevertheless, we became ever more popular when we copped for a large round of beers.
After drinking for an hour or so we were introduced to Olaf, a broad Norman unit of a guy who we were told was top boy. He had founded the MNK in 1996 and was an ever present both home and away, no mean feat in a country more than a thousand miles long. Olaf seemed pleased we were there but was inevitably one of the few that were unsure of us to begin with. He told us to stand with him in the stadium and we wondered whether that was an olive branch or for our own protection.
Well lubricated on that strange Kronenbourg that isn’t 1664 (the less widely drank ‘posh stuff’ in France) we were led over to the entrance to the Tribune Luc Borrelli, the home of the MNK named after a former goalkeeping favourite tragically killed in a road traffic accident in 1999. We were astounded to see there were no turnstiles here, just a quick body search by a typically French looking (full of them, France) steward and a walk through a large door.
Inside, the MNK had a merchandise stand selling t-shirts, scarves and memberships. It was here that Olaf opened up to us, handing us both an MNK scarf at no charge. Our first glimpse of the D’Ornano’s interior was not unlike my first visit to Filbert Street in the mid nineties. The atmosphere hit you in the face and we must have stood out like sore thumbs. Who were these new faces strolling down to the middle of the stands with the core of the MNK that others must kill to be associated with? Huge flags were thrust in our hands and we were told to wave them until our arms went numb. We figured this was the least we could do as the only songs we felt we could confidently sing were ‘Allez les rouge et bleus’ and the comfortingly repetitive ‘Allez Malherbe! (Repeat x150)’.
The standard of football in the French league does seem to vary. Here in Ligue 1, Malherbe could boast such players as Romain Hamouma, Frederic Bulot and Benjamin Nivet and as such looked a fairly decent side. At present, the club lies in Ligue 2 and a recent visit to a match with Nancy was more like League One fayre. But we talk here of a game which predates the Qatari invasion of Paris and, as such, the danger posed by PSG came from Nene, Clement Chantome and Guillaume Hoarau. In the stands flares went up, the chanting never stopped and the atmosphere was electric. All this and Malherbe were 2-0 down to a PSG side that I’m sure this season’s LCFC would have hammered. How times change. As a parting gift Malherbe snuck an injury time consolation that sent us all rushing forwards to the high ‘safety’ fence in front. Then immediately full time.
Despite the defeat, we well and truly had the Malherbe bug now. Feeling like honorary MNK members we left the ground feeling we should have gotten something out of the game. The mood was raucous nonetheless and we headed back into town. After leaving the guys we wondered if that was the last we would see of them. We got changed and walked into town to sample the quintessentially French cuisine they served at ‘McDo’.
My phone rang a few minutes after I’d polished off my Royale with Cheese (because of the metric system) and it was one of the guys. Clearly lacking in communication I repeated that we were at McDo, which seemed to be understood as five minutes later ten guys came down the road to collect us. We spent the rest of the evening in an Irish bar called O’Donnell’s, which became our home from home on future trips to watch Malherbe. You are always sure to meet at least one of the MNK boys in O’Donnell’s at any time of day and if you do, you can be sure more will follow.
The six hour ferry ride back across to Portsmouth the next day left us reeling about how pleasant and hospitable the MNK were to a couple of English lads with no real good reason to follow the team they had supported all their lives. We like to think we showed enough enthusiasm and passion on that first trip to have been thought of as genuine. We found the atmosphere we were craving and the friendship and camaraderie that comes with vociferous and undying support for your football team. When Malherbe conceded a goal there was a huge collective sigh and the singing began not 15 seconds later. This is in essence what the Ultras movement is all about. Supporting your team and representing your city, regardless of standard and regardless of score.
We have since visited Caen twice more and become close to a few of the guys over there. They take an interest in Leicester City results and are extremely keen to join us for a match at the KP in the near future. This is something we would love.
One of my proudest moments as a football fan and a Leicester City supporter will always be walking into a bar hundreds of miles from home and across a sea to have a handful of French guys sing ‘When you’re smiling’ at me in broken English.
Allez Malherbe and Up the City!
Filbo Spirit 
Top work!