I feel miserable. The local football team, SM Caen, just got relegated to the second division.
Tonight was the last game of the season and Caen lost 1-0 to Bordeaux, who – as a result of their win – lifted the league title. To make it an even more complex night, the goal was scored by a former Caen hero who joined Bordeaux last summer.
I didn’t manage to get a seat for the match – there were huge queues for tickets on Monday and touts made a lot of money from Bordeaux fans. With the match sold out, the city council put on a big screen in the town centre.
Like a lot of local people, I’m gutted by tonight’s result - I’ve been to see a lot of matches this season and I’ve had a soft spot for the team for a long time, ever since one of my favourite players got a transfer here in the late 80s.
Despite feeling miserable by a disappointing season and tonight’s relegation, I can’t claim to ‘feel’ it quite like real fans. I realised this at a match in November when Caen lost to huge local rivals Le Havre. The manner of the defeat – a late goal, totally against the run of play – added to the bitterness of the result.
Supporters around me were stunned, speechless and unable to move. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t feel as crushed as these people looked (although I knew how it felt), so I headed for the exit.
This action felt a little like a betrayal. But there was nothing I could have done. Had I stuck around and claimed to feel as bad as the others did, I would have been faking it.
Partly because of that match and partly because my health was poor over the winter (and it was freezing out on a Saturday night), I didn’t go to many more games. When I got back in the spring the confidence of the team and the fans that was so apparent earlier in the season had evaporated.
I will continue to follow Caen – they will always be ‘my team’ in France. I might even get to see their first game in Ligue 2 before I return to Brighton. And we will all be confident about the new season and getting promoted back to the top division.
Life is full of disappointments, but the true football fan is always an optimist – at least at the start of a season.
