Ten league titles, six domestic cups, an appearance in a European Cup final and a list of former stars including Michel Platini and Dominique Rocheteau.
But Saint Etienne, the club where UEFA president Michel Platini made his name in the 1970s and early 1980s, are in danger of becoming the forgotten team of French soccer, with 11 defeats in 15 league outings this season having plunged them to the foot of the table.
Thirty years ago it was all so different for a club which once was used to dining at the top table of the European game.
PHOTO: AFP
Had it not been for a goal in the dying minutes of the second leg at Anfield in an epic 1977 European Cup quarter-final from Liverpool’s “supersub” David Fairclough the French, losing finalists a year earlier to Bayern Munich, would have gone through on the away goals rule.
Fairclough’s effort ultimately provided the launchpad to glory as Liverpool went on to lift the first of their five continental crowns.
Saint Etienne, in stark contrast, slid into obscurity and it would be Marseille who became the first — and so far only — French club to lift the European Cup with their triumph in 1993.
After Saturday’s loss to Nice at their Geoffrey Guichard stadium, their seventh in a row, Saint Etienne are in danger of seeing another five-year cycle of booming but unfilled hopes followed by the bust of the drop — as happened twice in the past decade.
A favorite fan chant over the years includes the refrain “they pop the corks when Saint Etienne are champions.”
But over the past decade the club’s bubbly has fallen flat particularly with all of the top flight’s champagne stockpiled up the road in Lyon, in whose shadow Saint Etienne now reluctantly live.
To stop the rot, the club has turned to a man who only a few months ago was looking at life from the other end of the table — Alain Perrin who took Lyon to their seventh straight league title only five months ago.
The former Portsmouth boss replaced Laurent Roussey who was sacked after a run of debilitating league defeats culminated in a fifth straight loss to Rennes — their worst run since 1955.
“We are in a downward spiral,” Perrin said. “But we are improving our game and that will ultimately bring its own reward. We must save Les Verts.”
Star striker Bafetembi Gomis certainly hadn’t expected to be involved in a relegation battle just months on from forcing his way into the French squad at Euro 2008.
Gomis had expressed an initial desire to leave even as early as the middle of last year after being angry at having to sit out a match against Marseille.
He later extended his contract to 2012 but said that “there’s too much instability around this club.”
And that was when they were bound for the UEFA Cup.
Chairman Roland Romeyer did not help Gomis’ cause when he said recently that “since he’s got into the French side it’s gone to his head.”
The striker diplomatically told Saint Etienne’s official Web site that “those words hurt — but came from a passionate man very disappointed by the results at a club he has given so much to. Those who know me know I am not the kind to get big-headed,” insisted the forward, who has a meager return of two goals so far this term.
His form mirrors that of the rest of the team.
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