Stade nantais, also called Stade nantais rugby, is a semi-professional

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

team based in

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabit ...

Loire-Atlantique Loire-Atlantique (; br, Liger-Atlantel; before 1957: ''Loire-Inférieure'', br, Liger-Izelañ, link=no) is a department in Pays de la Loire on the west coast of France, named after the river Loire and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a population ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

. They compete in the

Fédérale 1 Le championnat de France de première division fédérale, a.k.a. Fédérale 1, is a French rugby union club competition, the fifth highest level of amateur rugby. The competition has been organised by the Fédération Française de Rugby since 2 ...

, France's fifth tier.

History

Stade nantais université club

The organization was formed in 1907 as Stade nantais université club (SNUC), from the amalgamation of two earlier clubs: Sporting club universitaire nantais (SCUN) and the

Couëron Couëron (; ) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France. It is part of the historic French Brittany. Couëron is one of the 24 communes of the Nantes Métropole. Geography Physical geography Couëron is located 10 m ...

-based Rugby club de Basse-Indre. The Stade nantais name can be traced to a

turn-of-the-century Turn of the century, in its broadest sense, refers to the transition from one century to another. The term is most often used to indicate a distinctive time period either before or after the beginning of a century or both before and after. Acc ...

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

club team that pioneered

in Nantes, and whose members had scattered to SCUN and RC Basse-Indre. Right off the bat, the SNUC benefited from the involvement of star player :fr:Pascal Laporte, who had relocated to Nantes to oversee a company that imported coal from

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, following a highly successful career with

Stade bordelais Stade Bordelais are a French rugby union club, based in Bordeaux. The club was established in 1889. Bordelais were a major force in the French championship during the 1900s. Until 2005–06, the senior team competed in the second level of dom ...

. The Laporte connection further paid off in 1910, with the signing of Welsh

fly-half In the game of rugby union, there are 15 players on each team, comprising eight forwards (wearing jerseys numbered 1–8) and seven backs (numbered 9–15). In addition, there may be up to eight replacement players "on the bench", numbered 16– ...

Percy Bush Percy Frank Bush (23 June 1879 – 19 May 1955) was a Welsh rugby union player who played international rugby for Wales on eight occasions. Playing at fly-half, Bush is regarded as one of the most talented Welsh players of the pre-First World W ...

, one of finest players of the game's pioneer era. Laporte would successively serve as player, coach and president of the organization, and its longtime home pitch was renamed in his honor in 1950. The club established itself as a French rugby power during the 1910s, although the stature of its accomplishments was somewhat diminished by the advent of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. Nantes did become the

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...

national champions in 1917, beating

Stade toulousain Stade Toulousain () ( oc, Estadi Tolosenc), also referred to as Toulouse, is a professional rugby union club based in Toulouse, France. They compete in the Top 14, France's top division of rugby, and the European Rugby Champions Cup. Toulous ...

for the title. However, with most adult players conscripted to the battlefields, the competition was played by junior-agers and called

Coupe de l'Esperance A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...

. From the 1920s on, the SNUC mostly played in the second tier, with a few stints at the top level. In the late 1990s, it fell all the way down to the lower rungs of the national leagues.

Stade nantais

By 2007, the club was in dire financial straits, and a new legal entity—now just called Stade nantais—was created to take over the team's identity. This new incarnation reached the Fédérale 1 (then the third tier of French rugby) in 2016, but its rise was stymied by more financial problems, and the club was threatened with enforced relegation in 2019. Undeterred, Stade nantais reaffirmed its goal to reach Pro D2 within a few years, and hired former

Aviron bayonnais Aviron Bayonnais ( eu, Baionako Arrauna), commonly called Bayonne, is a French rugby union club from Bayonne (''Baiona'', in Basque) in Pyrénées-Atlantiques which, for the 2016-17 season, competed in the top tier of the French league system, ...

coach

Vincent Etcheto Vincent ( la, Vincentius) is a male given name derived from the Roman name Vincentius, which is derived from the Latin word (''to conquer''). People with the given name Artists * Vincent Apap (1909–2003), Maltese sculptor * Vincent van Gog ...

as a consultant. Etcheto was promoted to the position of manager in the summer of 2020. However, he would quit a few weeks later when the team was demoted to Fédérale 3 due to a deficit of nearly €1 million, which no new investor could cover in full. The club's resurgence was further complicated by the creation, in 2020 and 2022, of two bridge divisions between the

Pro D2 Rugby Pro D2, also known as Pro D2 is the second tier of rugby union club competition division in France. It is operated by Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) which also runs the division directly above, the first division Top 14. Rugby Pro D2 was i ...

and

. In 2022, Stade nantais announced the hiring of longtime

Top 14 The Top 14 () is a professional rugby union club competition that is played in France. Created in 1892, the Top 14 is at the top of the national league system operated by the French National Rugby League, also known by its French initialism o ...

player Mirco Bergamasco as manager, with the club now professing a more deliberate development model based on homegrown talent.

Honours

Coupe de l'Espérance The Coupe de l'Espérance was a rugby union competition that was played in France to replace the national championship during World War I, as many players were sent to the front. The teams used mostly young boys who had not been drafted yet. The cup ...

(1917)

Notable players

* :fr:Guy Belletante * :fr:Pascal Laporte *

Clovis Le Bail Clovis Le Bail (born 29 November 1995) is a French rugby union player, who plays for Section Paloise. His regular playing position is Scrum-half. He was called by Fabien Galthié Fabien Galthié (; born 20 March 1969) is a French rugby unio ...

In popular culture

Jean Graton Jean Graton (10 August 1923 – 21 January 2021) was a French comic book author and cartoonist. Graton created the famous character Michel Vaillant and the eponymous series in 1957. Biography Graton was born in Nantes, France, in 1923. He move ...

, creator of ''

Michel Vaillant ''Michel Vaillant'' is a French car racing comics series created in 1957 by French cartoonist Jean Graton and published originally by Le Lombard. Later, Graton published the albums by himself when he founded Graton éditeur in 1982. Michel Va ...

'', played rugby for the SNUC in his youth, and paid tribute to the club with a 1956 short story called ''Le trois-quart-centre ne passe plus !'' (English: The centre three-quarter won't pass anymore!). It was the cover story for issue number 382 of '' Tintin'' magazine.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Rugby union clubs in France Rugby clubs established in 1907 Multi-sport clubs in France 1907 establishments in France Sport in Nantes