Bonjour from England

[SEBUK mancunia]

I knew you were going to say that!

There's a little creperie/bar just across the road where us lads hang about before most games. It's not the best place to go for a drink in town, and to be honest the area around the stadium isn't the most beautiful... It's new, functional, equiped with the freshest CCTVs and ruled by the old bill every saturday night. But as Malek rightly says, the centre of town has great monuments (a huge castle and 2 abbyes built by William and Mathilde, the Duc of Normandy who became King of England n 1066). There's also a huge number of churches which have survived the war. Goeff was right to mention the music scene, as it's well developped for a town of our size. The Cargo and the Big Band Café are great venues, and we also have a big concert hall for the boring Jhonny Haliday type, or Pop Idle winners.

If you are comming for the PSG game, make sure you book your tickets in advance, just in case. Although all the stands offer a nice view, you don't want to be sitting with a bunch of lazy moaners. You've got to come in the Luc Borrelli stand with us. It's not always easy for us to get the whole stadium going, it's actually pretty impossible. But at least we try and do the job our end. You've go to understand that even if we do play in France's top league at the moment, our club has very little profesional history, which explains why our fanbase is no where near Saint Etienne's for exemple. Still, the atmosphere isn't bad... You'll see for yourself!

[geoffleese]

Lazy moaners? Quoi, nous? Who, us?

[Caenglais Boys]

Yes I've seen that Caen has not been professional for that long. I plan on booking tickets online the day they are on sale then collecting them from the Centre Paul Doumer I think it is. The hotel in Caen has now been booked so it is just a case of waiting now. We wouldn't sit anywhere but in the Kop, it looks fantastic. You would never get anything like it in England. I have seen videos on youtube and the atmosphere looks brilliant.

The town looks beautiful too so it should be a really good experience and hopefully after this one, we will see how easy it is and come over a lot more. Thank you for the advice on where to drink. You'll probably hear our broad English accents in there somewhere so no doubt we will stand out. I really cannot wait now

[geoffleese]

Grand.

You'll find plenty of folks in there who will understand you perfectly well.

Sometimes I thnk they speak better English ( in the sense of "correct") than we do.

Good game tonight - won 3-1 away at Brest after a dodgy pen and a sending off of our no 5.

Keep in touch.

BR

Geoff

[Caenglais Boys]

Wishing the team a victory away at Lens this weekend. Let us know how they do. The Caenglais boys are watching Leicester City Vs Millwall so I hope we celebrate victory in both games.

Allez Caen

[geoffleese]

Got beat 1-0, but played OK. No cards, unusually! Watched the game on the web.

Vale lost 0-1 too. How'd you gwt on? Alwaya good to hear about Millwall getting beat!

[Caenglais Boys]

We won 4-2. Millwall missed a penalty in the 2nd minute, then scored one later on in the game and then had a man sent off just after, keeps us within touching distance of the promotion favourites, so it was well worth the £16 to get in. I was keeping up with the Caen score. Can't win them all. At least they still have a very good chance of staying up

[SEBUK mancunia]

Just to to let you folks know what's going on here, yesterday's match was awfull both on the pitch and in the stands. The players played badly, but the stewards and police were even less professional at the Felix Boleart Stadium in Lens. The old bill have a new brigade of cops in jogging trousers and Nike Air Max who were created earlier this season to face the almost non-existing hooligan movement in France. We don't have them in every stadium but they did have them in Lens yesterday along with the anti-riot police and the huge load of stewards. The old bill were very agressive from the start and filmed us with their own little camera as we were walking into the stadium. Another one was taking pictures of us, just in case the film wasn't enough. They nicked one of our blokes after they got minor incident they were looking for. The crowd of fans started getting angry as they would do. The anti-riot lot were looking to create one and started pushing us about with their shields. It looked like a Millwall-West Ham game in the 80s... or at least what I imagine it was like. But the thing is we're not known to be a nasty bunch and we have no history with Lens fans what so ever. They're just unbelievebly paranoid, and the politians are putting presure on football fans as they beleive it's an easy way of showing the general public that the government is actually doing something.
It's been like that for a few years already, but untill recently fans like us didn't have to face this. Only the top clubs got that type of treatment.

I'm affraid that's the only news we have this week...

[Caenglais Boys]

Fortunately here in England, the police seem to understand what it takes to control the crowds. I can't think of a game I have been to where the police have had to use violence. I have seen people taken out of the stadium and police almost always film the fans, that is my experience especially when going to away games. It's just something that we are used to. Yesterday the Millwall fans were surrounded by police on all sides on the approach to the stadium, which might not be necessary but they cannot take the risk I suppose. But if there is no history of problems between clubs it seems too much by the police.

I have seen tv footage of games in Europe and the police do seem to be very heavy handed, but I have obviously never experienced it myself so cannot really comment.