MontpellierLa Mosson Stadium stands in the neighbourhood of La Paillade in the north-eastern part of Montellier. Originally, its wooden stands only had 3,000 seats, but today’s stadium is altogether different; nowadays, Montpellier has a modern stadium with 35,500 seats, and Soccer World Cup matches were held there in 1998.
But here in the South of France rugby also has its place, as demonstrated by the semi-final of the French championship, contested by Stade Toulousain and Bourgoin on 22 May 1999. In order to symbolically associate all of the inhabitants of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, all the stands and boxes at La Mosson Stadium bear the name of cities and places of the region.
For instance; Argelès-sur-Mer, Béziers, Canet-en-Roussillon, Carcassonne, Castelnaudary, Corbières, Limoux, Canigou, Cévennes, Corbières, Étang de Thau, Gévaudan, Petite Camargue etc. The list goes on and on.
La Mosson Stadium owes its name to the river that flows next to it. The stadium paid a heavy price for its location during the floods in late 2002, but the site has been cleaned up since then and the local soccer club, Montpellier-Hérault SC, was once again able to satisfy its numerous supporters, as it had been doing since the early 1970s.
Moreover, it was during a French soccer championship match that the stadium achieved its record attendance figure, with 30,112 spectators coming to watch a clash between Montpellier and Marseilles on 16 December 1998.
Montpellier was voted the most sporty city in France in 1997 by the French sports daily L’Équipe; Montpellier is also a young university city that is a centre of culture with a population over 200,000 inhabitants. It is also home to the oldest Medical Faculty in Europe.
|
