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At least that is what will go down in the record books as being "France '98".

My France '98 however, was a little bit different.

When me ,and a friend, first arrived in France, and more specifically St Etienne, the World Cup was still 10 days away. So I wasn't too concerned with the apparent apathy towards the World Cup by the French. Even though England was experiencing 'football fever' already, I just put it down to low expectations for a France victory.

But, as the days went by still no programs on TV, few posters in windows, no-one wearing football shirts......to be honest if somebody had told me the World Cup had been cancelled due to lack of interest, I'd have believed them.

So, June 10th arrives, we finished work half an hour before the opening ceremony began. Expecting to have to fight our way into the pub to see the screen, we rush to what had quickly become our regular watering hole, 'The Albion'. It was empty!

Well, maybe I'm being a bit harsh there. There were about 5 other people in the pub. Including 3 drunk French men dressed up in Brazil tops, and waving a Brazil flag. It wasn't so much amusing as almost surreal. The opening ceremony began, was extremely unusual, and ended. Then the moment the whole world, well a 3rd of it anyway, had been waiting for. The opening game of the 1998 World Cup final, Brazil V Scotland. Game on!

As we left the pub, a few hours after the game (!), we noticed that a few more posters had gone up in shop windows, and the various flags of each nation had been hung on lines across streets. Maybe, just maybe, France was starting to take to football.

The first match taking place in St Etienne was Yugoslavia V Iran. To be honest, not many fans seemed to be around. Quite a large percentage of St Etienne is made up of the Arab community. So Iranians out-numbered Yugoslav's. The few fans that were around made themselves fairly well-heard, but it wasn't the huge party that I had been hoping for. The game was equally as dull.

The second match was Chile V Austria. At last, a taste of the World Cup atmosphere I had been waiting for. A few hundred Austrian fans gathered on the steps of the Town Hall, along with a Brass Band, chanting out songs, and waving big Austrian flags. Some Chile fans even joined in, laughing and joking with the Austrians. Early on that day, whilst we were in the launderette, some Chile fans started playing football with a 'rogue sock'. This is what the World Cup is all about. Football, and having fun.

Next up was Spain V Paraguay. Surprisingly few Spanish fans around. I thought that, with Spain being a neighbour, they would bring quite a few fans. Not that many Paraguay fans either, but then again it is a fair journey from South America. The atmosphere was ok, the match was awful.

Scotland V Morocco brought the best atmosphere so far. A reported 15,000 Scots (and I wouldn't doubt that) travelled down to St Etienne over the 2 days before the game. They came, they swore, they chanted. The Scottish were voted "Best Supporters" of the World Cup. I disagree. Certainly they were loud and numerous. But they seemed more interested in directing their chanting against England, than in support of Scotland. Now, I'm English, and no doubt people will claim that it is just my bias point of view. But, England fans were loud and numerous, and sang anti-Scottish songs, so why not considered as "Best Supporters"? Sure, England fans caused damage in Marseille, and the culprits were arrested and sent home. A little known fact is that the Scots actually badly damaged a fountain in St Etienne, to the point of it not working. And, from news I heard from reporters I was helping at the time, more Scottish were sent home than English in the tournament! The Moroccans were quite numerous, due to the large foreign community I mentioned earlier, and noisy. "Maroc, Maroc, Maroc" was well in evidence. The atmosphere afterwards however was one of sadness. Events in the Norway V Brazil match meant that the result of this game was irrelevant, both Scotland and Morocco bow out of the tournament.

The last group game hosted at St Etienne was Holland V Mexico, and what a cracking atmosphere they made! The Dutch are well regarded as excellent fans, and I agree. They were quite clearly enjoying themselves, singing and drinking plenty, and eagerly socialising with the many Mexicans in evidence. They also dyed the main fountain in St Etienne orange. Much to the amusement of the people I was working for in the Town Hall. The Mexicans brought an open topped, double decker bus with them, which was draped in flags, and carried many Tequila swigging Mexicans around St Etienne. The Dutch were all dressed and painted in bright orange, almost to the point of headache causing. In direct contrast to the last match, the outcome of this match was perfect, almost to the point of scripted. With 3 teams fighting for 2 places, anything could happen. In the end, thanks to an injury-time equaliser from Luis Hernandez of Mexico, both Holland and Mexico advanced to the 2nd round. The celebrations afterwards were fantastic. Thousands of Dutch and Mexicans mixed happily and got drunk together, all looking forward to the next game. This was by far the best atmosphere of any game in St Etienne.

St Etienne hosted the 2nd round match between England V Argentina as its last game. On a personal note, we were extremely happy that England were playing where we were working, however, we would rather it was against someone else. Due to constant restrictions put on the English at each venue, many of the English stayed in Lyon up until a few hours before the game. Lyon is only a short train ride from St Etienne, and did not have any restrictions. To be fair though, the restrictions in St Etienne were not as bad as in previous games. As expected, the big screen did not show the game. Pubs shut at 11pm, instead of 2am as is usual, but aside from that no other restrictions were enforced. It didn't stop the few thousand English, and few hundred Argentinians, who travelled early to St Etienne, from making a lot of noise and enjoying themselves. There was the customary exchange of chants between rivals, but the atmosphere was far from hostile, as we had been led to believe. In fact, I saw one Argentinian lad shaking the hand of an English fan, and then bursting into a rendition of "Vindaloo"!

The heart-breaking match result is history now, and for St Etienne, the World Cup was over.

Initially, for the 10 days or so that I was in St Etienne before the matches started, I helped with the St Etienne World Cup website. Translating documents and articles into english, for publication on the website. I learned all about various aspects of St Etienne that we would otherwise have never known.

When the World Cup started was when my real job began. One day I would be working at the local newspaper offices, the next day I would be up at the Press Centre in the Stadium, finding out the latest team news, and writing match reports. As well as journalists from all over the world, I worked with ITV Sport, BBC Scotland, The Daily Record, and Channel 4's 'The Big Breakfast'. I also appeared on a live cable and satellite TV program called 'World Cup Undercover', on Bravo. But the less said about that the better!!

Q: Where were you the night France thumped a lackluster Brazil 3-0 in the World Cup final?

                                       A: Marseille beach!

When the last match at St Etienne had been played, 30th June, my work was more-or-less done. We took the opportunity to do some shopping in Lyon, and I really fancied the idea of travelling down to Marseille to watch the final. We booked tickets, we would get there on the afternoon of the 12th July, returning at night on the 13th.

One 3 hour train ride later, we arrived in Marseille. And boy was it packed!

It seemed like everyone in France had thought the same. Thousands upon thousands of them. However, the atmosphere was not football related, it was more of a holiday resort. I almost felt obliged to tell the french that their team was actually in the final. We had a relaxing day, drinking beer and taking in the sights, including THAT picture of Marseille's hero, Zinedine Zidane. He is loved and adored all over France, but especially Marseille. His apparent home city. Even though it crossed my mind, I decided against pointing out his Algerian decent!

And so the final was only 2 hours away, and we found ourselves on the beach in Marseille. I don't know whether you have seen any pictures of the big screen in Marseille, but it was installed on a gorgeous beach. I took a deep breath and thought to myself, "here I am, eating pizza and drinking beer on the beach in Marseille. The sunset is spectacular, the temperature pleasantly warm, and the World Cup final is about to take place. What could be better?" And then I remembered it wasn't England V Brazil, it was France V Brazil.

The match itself was disappointing. Sure, it had 3 goals, missed chances, and we were in the middle of the winning fans, but as a competition it was poor. Brazil didn't turn up. Some other team claiming to be Brazil had sneaked in and kicked off. Well, that may as well have happened.

In the newspapers all the next day, and the day after, and the day after, differing reports of why Brazil had been so poor turned up. Ronaldo suffered a fit, internal team arguments, a certain Suzanne Werner, pain killers, sedatives, stress, 'Nike' contracts, you name it, and it was blamed. Bottom line is, Brazil played badly. And France were more than happy to exploit it.

The celebrations afterwards were understandably boisterous. Every french person had a flag, and wasn't afraid to wave it. For as far as you could see, cars lined the streets beeping horns, and lads on mopeds raced around crashing into the cars. In the half an hour we spent just watching the chaotic driving, we saw a moped smack into the side of a car, a car literally push its way past a parked car (crunching sound an all), and a car ,which was travelling at high speed backwards down the road, unsurprisingly crash into the back of another car. But no-one seemed to care. The french were absolutely ecstatic, delighted, 'over the moon'. Thousands of them at that.

But, amongst all the happy, flag waving, horn beeping, crowds.........not a single football top or scarf.

This may seem like a trivial thing to you. Who cares what they are wearing? But, if someone who didn't know the world cup was on was to watch the scenes, he would never guess from what he saw that France had just won a football match. It could have been a major political victory, or (dare I say it) they had won the war. I would expect similar celebrations for that. But for a celebration of a football victory, you expect everyone to be wearing football tops, scarfs, hats, shorts......at least something football related. Indeed, I wonder exactly how much attention some of the now cheering people actually paid to the game, especially when one man proudly shouted that France had beaten Brazil 2-0! And not 3-0 as the final score actually was.

This was seen by the french as a victory for France. Not for the french football team, but France.

Still, fair play to them. The team had certainly earned their way to the final. With skill, determination, and that bit of luck we all need, they finally won their first ever World Cup.

And I was on the beach in Marseille to see it.

Any questions or comments, please email me at j.bates@england.com


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