I GOT my first taste of live motor racing on artificial snow in Paris last Sunday afternoon, but it wasn't my fault.
The plan had been to visit the Musee d'Orsay that morning, but you know yourself, the Metro has lots of tunnels you can get lost in and before you could say `Jaysus, I've already had three days of culture and if I'm subjected to any more I'll come out in a rash', I found myself separated from the Picasso groupies and sitting on a Stade de France-bound double decker train. "Quel dommage," I chuckled to myself. I had no idea if there was anything on in the Stade that day, scene of France's World Cup triumph in July, but I was just keen to experience that goose-pimply sensation one gets with a visit to a famous sporting shrine.
It looked very promising when my train pulled in to the Stade de France station - police everywhere, roads closed, throngs of people heading towards the stadium and big posters everywhere advertising the `Trophee Andros'. Mmm, a football tournament? Over the lune, I was. And there it was, in the distance: a parked flying saucer in the northern Parisian suburb of St Denis. "Aaah, sigh," I said to the nearest policeman, but he was armed, moody and accompanied by an Alsation who looked like he hadn't eaten for a week, so I decided not to chat on. A brisk 10-minute walk took me to the ticket booth at the Stade, but oddly enough a tout hauled me away from the window to offer me a ticket at below the face value. Grand, except then I spotted `haute, block X, rang (row) 78' printed on the ticket I had just paid 100 francs for.
"Haute," I said to him, pointing to the sky. He nodded, shoved my 100 franc note in his pocket and grinned a grin that said something like, "I love tourists, they are such sad suckers". Through the turnstiles I went. Eventually I found the steps to the very haute block X. And by the time I made it to row 78, seat 12, I regarded Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay as underachievers. I would have planted a tricolour in my seat if I had one, but I didn't. And I would have sung Amhran na bhFiann if I could sing, but I can't. Instead I turned around and collapsed in to my seat to watch the football tournament. Except there wasn't one. Not a budding Didier Deschamps in sight. The hallowed, sacred turf of Stade de France was covered in a big, ugly, grey tarpaulin and the running track around the pitch was buried under layers of artificial snow. Either side of the halfway line were start and finish arches and near the spot from where Emmanuel Petit delivered the corner that found Zinedine Zidane's head in the World Cup final (France 1, Brazil 0) was a mangled Nissan Micra. Near the spot from where Youri Djorkaeff delivered the corner that found Zidane's head again (France 2, Brazil 0) was a Renault Twingo in pursuit of an Opel Astra, at the other end, only a few feet from where Petit slid the ball past Taffarel (France 3, Brazil 0).
"C'est un scandale," I muttered to myself after I unlocked my jaw. Motor racing at the Stade de France? "Lads, this is a Football stadium - get out!" But none of my fellow 55,000 spectators appeared to share my horror. Enthralled, they were. (Observation: all the men wore Ferrari jackets, all the women wore coats made of enough fur to keep half the planet's cuddly animals warm). I might have been a tad more tolerant of this foreign code polluting the Stade de France air had I a decent view of the action, but from my block X, row 78 vantage point, the vehicles below looked like dinky cars and appeared to be travelling at three miles an hour. The crashes weren't even that good, more like rush-hour-traffic-loss-of-concentration-bumper-tips. I left soon after Yvan Muller, in an Opel Astra like no Opel Astra I've ever seen before, won his fourth Trophee Andros in a row (accelerating up the wings Lilian Thuram patrolled with such grace during the final).
Frankly France should be stripped of their World Cup title. They're even allowing the Stade de France to be used for rugby, which borders on the criminal. One gets the feeling that these people believe there is more to life that football. They're that sick.
I expected to spend my few days in Paris ambling down Boulevard de Zidane, shopping in Place de l'Aime Jacquet, before dining on Rue de Marcel Desailly. But none of these places exist. The squad's names aren't even graffitied on the Arc de Triomphe. Imagine if we won the World Cup? The faces of Robbie and Roy Keane would be etched in to the Cliffs of Moher and Mick McCarthy would be impaled on top of that needle they're building on O'Connell Street.
Yes, they have to pay for the cost of building the Stade, but why they can't they sell off the Eiffel Tower to a scrap merchant to foot the bill? The only reminder of World Cup glory that I spotted in Paris was in a souvenir shop beside the Louvre where Zinedine Zidane Tshirts were displayed on the same shelf as Renoir and Monet (presumably lesser-known members of the great French side of the eighties - perhaps the Platini and Tigana T-shirts were sold out). No doubt about it, it's just not a city for football fans. When I tried to ring home on my mobile to get the result of Manchester United v Fulham in the FA Cup, a great, big, bloody building blocked the signal. Sacre Coeur, I think they call it. And none of the artists in Montmartre could tell me the score. They might have won the World Cup, but France still has a long way to go. They can start by getting those Opel Astras off the pitch.
