Saint-Étienne is the ultimate sweat spot of many French football fans, dating from the glorious seventies. The green record champions might not be as strong as they were anymore, their charm was preserved and if you visit the derby against Lyon in Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, you're guaranteed deaf for a couple of days.
To understand what Saint-Étienne means for French football, we have to go back to the seventies, in which Les Verts won title after title and in 1976 even reached the Europa Cup I Final. They lost it against Bayern Munich, but the whole of France was proud and a little bit fan of Saint-Étienne, a real peoples club. After their return to France, they were received in Paris by the French president, and even got a parade at the famous Champs-Elysées, with thousands of football fans on the side of the road. And that at 500 km away from home. These days might have been gone long ago, still to this day Saint-Étienne are record champions of France and a club which is worth a visit for many reasons. Allez les Verts!
The Stade Geoffroy-Guichard is located in the north of Saint-Étienne at the Rue Paul et Pierre Guichard, and that tells you something about the history of the club. The Guichard family set up the Casino supermarkets - one of the biggest chains in France - and the sport club of the company became the Association Sportive Saint-Étienne. It explains also the origin of the green colours of the club, based on the style of the supermarkets. Even though the stadium has been renovated regularly, it never took the great atmosphere of Geoffroy-Guichard away. Not for nothing, in France it's widely known as Le Chaudron Vert, the green cauldron. When the cauldron boils, you start to understand why away teams don't like to come here, especially with the fanatic stands behind both goals.
There's just 60 kilometers between Saint-Étienne and Lyon, which is for French standard just nothing. If you ask us, the Derby du Rhône is the most beautiful derby of France, with fireworks on and off the pitch. The raw industrial city of Saint-Étienne against the mondane, cultural rich and bigger Lyon. A chairman of Saint-Étienne once stated famously that 'in football, Saint-Étienne will always be the main city and Lyon its suburb'. After seven league titles in a row for Lyon at the beginning of the century we're not so sure about that, but fact is that Saint-Étienne still has got three more titles than their hated neighbour.
Saint-Étienne has a club museum as well, in the corner right from the main entrance of Geoffroy-Guichard. There aren't many clubs with a history like Saint-Étienne does, and the collection is very much original. Let's face it, which football museum has got an actual real Mercedes of a player from the seventies in their collection? Above all the memorabilia, you have the chance to watch the summaries of famous matches in the history of Saint-Étienne. The museum is open on match days as well, and is ideal to brush up your knowledge of the history of the club.
Do you want to spend the night in green atmospheres too? You can, Saint-Étienne has got its own hotel. In walking distance of the stadium (Rue des Trois Glorieuses 23) you'll find Hotel Bar Restaurant 'Le Chaudron Vert'. It's in fact sort of a dependance of the club museum as well, with all the memorabilia in the restaurant. All the rooms are in the club's colours and are equipped with photo's of the stadium. Also without overnight stay, you can have dinner and a drink in the restaurant before the match.
For home games of Saint-Étienne, you can buy tickets easily on the official website of the club. Even as a one time visitor, you can get tickets for the derby against Lyon, if you simply make sure you buy them a couple of weeks in advance.
From the city center, you can take tram 1 to stop Roger Rocher - Allez les Verts, on a five minute walk from the stadium. Or you can take tram 3, whose ride is a litte bit longer, but this one takes you to stop Geoffroy-Guichard - Musée des Verts, right in front of the stadium.
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