Supporters
Historically, Racing has its roots in southern Strasbourg in the working-class Neudorf, Meinau and Polygone neighborhoods. In the 1930s, the team was the only one in the area to jump to professional play and, with the help of good results during that decade, it built support all around the town. In Strasbourg like in the rest of France, there is only one pro football club in every city and hence no in-town rivalry, a fact that heavily contrasts with the situation in Great Britain, Italy or Spain. Nowadays, as the only professional football club in Alsace, Racing attracts a large fan base that covers both the Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin départements as well as the eastern part of the Moselle. The fan-base ouside of this area is essentially limited to people that, for a reason or another, have a personal link with Alsace. The club also has ties to the other side of the Rhine, especially through a supporter friendship with Karlsruher SC and regular friendly matches during the summer.
On average, the attendance in Ligue 1 has been around 20,000 for a stadium capacity of 29,000. Supporters groups include the "Ultra Boys 90", the "Kop Ciel et Blanc" and the "Club central des supporters". Most of the supporter groups and the most vocal fans in general have elected location in the Kop at the "Quart de Virage Nord-Ouest" (North-West quarter corner). Strasbourg supporters have the reputation to be faithful yet critical. Former captain Corentin Martins has once asserted that the Strasbourg public is "demanding, but fair". The club is often dubbed "L'OM de l'Est" ("the Olympique Marseille from the East") in the French media due to passion, regular crises and instability. Racing is always an emotional topic in Alsace. It is often said that some may love it or hate it, or even both at the same time, but that it leaves no one indifferent.
Racing Strasbourg's main rivals are FC Metz. The clubs compete is what is generally referred as the "Derby de l'Est" ("the Eastern derby") in France, a rather inappropriate term since the two cities are 150 km. distant. There is however a significant degree of inter-regional rivalry between Alsace and Lorraine, leading to some acrimony between the fans on both sides. The two clubs met each other in the quarter-finals of the 1995 Intertoto Cup in what was the first ever match between two French teams in a European competition. Strasbourg won the game 2–0. When FC Mulhouse was professional, the two sides also nourished a rivalry that persists as far as youth teams are concerned.
Read more about this topic: RC Strasbourg
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead. An investigation kills and it and its supporters dead. Let this be had.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)