Tag Archives: Stade de Kervéguen

Saturday 7th December 2019 – WHAT DO YOU THINK …

christmas decorations rue paul poirier granville manche normandy france… of the Christmas decorations in the rue Paul Poirier this year, Strawberry Moose?

Well, of course, I wouldn’t have put it quite like that but nevertheless, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m singularly unimpressed by the (lack of) imagination shown by the city fathers (and mothers) this year.

It’s not a great deal different that in any preceding year and when I see some of the effort that goes into making the chars, the carnaval floats, each year, I was expecting more than this, I have to say.

But talking of imagination, my imagination was working overtime last night. Despite being a night much (indeed very much) later than I had intended, and despite struggling to my feet somewhere in the same vicinity as the alarm calls, there was plenty of time to go off on a ramble.
And that was even though it took absolutely ages and ages and ages to go off to sleep last night. At one stage I thought that it must be getting light by now and I still hadn’t off to sleep, but sleep I must have done and dream I certainly did. I was with a group of people and as is my wont, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’d given a few of them nicknames as would be appropriate. It actually came out in the discussion as I mentioned a nickname about someone or something. These people were all dying to know who it was and what I meant and what other nicknames I had given to anyone or anything else. There was one nickname in particular that I’d given to someone and I really didn’t want anyone to know because it was a very special nickname. So I was there and I decided that I would resist all efforts. One girl in particular came along and started to question me much more about this and this was a surprise really because it was this particular girl to whom I was referring with this special nickname. I told her that it wasn’t something that I usually talked about, who was what, and I was aware that I was fobbing them all off all the time. Just when the questioning was starting to become intense, I told the girl that if she guesses correctly I would give her my farm, something like that. But just as she started to question me intensely the alarm went off and I breathed a sigh of relief.

And I wonder who the girl was. And, much more interestingly, what the nickname was.

After breakfast I started to try to figure out a way of combining these … errr … 68 track fragments from the mixer panel into one coherent track that I could edit down, but after about three or four, I gave up the idea. The lack of a pause control (or “until I can figure out how to pause a recording” more likely) is putting the kybosh on any of my attempts to do anything with that right now.

And so I turned to my faithful old dictaphone. A mike socket in, a headphone monitoring socket, a USB cable connection and – a pause control (I’d made sure of that when I was buying that!)

Switching the mike setting to “unidirectional” instead of “omnidirectional”, I plugged one of the expensive mikes into the microphone socket and did a couple of trial dictaions.

Much to my surprise, the quality was phenomenal. Much better by far that any other recording equipment that I’ve had here. And in stereo too. So I bit the bullet and re-recorded the audio vocals onto that using the mike, and then uploaded it to the laptop.

Once it was on the laptop I started to make a start to edit it. And even though I say it myself, what I have done so far (because I haven’t done it all by any means) sounds quite impressive.

boats stranded by low tide port de granville harbour manche normandy franceBut at a certain point I had to give up. I’m going out shortly and I need to make my butties, so a trip down into town was called for.

The tide was well out this morning so I could go the long way round and over the path on top of the harbour gates and then alongside the quay that way.

And Normandy Trader was conspicuous by her absence. Sneaked out of the harbour under cover of darkness.

singers on stage la vie en rose pink aeroplane place general de gaulle granville manche normandy francehaving picked up my dejeunette from la Mie Caline, I wandered for a couple of minutes into the town centre to see how the market traders were coping with the decorations.

And we were being entertained too. A duo, backed by digital music unfortunately, were singing “The Pink Aeroplane”.

And I bet that you don’t know of a song of that title, but it is in fact a mondegreen. It refers to the title of the song la Vie En Rose – “Life in the Pink” that was on several occasions misheard, as in any good mondegreen, as L’Avion Rose – “The Pink Aeroplane”

singers on stage place general de gaulle granville manche normandy franceWith nothing much else to do I had a good walk around the stage to watch them, but the Nikon 1, good little camera that it might be in normal circumstances, isn’t up to being pushed beyond its limits.

So as I was taking a photo of the girls still singing, someone nearby came into the frame and the camera focused on them and not on the stage.

Perhaps I should say that the Nikon 1 is always set on “manual exposure” as its whole purpose is to be a quick “point and shoot” camera, leaving the big Nikon D500 for the more challenging work, when I have it with me.

The automatic setting though isn’t light enough for my requirements, so I’ve set the function (FN) button to work the exposure compensation and I always go two stops down with that.

If there are any minor lighting challenges with that setting I can edit those out

surveillance camera stolen granville manche normandy franceStrawberry Moose who was with me in spirit, if not in body, drew my attention to this sign just here.

He’s absolutely right, of course. Security cameras are designed to prevent crime of course. But the word volée in French can mean two things. It really and literally means “flown”, but in common usage an article that has “flown” will mean that it has been stolen.

And this little play on words has been used to great effect when I lived in Belgium. The Belgian Army bought a load of helicopters from MV Agusta. These helicopters were totally useless, and it was very strongly believed that a pile of well-filled brown envelopes had passed underneath the table at the signing of the contract.

One Francohone comedian asked the question “what’s the difference between a Belgian Army helicopter and a Belgian Government Minister?”
“Well, in Belgium it’s the Ministers who voléew/em>”

bad parking rue des juifs granville manche normandy franceHeading quickly home to organise a shower and make my butties ready for departure, my attention is drawn to yet another piece of pathetic parking – a subject that features quite often on these pages, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

And this isn’t just bad parking, this narrow street is actually a bus route and service buses come up here every 40 minutes or so. And they are pretty busy on a Saturday morning.

But don’t let that fact get in the way of a selfish effort to save oneself a 20-metre walk.

Back here I had a quick shower and clean up, made my butties and headed back out up town.

supporters us granville van hool coach car park stade louis dior granville manche normandy france13:30 I had to be at the football stadium, and I was there by 12:15.

The crowds were already gathering, and quite right too. US Granville are playing away in the Coupe de France at Plabennec three hours or so away, and the club had laid on free transport for the supporters.

And that was a gesture that I appreciated very much and I wish that there were more opportunities to travel to away matches.

van hool coach parking stade louis dior granville manche normandy franceThere were so many fans wishing to attend that there were actually two buses. Mine was the yellow Van Hool but there was this black one too.

All very nice, and took me back to my halcyon days when I used to drive tour buses like this all over Europe.

We were only about 20 minutes or so late getting away, which surprised me greatly, so I settled down to eat my butties and, shame as it is to admit it, slept for most of the way.

Not something that I really should be ashamed of, because I had had a bad night and it wasn’t as if there was anything else to do on board the bus.

us granville supporters complexe sportif louis goasduff Stade de Kervéguen plabennec finisterre  franceArmed with the obligatory blue-and-white scarf (left over from a cup exploit a few years ago and cost e3:00 – still, the bus was free and the club deserved some reward) and a Normandy flag (free provided by the Normandy Chamber of Commerce) we poured out of the buses at the car park that had been set aside at the local high school up the road.

This young boy was very proud of his scarf and flag, and also his make-up too.

There was a girl on board the bus doing the make-up for free, but I declined. My mush is ugly enough without a load of makeup adding to it.

us granville supporters complexe sportif louis goasduff Stade de Kervéguen plabennec finisterre  franceDown the street we all filed in a crocodile tothe football stadium, where the gates were firmly closed for another half-hour.

One idea that was in my mind was to go for a walk into town for a look around and see what was going on, but the stadium was quite some way out of town.

Much as I fancied a coffee, I could get one here in the ground.

complexe sportif louis goasduff Stade de Kervéguen plabennec finisterre franceWith 90 minutes to go before kick-off I grabbed a coffee (and a bag of chips) and went for a walk around the ground.

The reason why it’s so far out of town is that it was formerly a farm, bought by the town in 1968 and transformed into a sports complex that was opened in 1972.

And, by looking at things, they did quite a good job of it too for a small town and a club playing in the equivalent of the Northern Premier League

complexe sportif louis goasduff Stade de Kervéguen plabennec finisterre franceThere’s a main stand that runs down the side of the pitch like most football grounds, and also a smaller stand behind one of the goals.

That’s where we are installed – some form of crowd segregation I suppose – and I do have to say that the facilities here are somewhat better than Granville offers its away supporters when there was crowd segregation.

It was somewhat embarrassing to see the facilities (or lack thereof) offered to the Bordeaux fans at the stade Louis Dior two years ago.

us granville supporters complexe sportif louis goasduff Stade de Kervéguen plabennec finisterre The club had hired two coaches, as I think I explained earlier, and as they were pretty much full, that worked out at about 100 people or so.

As well as that, several people had come under their own steam (I’m not quite sure why when the buses were free) so by the time that kick-off took place, there were probably about 150 people in the away end.

That’s the figure that was reported by the club and it looks about right to me.

us granville stade plabennecois complexe sportif louis goasduff Stade de Kervéguen plabennec finisterre francePlabennec play in white so Granville had to play in a blue kit tonight. And it brought them quite a bit of luck too.

It’s probably fair to say that Plabennec had the lion’s share of the game tonight, but they huffed and puffed their way through the match without threatening ever to bring Granville’s house down.

Granville in the meantime sat back and soaked up the pressure, setting out on a few forays of their own.

One thing that I have said … “and on many occasions too” – ed … is that the tactic that Granville adopts of playing the ball quickly down the wings counts for absolutely nothing if they can’t put the crosses into the penalty area and don’t have anyone taking advantage of them.

And so today it was a pleasant surprise when during a foray upfield after a corner kick, the big centre-half got his head to one of these crosses that usually pass uninterrupted over the goalmouth.

Never mind a goal, it almost burst the back of the net and just goes to show what you can do when you have the correct players and when you put your mind to it.

Later on in the match Granville scored a second from a well-worked routine just outside the penalty area.

That must have been a disappointment for Plabennec because at 1-0 down and having more of the ball there was always a possibility that they could pull something out for an equaliser, but at 2-0 down it was a uphill struggle.

us granville footballers complexe sportif louis goasduff Stade de Kervéguen plabennec finisterre That was how the match ended – 2-0 for Granville.

And at the final whistle the players came down to the away end to greet the fans. Something that I thought was a very nice gesture. It was only right too because the noise that the fans had kept up during the match had helped the team push onwards.

A real “12th man” in the stadium tonight.

us granville supporters van hool coacg parking stade louis dior granville manche normandy franceOn the way back, I slept for some of the way, which was just as well. There wasn’t much else going on.

And by the time that we returned to the Stade Louis Dior it was about 23:45. We’d had a really good afternoon out all together, and it was really nice of the club to lay on the buses for the fans.

It was just as well that I’d put on my winter woollies because it was pretty taters outside too by now.

christmas decorations avenue des matignons granville manche normandy franceMy walk back home was a long, lonely, cold vigil. I was probably the only person out there at that time of night.

Still, it gave me plenty of opportunity to admire the town’s Christmas decorations. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’d seen them erecting the decorationsa few days earlier, but I’d yet to see them properly working.

But I was really a little disappointed by what’s on offer.

christmas decorations avenue leclerc granville manche normandy franceNot necessarily because of the quality and the amount of decorations, but apart from the famous ski slope that we saw the other day, it’s all pretty much the same as last year.

It wouldn’t be too much, surely, to have a redesign of the Christmas decorations or even to shuffle the decorations around so that they are in different places, just to relieve the monotony.

So while you admire the rest of the Christmas decorations, I’m off to bed. I’ve had a very long day and I need my beauty sleep.

christmas tree place pierre semard granville manche normandy france
hristmas tree place pierre semard granville manche normandy france

christmas decorations rue couraye granville manche normandy france
christmas decorations rue couraye granville manche normandy france

christmas decorations gare de granville railway station manche normandy france
christmas decorations gare de granville railway station manche normandy france

christmas decorations place general de gaulle granville manche normandy france
christmas decorations place general de gaulle granville manche normandy france

artificial ski slope christmas decorations place general de gaulle granville manche normandy france
artificial ski slope christmas decorations place general de gaulle granville manche normandy france

christmas decorations place general de gaulle granville manche normandy france
christmas decorations place general de gaulle granville manche normandy france