It was the host stadium for the 1924 Olympic Games, staged three 1938 World Cup matches including the final, and was the French rugby and football national team base for several decades. We visit the historic Stade Yves-du-Manoir to reflect on
its rich heritage as it gets ready to host matches at its second Olympics a century on from its first.
Strung out in a rundown suburb of north-eastern Paris is a sporting gem. The Stade Olympique de Colombes, renamed after French rugby star Yves du Manoir, was built to host the 1924 Olympics, where Uruguay started its six-year dominance of world football by winning gold. It has been the setting for – if not the location of – two great films; Chariots of Fire and Escape to Victory, although for filming the Oval Sports Centre on Merseyside was used for the former and the Hungária Körúti Stadium in Budapest for the latter.
Its capacity at the 1924 games was 45,000, later expanded to 60,000 for the 1938 World Cup when it hosted two France games – a 3-1 victory over Belgium and a 3-1 quarter-final defeat to Italy. A week later it hosted the third World Cup final, where Vittorio Pozzo’s Italy retained the Jules Rimet Trophy with a 4-2 victory over Hungary.
In the same year, it hosted the European Athletics Championships and over the decades was the stage for a number of French Cup finals.
Until it was eclipsed by a renovated Parc des Princes in the early 1970s, the Stade Yves-du-Manoir had hosted the French national team matches and was for some decades the home of both Racing Club de France Football and Racing 92 rugby team.
The rugby branch moved out in 2017 and the football arm now plays next door to the Yves-du-Manoir in the fifth tier of French football.
It’s quite a sad demise for the old stadium. To get to the ground, you catch a train from Paris Saint-Lazare to a station called ‘Le Stade’. Before the expanded Parc des Princes and before the Stade de France, the Colombes ground was the ‘stade’. From the station it’s a 10-minute walk through suburban housing and a high-rise estate to the stadium.
Mostly hidden behind fencing now, the stadium is part of a sports complex and its capacity is just 14,000.
The good news is that the stadium has been updated since my 2019 visit when I wrote the above and will be used for field hockey matches at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. So, 100 years after its debut, there is life in this historic old ground yet.
If you’re interested in the roots of football around the world, please grab a copy of my first book, Origin Stories: The Pioneers Who Took Football to the World.