The former headmaster of Saint-Exupéry high school in Blagnac is passionate about oval balloons. Responsible for six years of school monitoring within Colomiers Rugby, Jean-Paul Ginestet decided to write a book on the long and rich history of the club à la colombe. Meet.
What prompted you to write this book?
I have been at Colomiers Rugby since 2014, I help in particular to ensure the school follow-up of the young people, I started by writing a small monthly column on the life of the club and one day people came to present me documents dating from the beginnings of the history of the structure. It made me want to know a little more and I went to the archives of the Dépêche du Midi where I started to find old articles and old photos and the project started like that without knowing that it would succeed on a book of this format.
1963-2020, how do we manage to condense 57 years of history?
It is above all a long work of research and writing of nearly 1200 hours. Fortunately, I was able to rely on the invaluable help of Robert Bendichou, both for the testimonies and the logistical side, but also on the participation of many people in order to forget as little as possible. Regarding the chronology, I divided the book into four parts, 1963-1976: the regional championships, 1976-1988: the climbs up to group A, 1988-2004: stabilization in group A and finally the current era .
From all these years, is there anything that particularly struck you?
Yes, this club was built and still lives thanks to the quality of its training, its confidence in young people, and the fervor of its volunteers. Moreover, as early as 1966, Jean-Pierre Lazerge and President Paupy were already talking about the importance of relying on young people but also of giving them the means to succeed through studies, it was clearly ahead of what the today we call the double project.
And of these four periods, the period 1988-2004 must be the most significant?
Mediatically yes, but this period of success, at the highest level, stems from all the work done before. I found traces of a match in 1987 where 10 young people of barely 18 years old had been launched first, these young people then became the managers of the team which proves that the training job had been good made. And then from 1990, rugby changed, the sub-prefectures and chiefs of cantons gave way to rugby in large cities and agglomerations, this book also tells how Colomiers went from 4,700 inhabitants to the city that the we know today.
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