MEET RICHARD FAUL, or ‘Chard’, as he’s better known to all who know him.
Originally from Reading in England, Chard played soccer from the age of six but is now the spearhead of a new GAA club on the French Riviera, to be known as the Azur Gaels.
At the weekend, he was in Paris for a major sporting and cultural event, as the French national men’s and women’s Gaelic Football teams played just their second ever games.
Last year, both teams played and won the first ever international Gaelic Football matches against Italy in Toulouse.
This time, the women lost narrowly against Belgium as France drew with French Irish, a selection of Irish players living in France.
The goal of the event was to help the French teams build towards their main goal of competing in the GAA World Games, which will take place in Ireland next year.
Chard is one of the men helping to spread the Gaelic Football gospel in France – and he’s been making significant progress.
He only discovered that Gaelic Football existed when he moved to Toulouse in December 2012 but having been persuaded for almost two years to give the sport a try, he’s been hooked ever since playing his first friendly game in February 2014.
By June of this year, Chard was a champion of France before moving recently to Biot on the Côte d’Azur, where the nearest club is two hours away.
Consequently, Chard was left with only one choice – to create a new club with another player who recently arrived in the area from Nantes. And so the Azur Gaels are currently being developed.
“I moved to Toulouse in December 2012 to become a translator,” Chard explains.
“One of my new colleagues and friends, Danny Richardson – an Englishman – played Gaelic football for the Toulouse team, the Tolosa Gaels.
“He too had first played the sport in France, with the Lyon team.
“Knowing that I was well into my football, he was quick to try and get me on board!
“To be honest, seeing the sport for the first time I thought it looked a bit messy, a bit chaotic; all hands and feet, no offside, players smashing into one another and hoofing the ball speculatively towards the posts.
“But this wasn’t the reason why I wouldn’t try it. I knew how much time and commitment it takes to be a real member of any sports club, and I didn’t feel I had this time.
“I kept up the 5-aside soccer and this was enough to satisfy my sporting appetite for the time being.
“But our Danny is a stubborn man – and deeply committed to the Tolosa cause!
“He badgered me almost weekly for about two years. I came along to a tournament once to watch and take pictures for the club, and started to get to know the lads and ladies a bit.
“They were a sound bunch. But it wasn’t until Danny announced that he was going to leave France to go back to England that I finally cracked and decided to grant him his wish.
“I first trained with the Tolosa Gaels in January 2014, I think.
“Some of the actions felt unnatural at first – the pick-up, the solo, the hand-pass – but thanks to soccer my fitness and movement off the ball was fine.
“I could shoot at goal okay too. At the end of my first session I didn’t even ask myself the question…of course I would train again next week!”
Chard played his first friendly game shortly afterwards against Bordeaux, his first and last appearance alongside Danny, who left to return home to England.
“I only got to play in one tournament during the 2014 season due to unavailability, but the one I played in gave me a glimpse of everything I now adore about playing Gaelic football in France,” Chard says.
“In this country there are two divisions: one for Brittany, and one for the rest of France.
“Now, if it’s not obvious from the map, France is a big old country. And Toulouse isn’t in Brittany. We can’t be playing weekly fixtures in our division.
“So instead we play a monthly tournament, bringing together all the clubs in the division (or two separate tournaments in two separate places, with half the clubs competing in one and the other half in the other).
“We stay the night and make a weekend out of it. It is great craic. It makes for phenomenal team spirit and a strong rapport between clubs.
“Come the 2014 Tolosa Gaels AGM I was more than ready to commit wholeheartedly for the season to follow.
“I put myself forward to be on the committee as club photographer. My club photos have since been used in club posters and flyers, local newspapers and Gaelic Sports World magazine.
“I found my time behind the viewfinder pretty limited though, because to my surprise I was starting most of our matches. I was even made captain for one tournament.
“The final tournament of the season sees all the clubs in France come together to compete for the top prize, the intermediate prize or the foundation prize, depending on your league position.
“As we finished second in our division, we were in it for the top prize. The winners would be crowned Champions of France and to add to the occasion, it would be my final tournament as a Toulouse player, as I was set to move to the south coast a couple months later.
“We were battered by Breton champions Liffré in our first match, but a big win against Nantes allowed us to progress.
“In the semi-final we faced the team that had pipped us to top spot in the league, giants Paris Gaels.
“We vanquished our demons by squeezing past them in a tight, competitive game. Just one game away from glory, again we met Liffré.
“This time it was a whole different story, and we won the all-of-France final 1-8 to 0-4. I scored two points in that final.
“It was the best thing I’d ever felt from any sport. A group of friends running their legs off, taking hits, making blocks to win the biggest honour in France, and follow it up with weeks of celebration. I was later awarded most-improved player of the season by my club. I had fallen in love.
“In August I moved to Biot on the south coast of France, or la Côte d’Azur. My research told me there was no club in the immediate vicinity, the nearest being the Provence team based in Aix, two hours’ drive away. Upon leaving Toulouse my friends had told me, half-jokingly, ‘you’ll just have to found your own Gaelic football club!’
“When I arrived I was immediately contacted by a Nantes player who had also joined the region this year: Charley Cornillau.
“I found out that since February he had been driving fairly regularly to Aix to train with Provence, then travelling to each of the tournaments to play with his hometown Nantes.
“In fact, we had probably played against each other in the final tournament! His commitment is staggering. We met in a pub in Antibes in September and quickly got dreaming about creating a Gaelic football club.
“We kicked a ball around one evening, just the two of us. By constantly spreading the word and targeting certain groups, we went from two to three to five.
“We then got our team name, Facebook page and club crest in place, and at the next session there were eight of us, with more interested for next week.
“We’re now recognised by the French Gaelic Football Federation as a club in development: the Azur Gaels. We’re very ambitious with this project.
“The first step is to have at least eleven players, as the game is played 11-aside here in France. Then we can play friendly matches and maybe even register in time for the 2016 season, if we get a proper squad and a committee in place.
“A couple seasons down the line, maybe we could host one of the tournaments. And beyond that, well, let’s just say it took the Tolosa Gaels five years to become Champions of France. It’s a realistic target!”
Given what we know of Chard already, we suspect that Azur Gaels will become champions of France in the not too distant future – and we wish them well in their endeavours.
Thanks to Mark Brannigan, Paris Gaels GAA Chairperson, for alerting us to Chard’s remarkable story.
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