No need for a ball or a hooter: at The Oval, the passion simmers on. In this haunt of ASM’s old boys, the club’s official brasserie, they talk passes and plates, tries and memories. The place has the roundness of sharing and the loyalty of a dressing room: a geometry of belonging, drawn in yellow and blue. A report from the bar where every beer, every song, every roar tells a piece of Auvergne.

The wind whistles between the façades of the avenue du Clos Four, on an October Tuesday with no match and no roar. The Michelin is still asleep. Beneath its great stands, the big glass front of The Oval throws back a golden glint. The official brasserie of ASM is gently coming to the boil. Through the windows you can make out silhouettes, a kitchen fire, snatches of raised voices. You push the door open: the atmosphere has a texture. A blend of waxed wood, roasted coffee and warm leather. At the bar, the head settles slowly on the glasses. No shouting, no singing – just murmurs and memories.

It is half past twelve in Clermont-Ferrand. The sun catches the yellow of the jerseys, the blue of the scarves, and a kid tries to juggle a size 3 ball under the amused gaze of his grandfather. Inside, the hubbub is already a first scrum: glasses clinking, waiters sprinting, throaty laughter and the scent of amber beers. “The Oval brasserie is not just somewhere to eat and drink. It is a second half, an extended dressing room, a cathedral for the faithful of ASM Clermont Auvergne”, says Gérard Soustons, a loyal ASM supporter.

The supporters’ Interclubs

The air smells of grilled sausage and adrenaline. On the wall, everything is square, from the flags to the posters. The angle is perfect. This is where rugby, the rugby we love, breathe, dream about or project, takes shape. At a big table, four men and a woman lean over a charcuterie board. The faces are familiar: broad shoulders, hands still marked by the leather of the ball. In the middle, the smile of Aurélien Rougerie, an eternal club legend. Here Clermont rugby is replayed another way: around a table, a glass, a memory. ASM’s old boys go back over the match without boots on, in the warmth of the wood and the echo of laughter. A place as round as a ball, home of the supporters’ Interclubs, where time takes the shape of a heart.

Rugby, a sport of appetite

“This is the Michelin… but with forks”, says Paul, a waiter since the brasserie opened in 2023. Behind him, on a wall covered in framed photographs, familiar faces: Chouly, Parra, Domingo, Penaud. The ASM pantheon is laid out like a family album. You walk in, you sit down, and all at once you are no longer a customer, you are a member of the club. The chefs send out the dishes with a precise flick: homemade burgers, cuts of beef, melting truffade. “Rugby is a sport of appetite, isn’t it?” he smiles, wiping his hands on his apron. Behind him, the kitchen hums like a back row. With every service, the plates pile up like one scrum after another. No cheating, no showing off: here they cook the way they tackle – straight and with no detours.

Julien, 52, a season-ticket holder since 1998, never misses a stop at The Oval. “It’s our chapel. We meet up here beforehand, during the week, and we go back over the match here afterwards. Even when we lose, we stay together.” He raises his white wine, eyes shining: “Here you leave with friends, not just with a bill.” A couple of English tourists, drawn in by the word “Oval” on the front of the building, watch the scene with a smile. They thought they had found a pub. They discovered a ritual. With every ASM try, the brasserie turns into a stand. Glasses bang down, arms go up, the joy spills out onto the terrace.

Something (in us) not quite round?

Between two services, the owner, Nicolas Delhostal, gives himself a break at the bar. “I wanted a place that smells of rugby, not just one that shows it.” He taps the wood of the counter: “Everything here was designed like a third half. We kept the friendliness of the dressing rooms, the brotherhood of the stands. The idea is that even at lunchtime on a Monday, you still have a bit of the match in your heart.“

An old pair of boots sits enthroned above the counter, like a talisman. The conversation turns to the club’s youngsters, the new signings, life after rugby. They talk about creaking shoulders, third halves, loyalty. The Oval is a place where the generations cross paths. The old boys tell the stories, the young ones listen. And at the end, everyone raises a glass. In Clermont they often say that ASM is more than a team. The Oval is more than a restaurant: it is the open scrum where the yellow and blue soul comes back for another helping, again and again.