Huge emotions in the Cantal. In Aurillac, some supporters want to go home with a square of earth the way others would keep a relic. Thirty centimetres by thirty. A simple piece of grass, mud and roots. Sold for five euros. And yet, here, nobody finds that absurd.

Because at Jean-Alric, the pitch was never a pitch like any other. It was a reputation. An identity. And, for plenty of the teams who came to take on Aurillac in the depths of winter, a form of suffering. For decades, this natural surface in the Cantal shaped the image of Stade Aurillacois across French rugby: rugged, hostile, gruelling rugby, almost archaic at times, but profoundly sincere.

An artificial pitch deemed “necessary” this summer at Jean-Alric

This summer, all of that will disappear.

The Stade Jean-Alric is giving up its natural grass for a brand-new artificial surface, approved by World Rugby. A change described as “necessary” by the local authorities and the club, who have been wrestling for years with climatic and economic constraints.

So, before the first diggers arrive, Aurillac Agglomération and Stade Aurillacois came up with an almost sentimental idea: selling 500 pieces of the old pitch in aid of the club’s academy.

The gesture says a great deal about what Jean-Alric still stands for in French rugby.

The last battlefield of Pro D2

Because this pitch had a nationwide reputation. In the professional game, it was one of the last survivors. One of the last natural surfaces still capable of turning into a battlefield after three days of rain, snow or frost. A potato field, too. In Aurillac, that climatic quirk was almost worn as a badge of honour.

Cantal winters sometimes turned the pitch into a monumental quagmire. The groundstaff fought a constant battle against the elements. Opposition coaches dreaded the conditions. Even the Stade Aurillacois players complained about it, at times. But the supporters loved it.

Jean-Alric was one of those grounds where the setting said something before a ball had even been kicked.

“Surviving” Aurillac

“When players walked out onto that dark, greasy, sometimes ploughed-up pitch, they knew they weren’t simply going to play a Pro D2 match,” joked the former mayor and president of Aurillac Agglo, Pierre Mathonier, a few months ago. “They were going to survive Aurillac. But it was hell.”

Even in an ultra-modern game, this pitch remained tied to a certain “rugby folklore”, in the words of president Christian Millette. A romantic anomaly in a sport now calibrated for television, statistics and perfect surfaces.

Manager Roméo Gontinéac, though, makes no secret of his enthusiasm for the coming change. In his view, the artificial surface will bring gains “in concentration, in quality”, with identical footing whatever the weather.

In sporting terms, the move looks logical. In economic terms too.

A powerful trend in French professional rugby

For several years, the local authorities had been studying various options: new natural grass, hybrid or artificial. In the end the artificial surface won out, largely because of the Aurillac climate and maintenance costs.

Aurillac are therefore joining a stubborn trend in French professional rugby. Artificial pitches keep multiplying, driven by budget imperatives, the optimisation of facilities and the need to use stadiums more heavily all year round.

Winter nights and collective memory

But at Jean-Alric, the subject goes well beyond a simple technical question.

Because this ground carries more than a century of history. Opened in 1924, it bears the name of Jean Alric, a former club player shot dead by the SS in 1944.

Because entire generations grew up here with this pitch. Because the great names of French rugby got bogged down on it on a winter’s night. Because Aurillac supporters still associate the smell of cold, beer and damp earth with Pro D2 evenings.

The messaging around the sale of the pieces of turf owns it completely: the Jean-Alric pitch was “unique and feared”.

That is probably the word that best sums the place up. Feared. By opponents. Sometimes even by the Aurillac players themselves, and we’ll come back to that. But respected everywhere.

Modern rugby now demands perfect pitches. Uniform surfaces. Free-flowing matches. Reliable footing. So Jean-Alric is stepping into another era.

Cleaner. Faster. More profitable, too. And inevitably a little less wild.

So supporters are heading home with their little squares of grass the way you salvage a fragment of an old world before it vanishes. A world where a pitch could still have a personality.

That’s how it is: the most feared pitch in French rugby is disappearing.