Marked for Christophe Boyer
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match23 Dec 2028
Beaten 1‑4 by Tours, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Match23 Dec 2028
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
Successful dribbles: 33. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad25 Dec 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Chamois Niortais may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
No sign of nerves from Paul Leroux at 20 — 7.65
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Paul Leroux did not need any: 7.65, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market25 Dec 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chamois Niortais can pretend not to have heard.
Squad25 Dec 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Words at Chamois Niortais training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thibault Rousseau is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad25 Dec 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces8 Nov 2027
Anger at Chamois Niortais spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 32. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
No sign of nerves from Paul Leroux at 18 — 7.69
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Paul Leroux did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market8 Nov 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chamois Niortais can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Nov 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
A performance of 8.39 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad8 Nov 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Chamois Niortais training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sébastien Bonnet is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Jun 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Édouard Garnier
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chamois Niortais lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market14 Jun 2027
Only the photograph left for Nicolas Leroy
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolas Leroy will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Chamois Niortais the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market14 Jun 2027
The name of Édouard Garnier has come up in conversations Chamois Niortais were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Luc Denis falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad14 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market14 Jun 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Nicolas Leroy has his answer from Chamois Niortais; what he does with it is the next window’s story.