After a rather cold first contact with Louis Nicollin, the mayor of Montpellier quickly understood the interest he could draw from a high-level club at La Paillade, the flagship of a policy focused on sport. He accompanied the rise with subsidies and the two men became inseparable.
A Midi Libre special issue of 84 pages
Condensing half a century of history into 84 pages. This is the challenge taken up by the sports editorial team of Midi Libre in this special edition on the 50th anniversary of the MHSC. Available on newsstands on December 11 for just 5 euros, this glossy magazine will allow you to relive the great moments in the history of the Montpellier club through our “50” who made the MHSC. Builders, pioneers, iconic players, starting with this “Nicollin Saga”, told by Laurent and Colette, the wife of the late Loulou. A special edition packed with anecdotes and unpublished photos with an exclusive interview with Olivier Giroud.
“At first, he wanted to cut off my balls. Then we became the best of friends.”Louis Nicollin thus summed up, with his keen sense of formula, the great gap in his relations with Georges Frêche. A first icy contact when the Tarn mayor of Montpellier, a law professor, looked down on this somewhat pretentious entrepreneur who claimed to play in the big leagues with a ball. But “The Great One” – as Loulou affectionately called him – quickly sensed the advantage he could take by accompanying the rise of the Paillade phenomenon.
May 12, 1978: the turning point after a victory over Nîmes in a fairground atmosphere
The turning point came on May 12, 1978 in the Mosson locker rooms after a 3-0 victory over the Nîmes Olympique reserve team that secured promotion to D2. Rockets, firecrackers and a majorette show mingled with the offensive fireworks in a feria atmosphere that won over the chosen one.
Frêche toasts with Nicollin to the future of a club that both of them already see shining much higher. An ideal locomotive to launch, in a deprived area, a policy of promotion and integration through sport. The duo will form the reinforced concrete base of Montpellier's success. An alliance of big cats with converging interests going to drink together in the bed of the Mosson.
On the bench during the promotion to D1, in 1987, alongside Michel Mézy (coach) and Louis Nicollin. Midi Libre – Archives
In 1979, the 450,000 franc subsidy granted by the town hall facilitated the MPSC's transition to professional status. The Château de Grammont became the municipal setting for a training centre which would later allow the club to no longer live on a drip. In 1983, again, when La Paillade was going through a period of financial turbulence in the form of a growth crisis, Frêche doubled the subsidy, increasing it to 2.25 million francs and facilitated the creation of a partners' club to raise an additional million and try to move up to D1.
“Developing sport for all alongside high-level sport”
“Montpellier was then a high-level desert”, recalls Christian Bénézis, Frêche's assistant for sports in the 80s and 90s and who was also the club's doctor.“At the time, apart from the MUC in volleyball, we had no teams in the elite. Georges Frêche then opened the floodgates to develop high-level sport but also, in parallel, health sport and sport for all. We were one of the first cities to have this approach and we were inspired to do it at a time when there was money.”
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000In parallel with the subsidies intended for clubs, Frêche increased aid to associations fivefold between 1977 and 1989 and developed 70 neighborhood facilities including a dozen gymnasiums. Must-sees like the Stade Philippidès and the Palais des sports Pierre-de-Coubertin are emerging from the ground.
The club takes on the city's colours
But the visionary mayor knows that he must broaden the scope of possibilities to boost the potential of his flagship clubs. On May 28, 1989, the signing of the Paille-Cantona duo is the scene of a round table of more than 20 million francs including the city, the Nicollin company but also the department and the Agglomeration. Montpellier Paillade Sport Club becomes Montpellier Hérault, swapping its red and white colours for blue, white and orange.
Rare image: the mayor of Montpellier feeling the ball in 1989, under the gaze of Louis Nicollin and Gérard Saumade, president of the General Council. Midi Libre – Archives
Shifting the sports competence to the Agglo, which has twice as many inhabitants, is a stroke of genius that multiplies the windfall of subsidies, while encouraging clubs to build on the foundations of training and stick even better to the image of the city. The ultimate stage of this “win-win” system, “Place aux sports” allows young people from the neighborhoods to get started on developed fields while being supervised by top-level stars. Cantona, Valderrama and Julio Cesar were among the first to grant the Agglomeration this return on investment.
Montpellier voted three times best sports city in France
With around twenty disciplines playing in the elite, Montpellier was voted the best sports city in France three times, in 1988, 1997 and 2010. A showcase that allowed it to shine as a modern technology hub internationally. Frêche built this high-level empire with the indispensable complicity of Louis Nicollin. In a just return of things, Loulou and his sons never hesitated – when necessary – to invest in other clubs, from basketball to volleyball, including handball and rugby.
Read also: Depardieu and Nicollin: "Georges Frêche, our friend"
“They were really made to get along, assures Christian Bénézis. Frêche's only fear was that Nicollin would get involved in politics, but Loulou wasn't crazy. The garbage market was at stake and he would never have betrayed his friend.”
Louis Nicollin: “I was a wanker at school, but he knew how to perfect my education”
“I never addressed him informally and we only became close later, the Montpellier president once confided. He was afraid that I would take his place at the Montpellier town hall. It's terrible. And then one day, he told everyone: “I've been around him, I'm 99.9% sure of him”. We had this common point of not being from here but convinced that our place was in Montpellier. “
The photo of their final trip to Shanghai in 2010, a few days before Georges Frêche's death, was on Louis Nicollin's desk at Mas Saint-Gabriel until the end. Beyond the wild games of belote with Gérard Depardieu or their endless laughs in the spa, in Brides-les-Bains, Loulou kept the fond and admiring memory of the erudite companion who made him travel through his stories: “I was a wanker at school, he knew how to perfect my education.”
Read also: 50 years of the MHSC: Louis Nicollin, the incredible saga of a pack leader who became a triumphant patriarch
Two years after the disappearance of the one who had become the president of the Region, Montpellier will climb to the roof of Ligue 1 with the carefree attitude of a village of indomitable Gauls from Septimania resisting a Roman emperor. Looking up to the sky, Loulou will immediately dedicate this triumph to him. An apotheosis that Frêche the builder will have experienced with great pride. Like everything he has ever undertaken.
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