“We don’t play in Lens like we play elsewhere. We must give to Lens. » Former RC Lens goalkeeper, Guillaume Warmuz, remembers the seasons he spent at this Pas-de-Calais club. A club that occupies a special place in the collective unconscious of football.
Thus, twenty-five years after the only French champion title won in its history, actors and witnesses of this moment of popular jubilation relive it and recount it with emotion in the fifty-two minute documentary: Lens 1998, a champion in the north. It will be broadcast Thursday December 21, at 10:50 p.m., on France 3 Hauts-de-France.
“They made us victorious”
On May 9, 1998, Lens held on to a draw at Auxerre and concluded an unforgettable season in the memory of supporters, but also supporters like Marie-Vincente Demarey, daughter of a miner. “The miners had two passions: their garden and football,” she explains. Football remained his Garden of Eden.
Drawing on the archives, the film, directed by Jean-Thomas Ceccaldi and Olivier Wlodarczyk, also draws on the memories of certain players (Yohan Lachor, Eric Sikora, Jean-Guy Wallemme, etc.) who, at the time , formed a united group. A team built little by little over ten years, often with local players, by the iconic president Gervais Martel.
The achievement of this dream could seem inaccessible for a small town like Lens, in a region devastated by the closure of coal mines. And yet. “They made us victorious,” enthuses a Lensois supporter, the evening of the title. We’re happy to celebrate.” Quite simply.