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 Hold the front page: big blokes with odd-shaped balls are coming to Montpellier. My home town is one of 10 French cities playing host to the Rugby World Cup 2007 (the others are Toulouse, Marseille, Saint Etienne, Bordeaux, Lyon, Nantes, Paris, Saint Denis and Lens), which means that folk here are getting mighty excited, particularly as tickets are now on sale (you can buy them online at ).
 It’s not just rugby fans getting worked up, either. Anyone who’s got a holiday home, apartment, gîte, villa or even a shoebox is waking up to the idea of renting it out to the masses of rugby fans, players, coaches, trainers, families, journalists and general hangers-on who will be making their way to the Languedoc in September 2007. I’m reliably informed that the Wallabies (that’s the Aussies, for those of you not in the know) will be setting up camp in Montpellier for the entire month of September, training at the new Yves du Manoir stadium, and more importantly, the Olympic Pool at Antigone. This is where we often take the children for a gentle Sunday morning splash around: an Australian rugby team should make things a little more interesting (note to self: must buy new swimming costume). The Rugby World Cup slogan is “Allez Au Contact”, and I intend to do just that.
Apparently the Languedoc region will be hosting four games, featuring teams from South Africa, Fiji, Samoa, Australia and the US, so you can expect to hear plenty of English spoken in and around town over the next eighteen months leading up to the kick off on September 7th (the first game in Montpellier is scheduled for September 12th). I have to confess I’ve never set foot in Montpellier’s Mosson stadium (I’m not a huge sports fan), but the Rugby World Cup site tells me that all the stands and boxes at Mosson bear the names of famous places in the Languedoc – like Argelès-sur-Mer, Béziers, Canet-en-Roussillon, Carcassonne, Castelnaudary, Corbières, Limoux, Canigou, Cévennes, Corbières, Étang de Thau, Gévaudan, Petite Camargue and so on, which makes it all sound rather… delightful.
Living in the south of France, and particularly in the Languedoc, you can’t get away from rugby. It’s rather like bull fighting; you might not agree with it, but there’s no escaping it. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, I suppose. And somehow I feel really chuffed that lots of people from all over the world will be coming to the Languedoc and seeing what a great place it is.
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