Can Aix become a rugby land? The question is worth asking. And among connoisseurs and fervent supporters, there is debate.
It must be said that rugby in Aix is not new. In the popular imagination, we rather associate the oval ball with the lands of the South-West, where counter conversations vibrate with rugby. This history, well anchored in this region of France, remains due to the fact of a strong English establishment, country of birth of rugby and football at the end of the 19th century in university and bourgeois circles. At the same time, this sport was experiencing great popularity, leading the Stade Bordeaux to become champion of France in 1899.
In Aix, we have to go back 56 years, when a certain Maurice David founded the Aix Rugby Club (ARC) and naturally became its president in 1970, and whose name the Aix stadium will bear. Since then, Aix rugby has continued to structure itself. Football remained in Marseille and declined in other major cities in Bouches-du-Rhône. It was therefore necessary to find something else in Aix and the nice surprise was created in 1978, when the ARC entered the national division for the first time in its history….
