Amid all the lasts, a first

Travels to the north of France have been hazardous thus far this season for FC Nantes. The Canaries had suffered their only previous loss of the season at Le Havre before journeying to Boulogne for a Monday night encounter. Boulogne is a bottom half of the table team featuring the second leading scorer in Ligue 2, Grégory Thil. Thil thrilled the home fans by dominating the game as he notched the hat trick and Boulogne throttled Nantes 4-0. The result may spell the end of the Nantes run at the top of the table as it imperils not only the points lead but also the goal differential lead which has made the difference on those occasions when points have been level.

I was home today, suffering a bit of whatever it is that Wireless and TOPWLH have recently processed. I was reading the newspaper at the dining room table about noon when I glanced up at a slight change in the pitch of the howling wind. Look carefully at the chair on the deck.The first appearance of water in one of its solid forms.

I also had a chance to spend some time browsing a new website that I discovered today, an English language site hosted by the Ligue de Football Professionnel. There is a section of game attendance which provides plenty more evidence to show that Nantes will not be in Ligue 2 for long.

Ligue 2 has played 140 games coming into today and have drawn more than 10,000 on a total of only 17 occasions. Nine of those games have included Nantes. The top seven games in attendance are the seven games Nantes has played at home. The top attendance at a Nantes home game was 31,310, the seventh highest was 18,333. The eighth highest for the entire league was 17,404 (at Sedan). Nantes also played in the 11th highest attended, 12,748, at Le Havre.

Nantes ranks first in average attendance at 24,320. Second place Le Havre is also second in average attendance at 10,548, Sedan is third at 10,545.

In all French football Nantes ranks eighth in attendance, trailing the likes of Lyon, Paris SG and Marseille but ranking ahead of thirteen of the Ligue 1 teams.

Modern football in France, just as in the USA, is a business. Success in football is dependent upon success in the business. A measure of the business success is number of people coming out to buy your product. Attendance predicts success.

Clearly as a business Nantes is in the top ranks of French football. It is quite reasonable to expect that next season the team will be competing against its peers, the other successful football businesses of France, in Ligue 1.