Thierry Camus was born in Nice in 1971. He recalls his youth marked by the brotherhood of the South Stand at the Ray stadium, as he likes to declare.
His book, presented before the European Cup match OGC Nice-Salzburg*, epitomizes the transfer of heritage between the historical past and a future that one hopes will be fruitful.
Times change, but the passion remains intact and is nourished by the symbols of the past.
From 1927 to 2013, the Ray embodied in Nice the vibrant heart of the city, where the passion of the Nissart people for football and for their club, OGC Nice, was expressed, inseparable from the local identity.
In this legendary multi-sport stadium—an architectural object born in the midst of workshops and watercress farms in Saint-Maurice—that underwent numerous transformations, the bourgeoisie and municipal elites, for the duration of a match, communed with the workers of Saint-Roch, without regard for origin or social class. The supporter from Vieux-Nice fraternized with those from Cimiez or with the uprooted Pied-noir who had ended his journey in the city of Saint Réparate.
The “climbs” to the Ray offered beautiful moments of shared friendship, where the sacred picnic became a ritual.
These juicy anecdotes and these “stands’ briefings,” essential to the legendary banter of the Niçois, attest that there was always something happening at the Ray.
