Pau Football Club (, Bearnese ), known simply as Pau, is a French professional

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

club based in

Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques Pau (, ) is a Communes of France, commune overlooking the Pyrenees, and prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, regions of France, region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. The city is located in the heart o ...

, capital of

Béarn The Béarn (; ; oc, Bearn or ''Biarn''; eu, Bearno or ''Biarno''; or ''Bearnia'') is one of the traditional provinces of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in southwest France. Along with the three Bas ...

. They compete in

Ligue 2 Ligue 2 (, League 2), also known as Ligue 2 BKT due to sponsor (commercial), sponsorship by Balkrishna Industries, is a French professional football league. The league serves as the second division of French football and is one of two divisions ...

, the second tier of French football. Pau FC were founded in 1920 as Bleuets de Notre-Dame de Pau, although their official founding date is in 1959, when Football Club de Pau were first formed. Bleuets de Notre-Dame joined the highest amateur league in France in 1958 after success in the French South-West League (Ligue du Sud-Ouest). However, the religious authorities argued that the football section had outgrown the rest of the club and financial support was withdrawn. As a consequence, José Bidegain, a local businessman, created the Football Club de Pau. In the early years after the club's formation in its original home of Pau, they played their home matches at many different grounds until finally settling at the

Nouste Camp The Nouste Camp ( is a football stadium and a sports complex located in the Pau suburb of Bizanos in France. The home of Pau FC, it is the smallest stadium in the 2021–22 Ligue 2, with an all-seated capacity of 4,031. Opened as ''Nouveau Sta ...

. The club's achievements include winning the

Championnat National The Championnat de France National ( en, French National Championship), commonly referred to as simply National or Division 3, serves as the third division of the French football league system behind Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. Contested by 18 clubs, t ...

in 2020, winning the

National 2 National 2 might refer to: * Curriculum for Excellence, Scottish education * Championnat National 2 The Championnat National 2, commonly known as National 2 and formerly known as Championnat de France Amateur (CFA), is a football league competi ...

title twice in 1998 and 2016 and winning the French South-West League in 1958 and 1968. Pau FC have long-standing rivalries with several other clubs in

Southern France Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French language, French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi ...

in the

Adour The Adour (; eu, Aturri; oc, Ador) is a river in southwestern France. It rises in High-Bigorre (Pyrenees), in the commune of Aspin-Aure, and flows into the Atlantic Ocean (Bay of Biscay) near Bayonne. It is long, of which the uppermost ca. i ...

river basin. The most notable of these are

Bayonne Bayonne (; eu, Baiona ; oc, label= Gascon, Baiona ; es, Bayona) is a city in Southwestern France near the Spanish border. It is a commune and one of two subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine re ...

Mont-de-Marsan Mont-de-Marsan (; Occitan: ''Lo Mont de Marçan'') is a commune and capital of the Landes department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. Population Military installations The French Air and Space Force operates the ''Constantin Rozan ...

and

Tarbes Tarbes (; Gascon: ''Tarba'') is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is the capital of Bigorre and of the Hautes-Pyrénées. It has been a commune since 1790. It was known as ''Turba'' ...

. With the rise of Pau FC and the decline of

and

, Pau recently became a strong rival to

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

and both form the

New Aquitaine Nouvelle-Aquitaine (; oc, Nòva Aquitània or ; eu, Akitania Berria; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Novéle-Aguiéne'') is the largest administrative region in France, spanning the west and southwest of the mainland. The region was created by t ...

derby.

History

Football in Pau and South-West France

Since the

Belle Époque The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque (; French for "Beautiful Epoch") is a period of French and European history, usually considered to begin around 1871–1880 and to end with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Occurring during the era ...

, football had to play second fiddle to

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

and especially

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

in Pau. Nowadays, the popularity of both Pau's rugby union and basketball clubs –

Section Paloise Section Paloise (, Bearnese: ), commonly referred to as ''Section'' or as ''Pau'' , is a professional rugby union club based in Pau, France. They compete in the Top 14, France's top division of rugby, and the EPCR Challenge Cup. Their home g ...

and

Élan Béarnais Élan Béarnais Pau-Lacq-Orthez, also known as simply Élan Béarnais , and formerly known as Élan Béarnais Pau-Orthez, is a French professional basketball club that is based in Pau. They compete in the top-tier French league, the LNB Pro A. Th ...

, respectively – remains greater than that of Pau FC. Historically and culturally, rugby was probably closer to the values of the place (

Gascony Gascony (; french: Gascogne ; oc, Gasconha ; eu, Gaskoinia) was a province of the southwestern Kingdom of France that succeeded the Duchy of Gascony (602–1453). From the 17th century until the French Revolution (1789–1799), it was part o ...

), replacing the

ese and

Basque rural sports Basque rural sports, known as ''Deportes Rurales'' in Spanish or ''Herri Kirolak'' in Basque, is the term used for a number of sports competitions rooted in the traditional lifestyles of the Basque people. The term ''force basque'' is used in Fr ...

in the hearts of the people of Béarn and Gascony.

Recent history

On 16 January 2020, Pau eliminated

Ligue 1 Ligue 1, officially known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, is a French professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the French football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. A ...

side

from the

Coupe de France The Coupe de France, formerly known as the Coupe Charles Simon, is the premier knockout cup competition in French football organized by the French Football Federation (FFF). It was first held in 1917 and is open to all amateur and profession ...

following a 3–2 victory. ''Les Maynats'' went on to face national champions

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (), commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain, Paris, Paris SG or simply PSG is a professional football club based in Paris, France. They compete in Ligue 1, the top division of French football. As Fr ...

in the round of 16 of the cup, losing 2–0. Pau registered their highest attendance ever that day, with 16,707 persons witnessing the Parisian victory. When the 2019–20 Championnat National season was prematurely ended due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, Pau were top of the table, and were declared promoted to

by the FFF executive committee. In the 2020–21 season, the club placed fourteenth in Ligue 2.

Key dates

1920: Foundation of ''Bleuets Notre-Dame de Pau''. 1923: First football season of Bleuets Notre-Dame de Pau. 1951: French youth champion 1956: Reached the top level of the French South-West regional football league. 1958: Champion of the French South-West regional football league. Promotion to the third tier of French football. 1959: ''Football Club de Pau'' split from ''Bleuets de Notre-Dame de Pau''. 1995: The club went to administration, reformed, changed their name to ''Pau Football Club'' and were relegated to the fourth tier of French football. 1998: Champion of the Group C of the Championnat de France Amateur and promoted to the Championnat National. The club also reached the round of 16 of the

, where they lost 2–0 to

. 2008: Relegation to the Championnat de France Amateur. 2016: Promotion to the Championnat National. 2020: Promotion to

Colours and badge

For the 2022–23 season, the club decided to update their logo. Their new crest has a round shape and gathers many symbols of

and the city of Pau: the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to C ...

mountain range, the

Pic du Midi d'Ossau The Pic du Midi d'Ossau (2,884 m) is a mountain rising above the Ossau Valley in the France, French Pyrenees. Despite possessing neither a glacier nor, in the context of the range, a particularly high summit, its distinctive shape makes it a sy ...

and the two cows that feature on the province of Béarn's flag. There are various references to the coat of arms of the city of Pau such as King Henry IV's crown, the three posts that gave the city its name (''pau'' in Béarnese) and the

peafowl Peafowl is a common name for three bird species in the genera '' Pavo'' and ''Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae, the pheasants and their allies. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female peafowl are refe ...

, a clear example of

canting arms Canting arms are heraldic bearings that represent the bearer's name (or, less often, some attribute or function) in a visual pun or rebus. French heralds used the term (), as they would sound out the name of the armiger. Many armorial allus ...

, as its name (''pavon'' or ''pau'' in Béarnese) was used as an approximation to represent the city of Pau.

Current squad

References

{{Authority control Association football clubs established in 1920 Sport in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques 1920 establishments in France Football clubs in Nouvelle-Aquitaine