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Calais (Municipality, Pas-de-Calais, France)

Last modified: 2004-10-02 by ivan sache
Keywords: pas-de-calais | calais | cross: scandinavian (white) | keys: 2 (yellow) | disc (white) | sails: 2 (yellow) |
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[Calais]by Ivan Sache

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Presentation of Calais

Calais (ca. 80,000 inhabitants; more than 100,000 when including suburbs) is a city located on the Pas-de-Calais (the narrow stripe of sea between France and Britain, a bottleneck between the Channel and the North Sea, 31 km in width x 185 km in length).
Calais is the first seaport of France in numbers of passengers and close to the entrance of the tunnel under Channel.

Calais was seized during the Hundred Years' War by Edward III in 1347 after a long siege. Five bourgeois of the city personally surrendered to the king and asked for the preservation of the city. The event has been popularized by a famous bronze statue by Auguste Rodin. Calais was definitively reincorporated to France in 1558. The old city heart was totally destroyed during the Second World War.

Ivan Sache, 4 May 2000

Municipal flag of Calais

The flag of Calais is blue with a white Scandinavian cross. This flag is very old and was already shown on ancient flag charts.

Ivan Sache, 4 May 2000

Société des Régates de Calais

[SR Calais]by Ivan Sache

The Sociéte des Régates de Calais (SRC) was founded in 1951 as the Yacht Club du Nord de la France and took its actual name in 1988.

The burgee of the SRC reproduces the pattern of the municipal flag of Calais, a white Scandinavian cross on a blue field. The charge shows a red shield with two yellow keys placed horizontally head to tail, surrounded by yellow leaves. I guess the keys are from the municipal arms and refer to the surrender of the city in 1347, when the famous Bourgeois de Calais presented the city keys to king Edward III.

Source: SRC website

Ivan Sache, 12 May 2001

Yacht Club de Calais

[YC Calais]by Ivan Sache

The Yacht Club de Calais was founded in 1952.

The burgee of the YCC reproduces the pattern of the municipal flag of Calais, a white Scandinavian cross on a blue field. Two yellow sails in a white disc are placed in the first quarter of the flag.

Source: YCC website

Ivan Sache, 20 May 2001

Calais Racing Union Football Club

[FC Calais]by Ivan Sache

The amateur footballers of Calais RUFC played in Stade de France the final of the French Cup 2000 against FC Nantes-Atlantique (1:2). At that time, the city hall of Calais hoisted an horizontally divided yellow-black-yellow-red-yellow flag.

The club was founded in 1974 by the merging of the Racing Club de Calais and the Union Sportive de Calais. The official colours of the club are also a mix of the colours of the two former clubs. The official gazette of the club is called Noir-Jaune-Rouge (Black-Yellow-Red).

The shirts of the players are usually vertically striped yellow and red (or better 'blood and gold', similarly to their glorious neighbours of RC Lens) or green and yellow (the colours of FC Nantes-Atlantique, too)

Ivan Sache, 22 September 2003