^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Seine-Saint-Denis (Department, France): Sport flags

Red Star

See also:

Red Star

by Ivan Sache

The Red Star was in the 50's one of the most famous French football clubs. It is the club of Saint-Ouen, a big city located north Paris and in the past one of the "hot spots" of the workers' movements (it was one of the first cities where a factory worker was elected Mayor.)
Red Star is one of the only French clubs whose name is always used without appending the name of the city. Red Star has maintained the tradition of being a "proletarian" team, and might have the smallest budget of all French professional clubs. In the 80's, the goal-keeper of the Red Star was the son-in-law of the emblematic and controversial General Secretary of the French Communist Party, Georges Marchais. The team plays now in Nationale (the Third League), and most of the players are sons of immigrant workers from the Northern outskirts of Paris.

The most common flag used by supporters is a vertically divided green-white-green flag, with the five-pointed Red Star in the middle of the white stripe. By a funny coincidence, the present coach of the Red Star is Pierre Repellini, one of the emblematic "Greens" of Saint-Etienne in the 70s.

Ivan Sache, 5 April 2000