Orchies

Orchies sits in the Nord department. Under the Pévèle Arena roof, BCO carries an identity that was interrupted twice: a merger with US Nomainoise in 1961, then a spell folded into US Valenciennes Olympic from 1991, before the club broke away in 1998 and took back the name Basket Club d'Orchies.

The town's team had already been playing under some version of that name since 1922. What it did with the identity once it got it back is the more interesting part: a Nationale 3 title in 2008 opened the door to Nationale 2, and five years later, in 2013, winning Nationale 1 sent Orchies into Pro B. The stay lasted a single season — last place in 2013–14 sent the club back down to Nationale 1, with a run to the Pro B quarter-finals the following year the closest thing to a consolation.

Joffrey Verbeke has been the face of that spell, a captain who never left to play anywhere else. The academy, Génération BCO, has kept sending players through, among them Aurélien Bénédet and Adrien Henocq. Nando de Colo, born in the region and long established in the NBA, took a minority stake in the club in 2014, a rare tie between the town's team and one of its own gone furthest in the sport.

None of that carries the weight of the derby with SOMB Boulogne-sur-Mer, the fixture Orchies supporters simply call "le derby." Denain-Voltaire has history with the club too, but it is Boulogne that still sharpens the crowd at the Pévèle Arena.