Clermont Foot

Twice, and both times from the same tier down, Clermont Foot climbed out of the National by winning it outright — 2001/02 and again in 2006/07. Before that came a CFA title in 1998/99, and further back still, under the Stade Clermontois name, three Auvergne regional championships stretching from 1936 to 1971.

The club now carrying the name only dates to 1990, and only because the one before it didn't survive: Stade Clermontois and AS Montferrandaise merged in 1984 to form Clermont Football Club, which went bankrupt six years later. What rose from that was rebuilt from scratch, renamed twice more — Clermont Foot Auvergne in 1997, Clermont Foot Auvergne 63 in 2007 — before settling back on Clermont Foot 63 in 2013.

Pascal Gastien played for the club and later managed it, and it was under him that Clermont reached Ligue 1 for the first time, in 2021. Mohamed Bayo scored the goal that marked it, against Bordeaux; Grejohn Kyei scored the club's first in that fixture against Toulouse and finished as top scorer of that debut top-flight season with 10. Maxime Gonalons, capped by France, wore the captain's armband through the Ligue 1 years that followed. Across town, in spirit if not in geography, Saint-Étienne remains the fixture everyone still calls the grand derby.

Stade Gabriel-Montpied holds around 12,000 now, mid-reconstruction, with the first phase due to push that past 16,000 by the 2026/27 season and plans on paper for 30,000 eventually. Red and blue, in a ground still being poured into shape around the crowd that already fills it.