St Maur Lusitanos

The football caught up with the story in the winter of 2002. Playing in the Coupe de France as an amateur side, Saint-Maur knocked out Girondins de Bordeaux of Ligue 1 in the Round of 32 and went on to the last 16. They had come up through the Championnat de France Amateur the year before, which put them into the Championnat National , the third tier.

The wheels came off away from the pitch. A merger with US Créteil-Lusitanos fell through, administrative errors followed, and in 2002 the club was put down to the regional leagues — level seven. It stayed down there for more than a decade.

The Stade Adolphe-Chéron holds 3,500 and has been home from the start. What the club has not done is get back to where 2001 took it — the National, and a division above the regional football that swallowed most of the years since.