Aurillac

The men who put the club together in 1904 were soldiers from the 139th Infantry Regiment and pupils from the Émile Duclaux lycée, drilling and studying in Aurillac. Out of that came Stade Aurillacois, in the middle of the Cantal.

The club took decades to find its level. A regional title in 1932 and a run to the Challenge de l'Amitié in 1977 kept the name alive locally. The Coupe de France final of 1986 ended in a heavy defeat to AS Béziers, 40-9, and Aurillac spent the following years learning to live with near misses of that kind — runners-up again in the Première Division Groupe B a decade later, then beaten by Section Paloise in the 2005 Pro D2 final.

2007 settled the argument. Aurillac won the Fédérale 1 title, the Trophée Jean Prat, and went up to Pro D2, where the club has stayed since. Patrick Bonal's name still carries weight from that era and before it: 1,715 points across twelve seasons, the kind of tally that puts a player above the list of names who simply passed through, Olivier Magne among them before he went on to win 89 caps for France.

Matches against CA Brive draw the sharpest attention, Cantal against Corrèze, and the meetings with ASM Clermont Auvergne are treated locally as Auvergne's own derby. Aurillac play in front of around 9,000 at the Stade Jean Alric now, a step up from the old Hippodrome ground where the students and soldiers of 1904 first turned out.