CA Brive

Two local sides, Football Club Briviste and Stade Gaillard, joined forces on 15 March 1910 under the name Club athlétique briviste, later shortened to the name it carries now. What followed the merger was unusual even by the standards of French rugby: before the Second World War the club switched to Rugby League, then returned to Union once the war had ended, a swap few sides in the country ever made.

The ground carries the name of Amédée Domenech, the prop who played for Brive through the 1950s and 60s, and holds 14,759, though Top 14 fixtures are generally capped closer to 13,900 for safety reasons. Black and white kit gave the club its Les Noir et Blanc tag, but locally it is Les Coujous, after a breed of goat kept in the region, that has stuck.

Brive's name is tied to one result above all: the 1997 Heineken Cup final, won 28–9 against Leicester Tigers, a title no other club has lifted without also winning the French championship. The following year they were back in the final and lost to Bath by a single point, 19–18. Domestically the closest they came was four runner-up finishes, the last of them in 1996.

The club has not always managed to protect what it built. Financial trouble sent Brive down to the second division in 2000, and relegation returned in 2012 and again in 2019, with promotion back to the Top 14 following each time, in 2013 and 2020.