FC Lyon: The story of the team which preceded Olympique Lyonnais
When Jean-Michel Aulas brought women's footall inhouse in 2004, FC Lyon was a four-time French champion club. This is their story, through some of their former stars...
Olympique Lyonnais, or Lyon as we have come to better know them, remain one of the most successful clubs in the history of the women’s game.
A record 17 league titles since 2007, a record eight Champions League trophies since 2011, plus 13 domestic cups to go with it, under the guidance of former owner Jean-Michel Aulas, the Lyon name has become synonymous with women’s football.
It was though only 2004 when France’s third biggest city came under the banner of Olympique Lyonnais, yet the history of what came before is little known outside of the country.
Before it became the dominant entity it is today, an independent side by the name of FC Lyon was the home of women’s football in the city, founded by a group of volunteers soon after women’s football was officially recognised by the French Football Federation in 1970.
The first league championship took place in 1974, but until 1992 it was split into three regional championships, with nationwide play-offs between the top two/three in each region for the overall title.
For so long, Parisian side VGA Saint-Maur ruled the roost, between 1985 and 1990 winning every league title bar one, beating FC Lyon in their first triumph in the mid-1980s.
FC Lyon meanwhile had to wait until 1991 to reach another final, and this is the story of how an inaugural success laid the foundations for what is in place today, a star-studded team of world superstars still enjoying success on a global level…
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“My father played football, he always took me with him to the field, so I always wanted to play football,” says Marie Arnal, who joined FC Lyon in 1989.
“When I was around five or six, I went to Club Sportif Charcot in Lyon and played there with the boys until I was 13. It was then I was forced to join a women’s team and FC Lyon was the best club for girls at the time, so I went to play there.”
Two years later, while just 15 years old, Arnal would play a pivotal role in FC Lyon’s first ever title, but she was joined by a team of players either local to the area or were even representing the national team at that time.
There is very little information about women’s football in France stretching back to the early 1990s when FC Lyon enjoyed a period of success which would bring three more league titles, in 1993, 1995 and 1998, as well as two French Cups in 2003 and 2004 before the club was absorbed into Olympique Lyonnais.
“The years I played for FC Lyon, I was in school,” recalls Arnal, now 48. “Women’s football was completely amateur, we paid to play and paid for our own kit and equipment. My school hours were the same as everyone else.
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