30th anniversary of CF Montreal | The club wants to celebrate its history

It’s time for celebration on the side of CF Montreal. The club have just won their last five duels, in all competitions, and they intend to continue their momentum on Saturday, during the flagship match surrounding the commemorations of their 30^e anniversary.

For the occasion, the Montrealers will be able to score a double against their Toronto rivals by winning for the second time in five days.

“The clash against Toronto FC just fell like that. The first game played by the Impact was on May 14, 1993. There our game falls on May 13, almost exactly on the date and against our rivals. It’s going to be a special game,” said Bleu-blanc-noir president Gabriel Gervais in an interview with The Press.

The club plans to receive former players and sports personalities to celebrate the event.

To celebrate its 30^e anniversary, the club reverted to its original colors with blue, white and black at the center of its new logo. However, he has been playing with his gray jersey since the start of the season abroad, but also at home. At least, for now.

The club has decided to hold several thematic evenings that will punctuate the season of its anniversary. In particular, he introduced “eternal captain” Patrice Bernier to the Wall of Fame at halftime of the Impact’s last game at Saputo Stadium, last Saturday. However, he should be the only member to enter this year.

This will be the club’s strategy to celebrate this anniversary: ​​go with several events instead of one big consecration.

Childhood memories

30^e birthday allowed Gabriel Gervais to recount his memories as a former player and former supporter.

“Me, I was going to see the Impact play in the 1990s and I was there for the final in 1994, recalled the former number 8. I was in CEGEP at that time. I didn’t run onto the pitch after the win, but maybe I should have…”

This history has been marked by successes, particularly with the third championship in 2009 under the helm of Marc Dos Santos. A few years later, in 2012, the club entered MLS and arrived among the greats.

More hollow passages, there were also some. The club went bankrupt in 2001 and its survival hung by a thread for a few months. It also experienced a crisis when it changed its name and logo in January 2021.

Nevertheless, the story of the Impact was written with ups and downs. The club has earned a reputation as a quiet force in the Champions League. Against all odds, the Montrealers came within a whisker of the semi-finals, but experienced the Santos Laguna trauma before giving up. Then in 2015, the club qualified for the continental final, but lowered their flag to the Olympic Stadium in front of 61,004 spectators. Critical moments in its history.

According to Gervais, it was the successes and the low periods of the organization that marked the team with a red iron. The common thread, however, remains the same: Joey Saputo.

“Joey and the Saputo family have always given back to the community through the development of the great sport of soccer. Well, that hasn’t changed. When the club arrived in MLS, maybe the club’s mission and values ​​were less prominent, but they have always been the same. And that’s why we’re still here,” he noted.

For another 30 years

Gervais is categorical, the future of the club is in Montreal. Certainly, he takes advantage of his first years in office to reassess everything.

Is the club’s future at Stade Saputo? Possible. Elsewhere ? Possible too. The great mission of Gervais and the CFM will be to bring the team into the green in terms of finances. But by then, the president is already proud of the progress made.

“I would have liked so much to have an Academy like the players have today when I was 13 or 14 years old. We didn’t have that infrastructure. I dreamed of playing professional, of playing in the World Cup, but if my generation had had access to all that, who knows what we could have achieved. Me, the future, I see it with a very good eye. And in addition with the female component which is coming, I find that it is really exciting. »

If a women’s professional club is still not in the cards, who knows in a few years, especially with a women’s component at the Academy, if the club will change its tune. Chances are that in 30 years, there will be many more stories to add to this list.