Benjamin Keltz tells five photos from the book “Au Fer Rouge”

In parallel with the film produced by the club “With a hot iron“broadcast at Arvor, and whose success allows the work to remain in the theater for an additional week, a photo book of the same name has been released a week ago in bookstores. A work co-edited by Stade Rennais and Editions of the Corner of the Street, co-directed by Marc Brassart and Benjamin Keltz. The journalist and author has chosen five photos that he tells to our microphone. The book “With a hot iron“is up for grabs all week on the show”100% Stade Rennais“by Gwendal Louvel from 6:05 pm Monday to Friday on France Bleu Armorique. The competition lasts from November 22 to 26.

First picture

Benjamin Keltz: “It is a young girl who is eating a sausage pancake on the edge of the stadium. It is February 4, 1962, it is the photographer Charles Barmay who takes it, it is a photographer who loved to be near the stadium to photograph Breton society. He believed that the stadium was a reflection of Rennes society. The sausage pancake is an important emblem, we are in the 60s when street vendors arrive, settle on the road to Lorient and sell sausage pancakes, a dish that becomes a standard of Breton culture. We have lots of things in this photo, we have the playfulness, the Breton, Rennes and Gallese identity. And we have the football playing behind, we have everyone starting to rush behind, we have to be at the pre-match and everyone goes to the stadium. We have the road to Lorient as we had in the 60s, we are not really in the heart of the city at the time, the city has evolved so much, changed so much. We are in a stadium where the children are free to ride, they go over the walls to sit down and watch the game for free. So we are in this moment when the stadium is at the end of town, where we are already heading towards Lorient, we are not in the heart of the town like today because the town has expanded, has structured itself around its stadium in particular.”

Second photo

Benjamin Keltz: “It’s a photo from the 1950s. It’s a group of young people, young men and young women. They are all in their Sunday best and they are walking towards the road to Lorient. And in the middle of this group, we have Marthe Weber, who is the oldest subscriber of Stade Rennais today and Marthe gave us this image. She tells us how in the 1950s, going to the stadium was the Sunday pleasure she offered herself with her friends. At the time, the weekend was structured for her by her gym at the Tour d’Auvergne, then we went to mass on Sunday morning, then we ate, and then we went towards the road to Lorient. It was really a moment of conviviality for her, and she had to dress well. The fashion was for long black raincoats, very classy. You had to be really good looking to go to the stadium. We often think that the stadium was a very testosteroneous place, this is not wrong, moreover in the 60s we will have the arrival of the worker-peasants of PSA, but we have women in the stadium. We see them in the pictures. It is not an exclusively male universe in the 50s, 60s, 70s … There are already women, who also participate in the show in those years. Today it is democratized even more, we are in an even more popular show in the genres, but at the time, already, women go to the stadium and are interested in sport because it is a moment of conviviality.”

Third photo

Benjamin Keltz: “This is a photo from March 7, 2019. We see two young women, one kisses the other on the forehead, holding her affectionately with her hands. We are at the foot of the kop, and behind them, we see scenes of jubilation, people hugging each other. I know this photo well, since it was I who took it. I was at the foot of the kop, for a certain Stade Rennais – Arsenal in the European Cup. It’s a photo that I like a lot because there is tenderness, there is happiness, there is passion, there are lots of things in this image. And these are images that I like a lot at the stadium, they are images of the opposite since we often have the impression of having an overflow of passion, and in what is passionate, sometimes there is there is something irrational and even overflowing. And there we are in something tender, in the tenderness of football.”

Fourth photo

Benjamin Keltz: “It’s a photo that dates from April 27, 2019, a photo that Stade Rennais supporters know by heart, it’s the victory of Stade Rennais against Paris in the Coupe de France at the Stade de France. This is a photo from Ouest-Médias, Pierre Minier’s press agency. In this photo we see a supporter named Nielsen, who has a Roazhon Celtic Kop scarf around his neck. He is levitating almost above the platform, he is jubilant, his hands are outstretched towards the sky, his gaze towards the sky. We feel that he is shouting his joy, but for me he is no longer shouting his relief. That’s what I like a lot about this photo, it is very beautiful, it has an almost religious side. So he explains to us in the following pages that there is no religiosity in this image, but when we see it we have the impression that he is thanking heaven for what he has experienced, for the relief from that moment. It’s relief that he saw like many supporters on April 27, 2019. And it’s the first thing you experience when you are supporters that night because we crossed the desert so much for almost 50 years, we have won nothing. We often believed in it, and each time we lost, and there, no, we win! It is as if you are removing a thorn from your body that has been bothering you for years. Pfiouuu …. We breathe, we are relieved! And then there is this wave of euphoria, of joy that comes in and all around this picture there are hands up, and there is him in the middle.”

Fifth photo

Benjamin Keltz: “This is a photo from September 1964, from the Heurtier artistic collection of the Musée de Bretagne. This photo is aerial, it is the specificity of this fund. We can see the stadium seen from the sky in the 60s. In this book we realize that everything has changed and nothing has changed, this is what emerges from this photo. Seen from the sky, everything has changed, the road to Lorient is not the road to Lorient that we know: instead of Leclerc Cleunay, we have a wastewater treatment plant, the bypass does not exist. And at the same time, we recognize the place very well, we recognize the Vilaine, we still recognize the road to Lorient, we recognize the terrain which has nothing to do with that of today. In the 1960s, the tubulars were behind the goals where there was no concrete stand. There are just two concrete stands on the road to Lorient and along the Vilaine. And basically I really like seeing the Thomas bar, which was destroyed not so long ago. It is the beginning of the metamorphosis of the city. If we looked towards Villejean, we would see the towers being built to house the peasant workers of the time. We are in that city, which is changing, and the stadium has been there for 110 years now. He changed but he stayed there. And in the history of football clubs, I do not think I am too mistaken if I say that we are the oldest football club to play in the same place for so long. A football stadium for a supporter is a temple, it is an arena, it is a theater, but it is also a house. When we come and come back from generation to generation, we also pass this place on to each other. It becomes a bit ours and each supporter.”