Nice are planning a quick reversal

You may not have heard of Stade Marcel Volot – the one-stand 3,000-capacity home of ProD2 basement side Nice, which sits next to the Var river up the road from the rather larger and better-known Allianz Riviera home of the city’s Ligue 1 football team.

- JAMES HARRINGTON

It is, by some distance, the smallest venue in the two professional divisions in France. But tiny Stade Nicois – whose dramatic 31-29 win over Agen last time out on March 7 was their first victory since they won at Aurillac on October 18, some 16 matches previously – have big ambitions, for all that they are all-but certain of bouncing straight back to the third-tier Nationale after just one season.

After 23 rounds of the 30-match regular season, they’re rooted to the bottom of the table, 20 points adrift of 15th-placed Aurillac, and 23 shy of the last ‘safe’ club in the ProD2, Agen.

Only the awesome majesty of mathematics is preventing anyone saying definitively that Nice are heading for the drop. There are seven matches left – a maximum of 35 possible points up for grabs. So, mathematically at least, there’s still a chance. They’re, officially, not down. Yet.