Stade des Ponts Jumeaux, Stade Toulousain, 1907-1980
While the five-time European champions today play at Stade Ernest Wallon, it’s actually the club’s third home, with Stade des Ponts Jumeaux arguably their most famed.
Stade Toulousain, to give them their proper name, started life at Prairie des Filtres before Stade des Ponts Jumeaux (“The Two Bridges Stadium”) was constructed at the junction of the Canal du Midi and first used by Toulouse in 1907.
It became known as ‘le Wallon’ in honour of the club’s first president. While the old and new stadiums were very different in appearance, this is one of the things they share – as well as on-field success and the same goalposts, albeit slightly shorter after they were cut down to be transported to the new ground.
Many of the club’s greatest days in the amateur era came during the 73-year lifespan of the Stade des Ponts Jumeaux, which hosted seventeen finals of the French Championship from 1907 to 1950. Toulouse won the first seven of its Bouclier de Brennus’s whilst playing there although they had a barren run from 1947 and did not win another French League title until they’d been at the Stade Ernest Wallon for five years.
While in no ways grand in design, Stade des Ponts Jumeaux, which included the construction of two new stands in 1920s, was one of the premier rugby grounds in France and was famed for its atmosphere and it hosted touring international teams as well as domestic title deciders.
The first of two Tests to be played there was France v New Zealand in 1925 and over 30,000 fans flocked to the canal-side ground to see the All Blacks win 30-6. Due to the tight geographical confines of the area, local gendarmes were drafted in to help control the flow of the crowd and thankfully the event passed off without any incident. The only other Test played there was in 1971. Les Bleus greats, Jean-Claude Skrela and Pierre Villepreux, were involved in a narrow 13-11 loss to Australia.
Skrela and other French rugby legends such as Guy Novès and Jean-Pierre Rives were in the Toulouse team that played its last-ever game at Stade des Ponts Jumeaux, a 29-11 win against Aurillac in 1980. Stade des Ponts Jumeaux was demolished after the land it was built on was expropriated by the local government in order to build a motorway which forms part of the Toulouse ring road. The only thing resembling rugby at that junction now is the scrum of traffic trying to get through the rush-hour logjam.
In exchange, the government gave land and funds to help the club build identical facilities a kilometre away and after two years of construction, the ‘new Stade Ernest Wallon’, in the Sept-Deniers district, hosted its first game in 1982 and has served Toulouse ever since.
