February 27, 1971, was a typical Saturday for London Welsh RFC. In a year that would bring a grand slam for Wales and seven exiles in the British & Irish Lions squad, they travelled to Neath and won 14-9 at The Gnoll. They caught the train back to Paddington, stayed in a nearby hotel, and were up early to fly to Paris to participate in a gala match at the opening of a stadium in Saint-Denis.
The players didn’t overindulge at the pre-match luncheon — it didn’t escape them that their opponents appeared not to have been invited to gaze upon bottles of wine — and then learnt why Grand Béziers had such a fierce reputation. A punch in the first scrum set the theme for the day. Mervyn Davies rated it as one of the fixtures that shattered him most.
“The game was a disgrace and typical of many French club games,” JPR Williams wrote in his autobiography. “We were kicked and punched all over the field.”
The great Béziers team of the early Seventies were renowned for their brutality — something London Welsh learnt
Nevertheless, London Welsh won 12-8, aided by a memorable try from the sprinter Terry Davies. It was a Five Nations weekend — England drew 14-14 with France at Twickenham — but Wales had the round off and so their stars were available for the meeting of London Welsh, unofficially the best team in the UK, and Béziers, about to begin a 15-year reign of terror as the best in France.
The Investec Champions Cup semi-final between Bordeaux Bègles and Bath, a week on Sunday, is similar in stature to that 1971 fixture. It brings to mind the Cup Winners’ Match and Match of Champions of May 1935: rugby league games in Paris and Bordeaux — Castleford versus Lyon Villeurbanne in one, Swinton against Villeneuve in the other — in the spirit of elite fraternity.
Bath are the English champions and keen on keeping it that way. Bordeaux are European champions and French runners-up, with ambitions to topple Toulouse in the Top 14. The semi-final at the 42,100-capacity Stade Atlantique sold out in hours, demonstrating the appetite on both sides of the channel.
Ben Spencer, the Bath scrum half, takes the acclaim after his side inched past Northampton Saints 43-41 in a remarkable quarter-final at The Rec Simon King/ProSports/Shutterstock
After the intranational collision of Bordeaux and Toulouse in the quarter-finals, the anticipation for an elite Anglo-French semi-final is high. Bath have the challenge of being the visitors, though it is a return to the city of their greatest European day and the 1998 Heineken Cup final: a 19-18 victory over Brive at what is now Stade Chaban-Delmas. To reach the 2026 final in Bilbao, they have to strike at the core of what defines greatness in this competition: winning away from home.
In just over 30 years of this competition, there have been more than 120 away wins in Anglo-French clashes. Many are not immediately recalled — Brive’s victory over Wasps at Loftus Road in 1997, Northampton Saints in Agen in 2004, Gloucester in Bourgoin in 2007 — though they are all little triumphs. The ones that linger are at the business end.
After 103 years of informality, continental competition began in 1995. Leicester Tigers were the first to go to France and win, and their 19-14 victory in Pau in October 1996 straddled eras. The tenor of the 1971 game remained in the form of an eye-gouging row.
“The violent precedent set for British-French clashes is expected to be continued when Harlequins take on Brive in front of 15,000 French fans today,” The Sunday Times reported. Leicester, the English runners-up to Bath the previous season, drew Toulouse, the French champions, in the semi-final and destroyed them 37-11, but lost to Brive in the final.
Bath are in a different position to 20 years ago, when they last reached this stage of the competition. Then, they were in a relegation battle. Biarritz Olympique, who were in the process of successfully defending their French title, had seen off Sale Sharks, the best team in England, in San Sebastián and fumbled past Bath too at the same venue. Again, there was bad blood and an eye-gouge accusation.
Bordeaux prop Ben Tameifuna makes light work of Leicester, with the French club winning 64-14 at the Stade Chaban-Delmas in the round of 16ROMAIN PERROCHEAU/AFP via Getty Images
“Biarritz have made it to the Heineken Cup final in Cardiff, and the French champions did it by the normal, bizarre and completely soulless route of apparently doing the absolute minimum, of playing as if treading in treacle rather than using some of the sheer rugby talent in their team,” Stephen Jones wrote in The Sunday Times. The Bordeaux of 2026 are unlikely to tread in treacle.
As Biarritz’s run showed, there are two ways to produce intriguing knockout ties: the thrill of an underdog, or the meeting of elite minds. The 2007 quarter-finals provided both: Leicester and Stade Français, who both ended the campaign as national champions, faced off at Welford Road and the home side won 21-20. Back in San Sebastián, Biarritz lost 7-6 at home to Northampton. Unlike Bath, Saints actually did get relegated shortly after that match.
Instinct dictates that we look to knockout rounds for the great Anglo-French ties, but the cream has been known to meet in the pool stage: Leicester and Clermont in December 2009, and the visiting side’s mad dash for losing bonus points in a heap of bodies at Stade Marcel-Michelin; Leicester, again, with Perpignan the following year; Harlequins and Toulouse, both winning away, in December 2011.
Nine of this competition’s finals have been Anglo-French, most recently Bordeaux’s win over Northampton 11 months ago. By their status alone, these matches have to be in the picture. Saracens were bullied by Toulon in 2014, but saw off Racing 92 in Lyon in 2016, in a final even a mother would struggle to love. The 46-6 stuffing of Clermont in the semi-final before Toulon, or Marcelo Bosch’s monster penalty in Colombes in 2015, were memorable too.
However you categorise the history, victory for Bath a week on Sunday would be one of the competition’s greatest achievements. Straight into the top five for English teams. Leicester, Gloucester and Harlequins have won in Bordeaux in recent years, but this UBB side have evolved significantly.
When Rosslyn Park travelled to Paris to take on Stade Français in 1892, a Reuters telegram reported that “the greatest good feeling was manifested throughout”. For many, especially if there is no skin in the game, such is the feeling once more.
English rugby’s greatest European days against the French
(5) 2024 quarter-final: Bordeaux 41 Harlequins 42
Bordeaux had just wiped the floor with Saracens and now it was Harlequins’ turn to act as fodder. This was a Quins side who believed, though, after their Premiership title in 2021, with Marcus Smith and André Esterhuizen in midfield, and Fin Baxter and Will Collier dominant up front. Maxime Lucu had a late kick to win it, but he missed.
(4) 2007 quarter-final: Biarritz Olympique 6 Northampton Saints 7
This was how Jeremy Guscott previewed the quarter-final in The Sunday Times: “Biarritz are such overwhelming favourites to win in San Sebastián today that if Northampton beat them it would be like Leon Spinks not just beating Muhammad Ali, but knocking him out.”
The clubs had met in the pool stage already, and Biarritz won both games. Dimitri Yachvili gave them a 6-0 lead before Robbie Kydd’s interception made the unthinkable reality.
From left: Alex King, Will Green and Lawrence Dallaglio get to grips with the Heineken Cup after Wasps’ 2004 triumphMike Egerton/EMPICS Sport
(3) 2004 final: London Wasps 27 Toulouse 20
Wasps, in the throes of a triad of domestic success, against the aristocrats who were defending the Heineken Cup, in a final at Twickenham. It was 20-20 and nearing extra time when “The Poitrenade” was born. Clément Poitrenaud dillied his dally too long over Rob Howley’s speculative kick and chase, and the game was gone.
(2) 1998 final: Bath 19 Brive 18
Jon Callard scored all 19 of Bath’s points, including the winning penalty at the death. Brive were the defending champions and Martin Johnson, the vanquished captain a year earlier, reckoned their display that day was as complete as any rugby performance he had seen.
“A triumph for the old Bath,” David Hands wrote in The Times. “For character, for doggedness, for sheer bloody-mindedness, which sent them whooping and hollering to the end of the stadium where their faithful followers, some 6,000 of them alongside 30,000 stunned Frenchmen, made their salutations.”
(1) 2001 final: Leicester Tigers 34 Stade Français 30
Parc des Princes in Paris hosted the Heineken Cup final, a meeting of the English and French champions. Diego Domínguez kicked nine penalties and a drop-goal before Leon Lloyd’s try snatched victory.
“We can wait for another time to decide whether this really was the greatest club match ever played,” Stephen Jones began his report in The Sunday Times, “although I have to confess that my initial impression, amid the tumult of a staggering occasion, is that it has to be”.
Bordeaux Bègles v Bath
Champions Cup semi-final
Sunday, May 3, 3pm
TV Premier Sports 1