Before Monty, an earlier Allez les Verts echoed at Geoffroy-Guichard | OneFootball

L'Équipe reports that months before Monty's 1976 hit, another anthem with the same title briefly rang out at Geoffroy-Guichard.

The piece, likened to a military-style march, was likely first played in the Cauldron on 19 March 1975, during the European Cup quarter-final second leg against Chorzow. Saint-Étienne won 2-0 after a 2-3 defeat in the first leg. The lyrics were published the day before the game, according to the club museum's curator Philippe Gastal.

May's 50th anniversary commemorations of the 1976 final in Glasgow, Bayern Munich v Saint-Étienne ended 1-0, revived the memories of Frédéric and Jean-Pierre Grolet, musician brothers from Forez.

They say their father, Louis Grolet, wrote a drum and bugle march honouring the Verts in 1974 or 1975, while singing baritone with the Amis réunis men’s choir in Saint-Étienne. Among the singers, construction boss Jean Jeanetti was close to club president Roger Rocher, in office from 1961 to 1982, and is thought to have suggested the idea.

The brothers concede it was pompous, and it did not last. Denis Lièvre, a co-founder of the Membres associés in 1970, recalls that Monty’s song quickly swept everything aside.

No recording from the time has been found. The Grolet brothers plan to re-record the march in the autumn and donate it, along with an original score, to the Musée des Verts.

Source: L'Équipe