The latest edition of our regular Shorts feature is distinctly Gallic in outlook, so get ready to shrug nonchalantly as BTLM gamely tries to amuse and inform you about the sometimes wacky world of French football in the 1960s.

After a spate of physical attacks by supporters on opposing players and referees in 1960, officials at lower division US Boulogne came up with a novel solution to the problem. Outside the main gate a punch-ball was installed with a sign next to it that read: “Spectators are requested to leave players and referees alone. If there is any cause for anger, please use this punch-ball”

Thanks in large part to the financial patronage of Prince Rainer, AS Monaco won a first French championship in 1961. Contemporary football accountants would have choked on their Financial Fairplay Plans if they had seen the Monaco accounts however. Average attendances were just 3,000 and yet the first team cost around £170,000 in transfer fees. The club’s spending to income percentage ratio worked out at 260%.

As part of a concerted campaign of protest, in the mid-60s a large number of indignant Rennes fans wrote to the French Football Federation to complain about the two-month suspension handed out to their player, Jan Sziemczak. In a cunning attempt to evade this administrative headache, the FFF sent back all letters with Rennes postmarks stamped as ‘Unknown, Return to Sender’. The Post Office duly obliged, but Rennes supporters still had the last laugh when the Federation was presented with a bill by the postal authorities for the full cost of re-despatching almost 2,000 First Class letters.

A 1960s insight into how poorly paid players could be. Jacques Faivre was a decent French left-sided striker who scored a reasonable number of top division goals during the 1950s. During his career he played twice for his country and won trophies with Nice and Saint-Étienne. Upon his retiral in 1963, Faivre spoke about the new job he had lined up as a casino croupier. It appeared a big step career step-down and yet this new position would actually pay him a better salary than he had earned in his final years with Saint-Étienne.

The Final of the 1961 Coupe de France was contested between teams with mascots that carried wildly differing degrees of menace. Backing the Nîmes team was a stuffed baby alligator; supporting the Sedan players was a wild boar that was very much alive and kicking! (see below). For reasons we hope were mascot-unrelated, Sedan won the Final 3-1.