Home
Change
category
"

Paul Trow: Pascal Ondarts

From 1985-89, I covered most of France’s Five Nations matches in Paris for the Extel news agency, alas long defunct. Naturally, I have many wonderful memories – not just of the magical rugby the French team routinely served up back then but also of a vibrant city and its many temptations.

Not everything was marvellous, though. I could certainly have done without having a klaxon blown in my left ear by some hooligan on his way out of the bar where I was dining on the Friday evening prior to the 1989 game against Wales.

And Parc des Princes, where France played their home matches in those days, was far from ideal for all sorts of reasons, not least the capricious, fait accompli landlines laid on for visiting journalists and the remote location of the press box in the gods of one of the stands.

Both were acute problems for an agency scuffler, the former because the link to the copytakers and sports desk in London could cut out at any moment, and the latter due to the difficulty, post-match, of getting to the ground floor for some quotes.

The stairs were out of bounds for some reason, so the only way down was via a cramped lift. Between the ground and the press box were two other floors and whenever the lift stopped at either it would go straight back down again rather than come up to us.

The upshot was always a long wait and a late arrival in the mixed zone. Fortunately, the players were usually still there thanks to L’Equipe’s mob-handed insistence on speaking to every one of them at extreme length. For me, the problem then was to find a few who spoke English – so I usually made a beeline for Philippe Sella or Franck Mesnel.

On a couple of occasions I spotted the nuggety prop Pascal Ondarts on his own and tried to engage him in conversation. Both times he waved me away with a curt “Je ne parle pas”, which I took to mean he didn’t speak English and wasn’t prepared to wrestle with my pidgin French.

Ondarts, perhaps the most formidable tight-head of his time, also seemed defiantly detached from his team-mates, which I took as his determination to maintain an aura of menace in all company.

Two decades later, I was part of a group of half-a-dozen golf writers visiting Biarritz on a press trip. One night, we were hosted by the local tourist board at a heaving restaurant filled with rugby memorabilia called Café Caritz, a stone’s throw from the town’s iconic seafront casino.

Halfway through the meal, the proprietor, a thickset but dapper gentleman who looked vaguely familiar, strode up to our table and unleashed the most effusive, impeccable English. “Welcome to my restaurant, we are really honoured to host you here, I hope you are enjoying your meal and are having a good time in our town and on our golf courses, if you have any questions about anything please don’t hesitate to ask… blah, blah, blah.”

After this engulfing charm offensive, I told him I recognised him from somewhere but wasn’t sure where. What was his name? “My name,” he replied, “is Pascal Ondarts. You might have heard of me, I was a rugby player before going into the restaurant business.”

“Goodness me,” I said. “I tried to interview you several times after internationals at Parc des Princes and you always refused to talk because you said you didn’t speak English.”

“Please don’t take it personally,” he replied. “I have always spoken good English but I didn’t talk to anyone after an international. I never spoke to L’Equipe. You see, I am not French, I am a Basque. As I grew older, I realised I had to commit to France if I was to be an international player. I wasn’t interested when I was younger but then the World Cup started and that tipped the balance for me. I was 30 when I won my first cap, but I didnt feel French then and I still don’t. I will always feel a bond with my team-mates, but that is different.

Pascal sashayed off to meet, greet and serenade other guests, and I quickly scribbled down what he’d said. I was stunned, but it explained everything that had happened at Parc des Princes. His sign-off to our group once we’d finished our meal was a generous round of Pastis digestifs on the house.

The restaurant was superb and had won several awards, but it wasn’t there when I visited Biarritz again about five years ago. The lady in the shop next door said it had closed due to a problem with local taxes during the banking crisis, but Pascal still operated a restaurant a few kilometres up the road in Bayonne. I was heading in the other direction at the time, so that was that.

Hopefully Pascal is still basking in his Basque-ness, and still giving L’Equipe the slip.

*A rugby-related footnote to this tale came as were waiting at Biarritz airport to fly back to London on the last day of our press trip. As we went to board our flight, who should we bump into coming in the opposite direction but Charlie Mulqueen and Barry Coughlan of the Limerick/Cork fourth estate. In all the excitement it had completely escaped my mind that Biarritz was hosting Munster in the European Cup the following day. Small world!

Memory added on February 10, 2021

Comments

No comments have yet been added to this memory.

Add a comment

Mark as favourite