Grenoble

Full Name: Grenoble Foot 38
City: Grenoble
Founded: 1892
Stadium: Stade des Alpes (20,068)
Colors: Blue, White
Previous: FC de Grenoble (1892-1977), FC Association Sportive de Grenoble (1977-84), FC de Grenoble Dauphiné (1984-90), FC de Grenoble Isère (1990-92), FC de Grenoble Jojo Isère (1992-93), Olympique de Grenoble Isere (1993-97)
Nickname: GF38

Official Website: gf38.fr

Description:

For the third time in their history the blue and white of Grenoble attained promotion to the top tier of French football. In both previous occasions they were immediately relegated. Obviously avoiding relegation is going to be the objective for the 2008-09 campaign. With the backing of Japanese holding company Index (whose 2004 purchase of a majority share made Grenoble the first foreign-owned club in France) the club has built a new stadium - the 20,000 seat Stade des Alpes which opened in February of 2008. Things certainly appear to be looking up for Grenoble.

Football Club Grenoble was launched in 1892, although it was many years before they began to make an impact at the national level. FC Grenoble reached the French second division for the first time in 1951 and towards the end of that decade had a dizzying four year run of winning the second division, relegation from the first division, again winning the second division and again being immediately relegated. In 1970 FC Grenoble drifted back down to the third division and even spent six years in the fourth division.

After a 1976 name change to FC Association Sportive de Grenoble they bounced back to the third and then the second tier where they remained until the early 1990s. During that era they went through two more name changes - FC de Grenoble Dauphiné (the city of Grenoble being part of the historic French region of Dauphiné) and FC de Grenoble Isère (Isère being the département (a political region) where Grenoble is located. The club continued to stumble along until reaching a financial crisis in 1997. At this point they were taken over by the city of Grenoble, merged with another (smaller) local club, Norcap Grenoble, and renamed Grenoble Foot 38. Seven years later a Japanese company Index (involved in a variety of media enterprises) took a 51% stake in the club, a first for French football. There have been several Japanese players in the Grenoble team in recent years, it has a formal cooperation agreement with Kyoto Sanga and the the investment of Index has brought a new stadium (the Stade des Alpes) and a return to the first division after over forty years.

The club's current emblem is a shield split into blue and white halves with GF38 in alternating blue and white colors underneath a rose, the rose being a symbol of the city and found on Grenoble's coat of arms. Each département in the French political system is given a number. Grenoble's département of Isère bears the number 38.

Stade des Alpes Location