Back with a bang?

He may not realise it, but Julien Féret is somehow continuing some sort of tradition with his return. Stade Rennes’ history is dotted with players having decided to return home a few years, sometimes a few months after they left, for all sorts of reasons.

Everyone in Rennes remembers the last occurrence to date, when Sylvain Wiltord returned in August 2007 at the term of unending discussions between Rennes and the Olympique Lyonnais. One of these transfers a supporter’s dreams are made of: a former favourite of the club, one of its most glorious graduates returning to share all his talent and experience. The phenomenon isn’t new: In 1973, when a magazine asked them which D1 players they would like to see with the “Rouge et Noir”, three former players of the clubs were favoured by the fans: Loulou Floch, Robert Rico & Zygmunt Chlosta [1].
Unfortunately, in such situations, success doesn’t seem to be the usual outcome at the Stade Rennais. Without going on and on about Wiltord’s second spell in Rennes, it failed to match his recent experience of the time, with Lyon.

Before him, several former Rennes heroes had attempted a comeback, without really succeeding. A team-mate of Wiltord in the mid-1990s, Jocelyn Gourvennec returned in January 2000 after four and a half mixed years in Nantes, Marseille and Montpellier. Far from reaching the level of performance that made him a key-man in Rennes’ last promotion in 1994, Gourvennec couldn’t find the same level of influence, and he was pretty much side-lined by Christian Gourcuff in 2001-2002
Another Breton who sought fortunes in new horizons is Saint-Malo born Jean Grumellon. The club’s best ever goal-scorer (145 goals) built his reputation with the “Rouge et Noir” shirt before taking profit of his status as a French international to leave for Nice, then the twice-defending French champion, in 1952. Two years later, he returned to Brittany after spending only six months with the “Aiglons” and two disappointing experiences in Monaco and Le Havre. Returning to Rennes, he played two more seasons but failed to return to his best level.

In the same way, the return of Laurent Pokou to Stade Rennes, a bit over a year after he left for Nancy, failed to bring the result expected by both the player and the club. The former Route de Lorient icon failed to show his trademark brilliance, and his return knew an abrupt ending after only three months. Dismissed during a Coupe de France match in Saint-Pol-de-Léon in December 1978, he was inflicted a heavy suspension and would never wear the Stade Rennais shirt again.
Once a team-mate of Laurent Pokou, Raymond Keruzoré also experienced a failed comeback. Transferred to Marseille in 1973, the Finisterian failed to adapt and returned to Rennes as soon as the following summer. Unfortunately, the love-affaire turned sour: often injured, he only played nineteen league games during the 1974-1975 season, ending in a relegation to Division 2. Attacked by the club’s president, Mr Lemoux, who blamed him – and a few more players in the squad – to try and seize the power, Keruzoré left Stade Rennes at the beginning of the 1975-1976 season. He would only come back in 1987, when he became the club’s manager.

Pushed out of the club at the same time as Keruzoré, defender Loïc Kerbiriou came back faster than “Kéru”. The strong-built defender had a three-year break in his Rennes career, during which he player for Penmarc’h and Brest. In 1978, he came back for a final season at the Stade Rennais, where he combined his duties as a player with a work of … director at the newly created Academy.
Also returning – a couple of decades later – in relative obscurity, goalkeeper Christophe Revault’s return with the Rennes shirt was barely visible. A first choice in the Rennes goal between 1998 and 2000, Revault was recruited again in 2006, when the club was looking for an experienced goalkeeper to tutor youngster Simon Pouplin. Annoyed with his reduced playing time (one Coupe de France match), Revault left to finish his career at Le Havre in June 2007.

For some players, the return to the club happened as if they had never left. In January 2006, Olivier Sorlin returned after only six months in Monaco. Having left at the end of his contract in June 2005, the midfielder never got used to life in the Principality, in a team stricken by doubt. The following winter, Stade Rennes took the opportunity to bring him back, he who had been particularly brilliant in 2004-2005. Sorlin was soon blending back in the squad to become, during two and a half year, the real pace-maker of the Stade Rennes midfield.
Years earlier, Morrocan Houssaine Anafal had a two-episode spell at the Stade Rennais. The first period, between June 1974 and October 1976, allowed him to develop an interesting partnership with Laurent Pokou in attack. Unfortunately, Anafal was homesick and decided to return to his first club, in Kénitra. A bit under three years later, in 1979, Anafal was returning to Brittany however, and took a new dimension by becoming one of the team’s attacking leaders. The end of his career was eventually plagued by a nasty meniscus injury.

Jean Prouff, throughout his career, came back several times to his “favourite club”. After signing his first licences with the Stade Rennais as a teenager, the man from Morbihan followed his father when he moved to Nantes for professional reasons. He then turned professional at Fives, in the greater Lille area, but the beginning of the Second World War interrupted his early career in the top flight. Called to arms in 1940 , he returned to Nantes and then to Rennes after France’s defeat. This is how Prouff played for a season with Stade Rennes, but he was then obliged to return to Fives in 1942, the club where he played before the conflict started. His forced exile would only last a year, and Prouff decided to return to Rennes in 1943.
He would then spend five years at the Stade Rennes, during which he received most of his call-ups with the French national team. In 1948, finally, Prouff left on the hunt for silverware at the Stade Reims, but he returned to Rennes in 1950, to finish his professional career. In 1964, he made his last come-back to become the professional team’s manager.

Finally, the comebacks are sometimes completed by prodigal sons who reached their full potential elsewhere. This is somehow the case of Julien Féret, even though he is the first example of a player trained at the club, failing to make it in the professional squad and finally returning through the main door. If it was to be compared, his story could be related to those of players who only had time to show great promises before being forced to concretise them elsewhere.
Both members of the same generation, Pierrick Hiard (photo above) and Patrick Delamontagne both learnt their trade at the Stade Rennais. They both discovered the first division at the club and broke through to be considered as big hopes of French football. Unfortunately, the end of the 1970s was marked with huge financial turmoil in Rennes, and the club was forced to sell his best prospects in order to guarantee its survival. Hiard and Delamontagne would therefore leave and confirm their great talent away from Rennes, both receiving France call-ups in the process. Hiard returned as soon as Rennes gained promotion back to the top flight, in 1983. He wouldn’t leave anymore, finishing his career at the club in 1991 then becoming the club’s goalkeepers coach and nowadays its head of recruitment. As for Delamontagne, he returned in 1988, with the Stade Rennais returned to D2. Joining his young brother Laurent, he was accessory in the club’s return to the top flight in 1990. Two examples Julien Féret would be well inspired to follow.