France, rapidly moving up on international scale, was still pretty much the same domestically: no really big clubs emerged, even St. Etienne and Nantes did not come close not to Real Madrid, Juventus, or Bayern, but to, say, Anderlecht or Ajax. Second division football was pretty much like everywhere else except England – there was sharp difference between first and second division football. The lower level distinctly belonged to modest clubs without much money and, thus, without big ambitions. One thing France differed from the rest of Europe was that the two groups of the second division had not only relegated and promoted newcomers, but clubs were moved from one group to the other every year. For the 1980-81 season Besancon, Angouleme, and Montlucon were moved from Group B to Group A, and Paris FC, Blois, and Orleans went the other way. The rest was business as usual: 18 teams in a group, the winner promoted to First Division and the last two relegated to Third Division. Hm, not quite – three teams were relegated from Group A and two from Group B – Third Division was organized into five groups, that was why.
AS Corbeil Essonnes finished 18th and last.
Olympique Avignon – 17th. Both clubs at the bottom finished with 21 points, the outsiders of the league, but if Corbeil was more or less expected to be there, Avignon was playing first division football not very long ago – first division they were not, seemingly second division was their right level, but now they were going down and rightly so.
The third relegated team finished with 24 points and lost the battle for survival by a single point, but frankly US Tavaux Damparis were not the kind of club able to stay in the second tier for long.
Right above the relegated were teams expected to be in the lower half of the table:
Etoile Motlucon – 15th, AS Libourne – 14th, and
FC Grenoble – 12th. Pure survivalists. Down on its luck was a club with more familiar name –
Gazelec Ajaccio ended 13th which was not all that surprising – the club’s performance amplitude was very wide and unpredictable, but there was also confusing element in tracing their records: the city of Ajaccio had two clubs with very similar names, same colours, and practically identical logos. Since they rarely played in the same division, usually were referred to just as ‘Ajaccio’, making difficult to know which one was actually playing in the upper divisions: on this occasion it was Gazelec, seemingly the stronger club in 1960-70s.
The mid-table was more or less familiar and true to expectations:
AS Cannes was 9th, FC Gueugnon – 8th.
Standing from left: C.Nowotarski (entr) – Ch.Trivino – Mamessier – JC Berthommier – M.Berthommier – en équipe A.Chaussin – JP.Segaud – P.Rossin – Lecroat – Godot – Bandera – Conrath.
Sitting : J.Duch – Clopin – Soulier – Stropoli – A.Bernard – Segard – JL.Fournier – Borgna – Regaisse.
Neither team developed ambitions as yet, continuing there rather mellow existence in the second level of French football. The biggest disappointment was Olympique Marseille.
6th place with 39 points, 3 points behind the the 5th and not even remotely close to the actual top – if there was a big downfall, it happened to Marseille: the leading French club at the beginning of the 1970s went into severe crisis – sure bad decisions and likely deep financial problems reduced the club often considered as true French giant to relegation and even the second division was a bit too much: the squad was not even pedestrian, but almost anonymous. Only the veteran Zvunka remained from the great old days, and he was only a veteran now.
AS Angouleme, just moved to this group, finished 5th , but their glory days were clearly over long time ago – solid, as it seemed, Angouleme was not in the race for promotion. Only three clubs aimed higher and perhaps one of them was more of an accident than the real thing: RCFC Besancon finished 3rd, losing second place on goal-difference. Still, Besancon was unlikely candidate for promotion – the top two were seen as potential candidates. As far as a strong team is recognized by the players in the squad, FC Toulouse and Montpellier were stronger than the rest.
FC Toulouse had the most famous players – only two, but that was much more the rest of the league members had: the former Belgian international van Binst, still vividly remembered from the great exploits of Anderlecht a few years ago, and the well traveled Hungarian refugee Atilla Ladinsky – unfortunately, both were at the end of their careers and no longer the players they used to be. Toulouse obviously lost steam and was able only to finish second, edging Besancon on goal-difference, but 3 points behind the champions.
La Paillade Montpellier topped the league with 50 points from 21 wins, 8 ties, and 5 losses. Their strongest point was defense – the team allowed just 17 goals in 36 championship matches. Like Toulouse, their stars were older players of better past than future – Mezy and Saramagna. As a whole, Montpellier were old – one of the original members of French professional football, but a modest club, more often found in second division than first. To a point, they wanted to return to top flight and succeeded this season.