But before we get started, here’s a little quiz question for you to ponder while you wade you way through the trivia and banalities below:

What impact did Henry Paul have on Castres and their place in Saracens history?

Town & Ground

Castres is an industrial town in the rugby-mad south of France, originally founded on the Wool trade and you will no doubt be relieved to hear that according to the local tourist board it is STILL the leading centre for carded wool in France. Ideal for those last-minute Christmas gifts!

To give you some idea of size, the current population is 60,000, somewhat less than the 80,000 boasted by Watford and that’s before you count in the 400 000 rugby mad South Africans who squeeze into Vicarage Road every other Sunday.

So what is there to do in Castres on a rainy Saturday? The arty-fartys among those travelling will probably make a beeline for the Goya museum where the largest collection of Spanish paintings in France can be seen.

On the other hand, being a strictly blue-collar bunch the local pigeon museum (Les Pigeons du Mont Royal) sounds like one of those places you must visit before you die. Is Speckled Jim stuffed and mounted in there?  Never mind a match report, I want to see a full review of this place from one of those lucky enough to be making the trip! It probably goes some way to explaining why Castres is twinned with Wakefield!

Castres ply their trade at the Stade Pierre Antoine, a nice looking 10,000 capacity ground with ticket prices on Friday ranging from 45 euros in the posh seats down to 15 euros for the peasants at the ends.

Castres last major trophy was the French league title in 1993, but they have reached a HC semi-final since then, and been runners-up in the Parker Pen in 1999-2000. Sound vaguely familiar? Like Saracens, they had a fairy major shake-up in the summer. But rather than shopping in South Africa, they nipped down the road to Montauban and came back with new coaches Laurent Travers and Laurent Labit, as well as four new players.

And again like Saracens, they find themselves top of their league to surprise of many even though they lost their last match away to Bourgoin. More relevant to us on Friday may be the fact that they are unbeaten at home in the league, and in the last two home games Bairritz and Toulouse have been dispatched with more than 30 points on the board.

The club is the property of local tycoon Pierre Fabre, founder and president of Pierre Fabre Group. They have an annual budget of 11M euros, but have assembled a squad with very few household names. The most notable are 30-cap All-Black prop Carl Hoeft, and occasional France scrum-half Sebastien Tillous-Borde. Another name to catch the eye is Kees Lensing; remember him? The Namibian prop we were rumoured to be signing from South Africa- it rumbled on for months before he finally ended up at Leeds. After achieving very little he departed rather quietly. Phil Christophers is another ex-Tyke who needs little introduction, and after covering more career miles than Eddie Stobart he seems to have settled in the South of France.

Good omen, bad omen

 The bad news is that when we last played Castres away we were on the wrong side of a 32-18 defeat. The good news was that happened in 1997/98, and I’m sure we’d just about settle for a repeat of that season (we might wish to do without Leicester pinching the festive season game with a last-minute drop-goal).Back to France, and our chief tormentor on the night was none other than the mercurial Thomas Castaignede, who scored two tries and kicked all the points. We replied with tries from Paddy Johns and Ben Sturnham, but the defeat meant Castres progressed to a quarter-final at Newcastle. They obviously didn’t fancy it and a shadow team was dumped 44-0.

So where does Henry Paul figure in all of this? OK, so it was Henri Paul, and he was the driver of the car carrying Princess Diana in Paris the night of the fatal crash. The next day our fixture at home to Richmond was called off at the last minute, meaning that Castres were the first team to play a competitive match against us at Watford a couple of weeks later.

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