Racing Club De Lens 1996-97

Lens have always been my favourite team from France, quite simply because they happen to wear the same colours of my beloved Watford FC. I first noticed them when I was on holiday as a child and used to buy French football magazines. The more I got to know about Lens the more I realised they had far more in common with Watford than I 1st thought. Both teams are from small towns with similar sized populations, both clubs are very much family orientated and have a rather chequered history in terms of silverware....or lack of it! The most striking similarity is the youth set ups, Lens are famed for producing talented players and selling them on for profit, most recently Thorgan Hazard, the younger brother of Eden.
Lens' nickname is "Sang et Or" which translates to Blood and gold....this pays homage to Lens' mining history, the gold for the valuable minerals which were mined and the blood for the dedication of the miners themselves. This moves us nicely onto the shirts.....
The first Lens shirt I brought was from the 1996-97 season, it was actually found by a friend of mine when he was shopping, he hid it at the back behind some Liverpool shirts (probably a good place to hide them!) so it wouldn't get brought before I could get there! I'm not sure how I ever had any money to buy it but it was most defiantly in the sale, probably helped persuade my Dad with the Watford connections....

I seem to remember Lens were one of the only French clubs at the time to have kit supplied by Umbro, probably another reason that drew me to them, along with the fetching "Shopi" sponsor, this was a chain of supermarkets like Spar which I don't think exist anymore, like the soon to be defunct Umbro themselves. I'm hoping this will make the shirt more collectible in the future but being my 1st Lens shirt it holds a great deal of sentimental value anyway.