The municipality of Guingamp in Brittany may only have 8,000 inhabitants, but this little town is able to field a football team in Ligue 1 (as of the 2014/15 season). The local club, En Avant de Guingamp (EA Guingamp), was promoted to France’s top league in 2013 – the third time since 1995. The team plays its home matches in the Stade de Roudourou. With enough seating for 18,400 spectators, the arena holds more than twice as many fans as the town has residents.
The training ground adjacent to the stadium received a new synthetic turf system from Polytan in 2014. This allows the players to train even in adverse weather conditions such as rain and snow – frequent features of the winter season in Brittany. The directors opted for the LigaTurf RS+ CoolPlus system as their synthetic turf. This has led the way in FIFA 2 Star recertification and is very popular with top-flight and second-division clubs across the world.
