The untold story of Liverpool legend Gérard Houllier and the roots he never forgot

Travel down Avenue Jean Louis Sanguet in the sleepy northern French seaside town of Le Touquet, which lies on the shoreline of the English Channel, and the lush greenery of the trees that align the route and the smattering of picturesque traditional properties with their window boxes full of flowers might not lend itself to be the starting point for a remarkable football journey.

Halfway down the Avenue there is a break in the trees and the open space of a football pitch can be seen, with one modest stand running alongside the road. It’s quaint and fairly unspectacular, the kind of place you might find when searching for local non-league football in the New Forest, perhaps.

It is not until you catch glimpse of the name of the stadium itself, and who it pays homage to, that the interest piques and the notion that this isn’t any ordinary lower league French club.

The Stade Gérard Houllier is a small, neat affair, the main feature being the white main stand with it’s green seats, entirely in keeping with the foliage that surrounds it. This is the home Le Touquet FC, where before Liverpool, Aston Villa, Paris Saint Germain, Lyon and the Frence national team, Gérard Houllier began a managerial journey that would take him to the very top.

The death of Houllier has been felt keenly across the football world, especially in the places where his talent and warmth touched.

In Le Touquet they, too, are hurting.

Plying their trade in the National 3, the fifth tier of French football, Le Touquet’s impact on the higher echelons of the Gallic game has been non-existent, their appearance in the second tier in the late 1980s as good as it got for the club. But for Houllier it was a club that remained in his football heart, just as Liverpool did.

When local businessman Cédric Ryssen acquired a Le Touquet side close to bankruptcy back in 2011 there was one man who he wanted to get involved in the project in some capacity, a project with social inclusion at its core. Houllier was only too happy to oblige.

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“I remember it as it was yesterday, I asked Alain Cayzac (former PSG president and friend of Houllier) if he could organise me a formal meeting with Gérard,” Ryssen, club president at Le Touquet, told the ECHO.

“We had a breakfast in Le Miroir, which was about 100m from his house in Paris. I presented the project. I’m a nobody in football and I knew that if I could get some legitimacy and credibility with this project, if I am with Gérard Houllier then ok.

“He told me after five minutes, ‘of course I’m in’. He said he could not be in Le Touquet, he was very careful with his health. I remember his wife, Isabelle, told me ‘don’t make him the trainer of Le Touquet’, so I had to promise not to.

“The day I decided to get in the club, to know that he supported me gave me that tranquillity and to help me take the right decisions in the organisation of people in the club.

“Every week Gérard was sending me a message ‘what is the result?’, or ‘you need a striker to score goals or we won’t be champions’. He remained passionate like that.

“The little club of Le Touquet, in a small city of 3,000 people, when I approached him at the start he was always between England, Brazil, the United States, but every month he would take one, two or three hours to receive me, to listen to me and give me the best advice as to how to manage our little club.

“The thing with Gérard was that with everybody he came across he had a very strong and natural relationship. People really liked him, this was who he was. He used to tell me the oil in his engine was the human relationship.

Cedric Ryssen and Gerard Houllier at Le Touquet

“One thing that was important when I invited him to Le Touquet matches was ‘where are we going for dinner and what wine are we going to drink?’. If I had a good two answers to those questions he was delighted.

“On the first day I met him I told him that I didn’t want any money from him for the project. He did once seem to have an issue with our striker not scoring goals and said we needed to get a new one. We found one but it would have cost €10,000 and we could not take this cost, our budget was €300,000 for the season. We are by far and away the smallest budget in our league. Gérard offered to pay half to try and sign him. The player didn’t come in the end but that was the one and only time we talked about money.

“When he accepted to help us he helped in the organisation of the club. He came to a training session to work with our trainer and offer some advice and help.

“The trainer of our team is still the same and he has been crying for two days because of Gérard and what he meant. Gérard gave him the chance to have that one on one time with him and it meant the world. To give him insight with no judgement, just to help solve a problem was huge.

“He would be the same with everyone. Whether it was the president of PSG or the first supporter in the stadium, he had the time for them exactly the same.”

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Houllier was always a welcome guest at Le Touquet, his influence on the club during his time involved helping them climb two divisions and aiding Ryssen in his bid to create a sustainable football club with strong social links to the area.

He did, of course, have history there.

When he returned from Alsop Comprehensive School in Liverpool, where he had elected to work as an assistant teacher between 1968 and 1969, he played in the lower reaches of French football with Hucqueliers and then Le Touquet.

In 1973 a chance presented itself to take on the managerial reins, something that he took on for three years before taking a job with Nœux-les-Mines, where he won three promotions before landing the Lens post. After that came PSG and France, his route to Anfield mapped out.

It was Anfield where Houllier felt the deepest connection.

Arriving in 1998 to link up with Roy Evans before going solo, Houllier brought hope and success back to Liverpool, the European nights that hadn’t been experienced for the best part of a decade returned and he provided the spark. The treble winning season of 2000/2001 his crowning achievement.

It wasn’t just trophies, it was his impact on those around him to help them flourish as human beings as well as footballers. Steven Gerrard’s tribute to his former boss as being ‘more than a manager’ a familiar line used in deluge of kind words from the biggest names in the game since his passing on Monday.

Le Touquet, like Liverpool, held enormous significance for Houllier. The two would collide in 2017 when the club decided to rename the stadium in his honour.

“When we inaugurated the stadium he was almost crying as 15 people had come from Liverpool,” said Ryssen.

“They were just coming because Gérard was inaugurating the stadium. He was so proud to show them, he was as proud as being at Anfield to be able to receive those fans at Le Touquet. His smile was just like a child, he was so touched, so happy that they thought so much of him to come to Le Touquet for that moment.”

Houllier’s health issues were well documented.

Back in 2001, after being taken ill during half time in a game against Leeds United, Houllier was rushed for an emergency operation at Broadgreen Hospital after an aortic dissection left him fighting for his life.

Five months later he returned to work, emerging from the tunnel at Anfield to rousing reception from the Liverpool faithful.

His health issues were managed but never went away and he fell ill again while manager of Aston Villa in April of 2011. It was to prove the end of his managerial career, the Frenchman stepping aside that summer.

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While he may have stepped away from the pressures of management his encyclopaedic football knowledge and hugely likeable persona meant he was still very much sought after in football. He couldn’t leave the game alone.

Red Bull chose Houllier, back in 2012, to be their global head of football for their RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg and New York Red Bulls teams. It was a role he enjoyed enormous success in, with a steady stream of players from France shining in the Red Bull system, helping them assert themselves on the top table of European football.

Houllier recently underwent another major heart operation.

“I was informed daily on Gérard following his surgery,” said Ryssen.

Liverpool players observe a minute of applause as they pay their respects to Gerard Houllier ahead of the match between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield

“Things seemed to be getting better and the last time I had information was on Sunday afternoon. He went back home because he wanted to watch PSG v Lyon. That’s Gérard, the football was the centre of everything.

“When I heard after 10 minutes of the game he had gone to bed, Alain (Cayzac) rang me and said he was really worried because for Gérard not to watch a game like PSG and Lyon he must not have been well.

“He passed away reading the newspaper in the morning, reading the article of this particular match.

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“It was a shock.

“I lost a personal friend and football lost a great man.

“He hated protocol and was warm with everyone he met. Not everyone in football is like that. Not everyone in football is like Gérard.”