The Gymnaste Club de Nice was founded in 1904 by the Marquis de Massengy d'Auzac as a multisports institution on the French Riviera. At the time, football was not a mass sport on the Côte d’Azur and cycling, gymnastics and the immensely popular traditional game of boules held sway until 1908, when the Gym split in two and a football team was established.
The traditional colours of the Gym were blue and yellow, however in 1910 the Gym’s football team was invited to play in an international tournament by Italian club AC Milan. After the long journey, it was discovered that the Gym had forgotten their jerseys and, as a temporary measure, agreed to play in Milan’s famous red and black stripes. The Gym won the tournament and the rossoneri tops were retained.
In 1924 – with the Olympic Games in Paris – the Gymnaste Club de Nice became the Olympique Gymnaste Club de Nice, the name they go by today. Le Gym were admitted to France’s first ever professional League in 1932, yet it was in the 1950’s that the club ruled French football. Four domestic crowns (1951, ’52, ’56 and ’59) and two Coupes de France (1952 and ’54) established Nice as a giant in the French game.
Two decades of poor results, shrinking crowds and an inability to stay in Ligue 1 followed, and Nice filed for bankruptcy in 1991 only to return with fresh backing a season later. In 2002 Nice’s third-place finish in Ligue 2 earned the club a return to France’s top-flight, however financial irregularities threatened to scupper promotion. In the end, an appeal to the French Olympic Committee granted the club a reprieve and the 2005-06 season will be their fourth consecutive year back in the first division.
