Cod Almighty | Article

by Stu Morton

24 February 2004

Eugene Kangulungu, who was previously at Louhans Cuiseaux, has arrived at Blundell Park for a trial. Louhans Cuiseaux. Pronounced "lewon queeso". "Now where on earth is that?" I hear you ask. Well, "it" is in fact "they", as we are talking about two separate towns, about 20 km apart (that's 12.5 miles, if you're interested) in the Bourgogne region of France, stuck between the Saone river and the Jura mountains. What are they famous for? Well, not a lot really, except for... erm, chickens. Poulet de Bresse. Lovely, tasty, corn-fed chickens. Bootiful.

And they have a football team. Sort of. Founded in 1970, floundering ever since, there's not been much to shout about as far as I can tell, except for a couple of decent cup runs and the odd lower league championship (ring a bell?). They are currently managed by Sylvain Matrisciano, and are, frankly, a bit rubbish. All in red, all in red, they... don't play all in red, but almost. Red shorts, red socks (must be good), and a yellow shirt with red trimming. They play at the Bram stadium, a 10,000-capacity shed in Louhans that generally attracts crowds of under a thousand. They went down from the French second division in 2000 and have never been heard of since. In fact, they didn't so much get relegated as fell into a gaping abyss. They finished the season bottom, 20 points from safety, and with a goal difference of -35. Finding anything that's been updated on the club since their fall from the lower of the two French professional divisions is a bit of a challenge. Not unusual for France, where the expression "lower league football" just never got translated, but still a bit worrying by any standards.

They currently lie just one place and one point above the relegation zone in the French National 1, which is supposed to be the equivalent of our second division. Oh yeah, if they say so.

Now, our young Eugene. Mr Kangulungu is, according to French stats, 27 years old, and hails from Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which used to be called Zaire, don't you know. He's 1.85m tall (that's about 6"1', if you're interested), and weighs in at 80kg, (about 12 and a half stones, if you're still interested). He's played one match for Louhans Cuiseaux so far this year, and picked up a yellow card for his troubles. Should fit in well at Town; then again, who wants to win that manky FIFA fair play award anyway?

He's been around the French lower leagues since 2000, with one season in Noisy le Sec (near Paris), another in Pau, (near the Pyrenees), before ending up about half way in between in Louhans. Last year he played 27 matches, and helped Louhans to a respectable lower mid-table finish. That's all I could find on him on the poor selection of French footy websites, so I had a look elsewhere and, guess what, it gets a bit spicy.

He had a short-term contract with Plymouth earlier this year. "Eugene Kangulungu could turn out to be 'another David Friio'," said Paul Sturrock. "Eugene's desperate to play and, to be fair, he's technically a good player. We've converted him to midfield, and he's never looked out of place any time we've done any training. We don't know whether we've got another Friio-type player in the making. He'll be given every opportunity until the end of his contract to impress me, then we'll have to decide what to do."

Unfortunately, he didn't impress enough, and true to word, they decided what to do: to let him go, after several reserve appearances (scoring a couple of goals), and a bit of bench shining with his arse. Who's David Friio, by the way?

So, a promising spell (not exactly "successful", as some websites have hinted) at Plymouth this year, but wait, there's more! It gets better! The boy's an international! Well, nearly. He was called up last year for the Congolese preliminary squad of 31 for the African Cup of Nations, but didn't make the final cut, so watched it all on his telly, possibly in Louhans, near Bourg en Bresse, in Bourgogne, where nice tasty chickens come from.

So that's it. Excited? Good. Put the kettle on then, and we'll celebrate with a nice cup of tea.