Sporting Union Cavaillonnais XIII
Marseille (Cavaillon), Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur, France
Sporting Union Cavaillonnais XIII, Marseille (Cavaillon), France — opened 1923, 4 rugby league games hosted, home of Sporting Union Cavaillonnais, a combined rugby club until a 1972 split into separate rugby union (which kept this ground) and rugby league (SU Cavaillon XIII, which moved to a different ground, Stade Pagnetti) sections — all four recorded rugby league matches predate that 1972 split and were very likely played here, though no source names the venue for each individual match.
Sourcing caveat: No source explicitly names the venue for each of the four 1948-1961 matches individually — the Stade Joseph-Lombard identification rests on the timeline (all four predate the 1972 split that sent the rugby league section to a different ground) rather than a direct per-match confirmation. All four match results rest on Rugby League Project alone.
Ground facts
| Opened | 1923 (Our directory's venue "name" for this entry is actually the name of a rugby league club (based in Cavaillon, Vaucluse — not Marseille, despite our directory's region field reading "Marseille (Cavaillon)," a data quirk we have not corrected in the key to keep it stable), not a stadium name. The club's actual ground, identified via independent research, is the Stade vélodrome Joseph-Lombard, built 1923 and named posthumously for club treasurer Joseph Lombard, who died in 1933.) |
| Home club | Sporting Union Cavaillonnais, a combined rugby club until a 1972 split into separate rugby union (which kept this ground) and rugby league (SU Cavaillon XIII, which moved to a different ground, Stade Pagnetti) sections — all four recorded rugby league matches predate that 1972 split and were very likely played here, though no source names the venue for each individual match |
| Games hosted (rugby league, on record) | 4 |
| Top recorded crowd | 10,000 |
| Capacity | cited as up to 6,000 in the 1960s (the era of these matches); a current capacity of 2,000 reflects later reductions and should not be assumed for the 1948-1961 era |
| Test matches hosted | 3 |
| First rugby league match | 12 January 1948 — Provence 7-36 New Zealand, Kiwis tour match (attendance 10,000, our recorded top crowd) |
| Years used | 1948–1961 |
| Location | Marseille (Cavaillon), Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur |
Name history
- Stade vélodrome Joseph-Lombard — 1923–present, a former cycling velodrome with wooden stands, later concrete (added 1980); ownership passed to the Vaucluse departmental council in 1991
Rugby league history
All four recorded matches were touring New Zealand Kiwis fixtures against French regional representative sides (Provence, then Sud-Ouest) rather than club matches involving Sporting Union Cavaillonnais itself — the ground simply hosted these touring fixtures during the era before the 1972 split into separate union and league sections. The venue also hosted major cycling galas in this period, including appearances by Fausto Coppi (1951), Louison Bobet (1958), and Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor (1964), reflecting its origins as a velodrome.
Historic Test matches, Cup & Grand Finals hosted
- 14 January 1952 — Provence 0-18 New Zealand, Kiwis tour match (2,500)
- 11 January 1956 — Provence 14-11 New Zealand, Kiwis tour match (821)
- 28 November 1961 — Sud-Ouest 6-13 New Zealand, Kiwis tour match (1,145)
Pre-dates the site's structured match-by-match records for these competitions, so listed here as sourced facts rather than linked match pages.
Sources
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
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