Stade Sabathe
Montpellier, Languedoc-Roussillon, France
Stade Sabathe, Montpellier, France — opened 1930 (a rudimentary earlier ground on the same site, Stade de la Croix Bonhomme, dated from 1909), 1 rugby league games hosted, home of USM XIII / Montpellier XIII (rugby league tenant from 1953); also long used by rugby union sides US Montpellieraine, Stade Montpellierain and Montpellier RC, and since 2019 by the Hurricanes de Montpellier American football club.
Ground facts
| Opened | 1930 (a rudimentary earlier ground on the same site, Stade de la Croix Bonhomme, dated from 1909) (The exact day/month of the 1930 inauguration is not confirmed in sources checked.) |
| Home club | USM XIII / Montpellier XIII (rugby league tenant from 1953); also long used by rugby union sides US Montpellieraine, Stade Montpellierain and Montpellier RC, and since 2019 by the Hurricanes de Montpellier American football club |
| Games hosted (rugby league, on record) | 1 |
| Top recorded crowd | 3,741 |
| Capacity | 6,500 to 8,000 (sources disagree; a record attendance of 8,000 is cited separately from a stated capacity of 6,500) |
| Floodlights installed | Yes (current specification 1,500 lux via four masts); installation date not confirmed |
| Surface | Natural grass for most of its history; resurfaced with a synthetic pitch in 2023 after heavy multi-club overuse wore out the turf |
| Years used | 1960 |
| Location | Montpellier, Languedoc-Roussillon |
Name history
- Stade de la Croix Bonhomme — 1909-1944
- Stade Sabathe (Stade Jean Sabathe) — 1944-present, renamed in honour of Jean Sabathe, USM captain-coach who died in 1941
Rugby league history
Stade Sabathe hosted a Kangaroos Tour fixture on 3 January 1960, when the touring Australians beat Montpellier's USM XIII 44-13 in front of 3,741 fans, a crowd that comfortably exceeds even the higher of the two capacity figures found for the ground. This was a club fixture rather than a full France Test — one of several regional stops the 1959-60 Kangaroos made against local sides rather than only the national XIII. The ground has been a multi-tenant, multi-code venue for close to a century, passing between rugby league and rugby union occupants more than once.
Sources
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
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