Lora Raić-Sudar won the presidency of Union Sportive des Trois Vallons by 52 votes to 42 at its annual meeting on Saturday, 10 October. The retired bar steward, who had expected to serve refreshments, is the first woman to lead the fictional Cantal club. “I thought I was coming to help clear the tables,” she said.
The result came from 94 ballots cast by the club’s 107 voting members. Raić-Sudar, who has spent decades running the match-day bar, had not campaigned for the post; members urged her to stand after a proposed board slate failed to win broad support. The club has 138 registered players, including 76 in its youth teams.
At 72, she still arrives early on match days to stack paper cups and count the change. She lives a short walk from the ground, where the pitch sits below Saint-Flour’s dark volcanic-stone upper town. Members say her election was a vote for continuity. The surprise came when she checked the club’s earliest records.
The bar behind the club
The club began in 1995 in the back room of a café Raić-Sudar ran with her family. A handful of neighbours met there to start a team; the first kit was bought with money from the bar and a donated keg supplied the takings for its opening season. The club’s 30th-anniversary booklet last year credited four men with its creation.
After Saturday’s vote, district-league archivist Petr Mirga checked a digitised registration file at Raić-Sudar’s request. The original form lists her among the club’s founding officers, with her signature beside the first treasurer’s entry. A second register shows she held the job until 1997, when work and family commitments took her off the committee.
“This is not a name added later or a note in somebody’s memory,” Mirga said. “The first registration carries her signature. The club was born in the room she was running, and she was there on the paperwork from day one.” Raić-Sudar said she had not seen the form since it was filed.
A new job, old beginnings
The old records have changed how members talk about her election, but her first task is less historic: finding €7,400 (about $8,100) for the club’s winter travel and equipment bills. She wants bar takings recorded separately and a portion reserved for youth-team transport. The ground belongs to the commune, which is considering a repair to the clubhouse heating before winter.
Evijs Tērauda-Kusiņš, a youth coach who voted for her, said the win was “the sort of result you check twice because you assume you have miscounted”. Raić-Sudar plans to meet the new board this week, then open the bar as usual at Sunday’s home fixture. This time, she said, she will sit at the table after the match.
