OGC NiceOGC Nice (Olympique Gymnaste Club de Nice) is a French football club founded on 9 July 1904 in the Les Baumettes district, initially as a gymnastics and athletics association. Its football section was created four years later, and the club adopted its current red-and-black colours in 1919 following a merger with the local Gallia Football Athlétic Club — the team had previously played in blue and black. In 1932, Nice was among the founding members of France's first professional football league.
The club's golden era came in the 1950s, when the team won the French championship four times — in 1951, 1952, 1956 and 1959 — and lifted the Coupe de France twice, in 1952 and 1954. The 1951–52 season brought the club its first domestic double, as it defeated national runners-up Bordeaux 5–2 in the cup final. That side featured players such as French-Algerian forward Abdelaziz Ben Tifour and future club coach Luis Carniglia, with the squad further strengthened by the signing of Just Fontaine from Casablanca.
That same period earned the club its European credentials — Nice reached the quarter-finals of the European Cup twice, in the 1956–57 and 1959–60 seasons, both times facing Real Madrid, featuring Alfredo Di Stéfano, Raymond Kopa and Ferenc Puskás, and losing the aggregate ties 2–6 and 3–6 respectively. The club's most recent domestic trophy, the Coupe de France, came in 1997, when it defeated Guingamp 4–3 on penalties.
For most of its history, Nice played its home matches at the Stade du Ray, opened in the 1920s, before the club moved in 2013 to the modern Allianz Riviera, which holds over 36,000 spectators. The team is nicknamed Les Aiglons (The Eaglets) and Le Gym, a reference to the club's gymnastic origins, and remains one of the most important footballing institutions on the French Riviera.
