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Fleury Di Nallo RIP

Gacina Bozidar

Saturday, May 16th, 2026

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Lyon!
The beautiful French city and its Gerland district at the end of the 1950’s and the beginning of
the 1960’s belonged to a very particular football world
There was a young boy who started working in a factory at the age of fourteen
It seems hard to believe and surreal and crazy but at that time a worker could be fourteen years old and have a job in a factory

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 One day the boy’s family received some gentlemen at their home carrying an amount of money that was a hundred times greater than his father’s salary

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 He signed for OL the famous Olympique Lyonnais football club

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 He would play for OL between 1960 and 1974

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 But there was something big and something amazing

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 Something astonishing

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 Something almost magical happened against all odds and was fascinating and beyond imagination
He scored exactly 222 goals for Olympique Lyonnais

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 One of his fellow players called him Flower or in French ‘Fleur’

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 It was not for nothing because his name was Fleury Di Nallo

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 He was also called The Little Prince of Gerland and his record of 222 goals will perhaps never be broken
We can be almost sure of that

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 But I want to remind you that Everton’s Dixie Dean still holds the record in England and he was born on 22 January
As if somehow or especially the number two in such order belonged to the greatest goal scorers

Notes

Fleury Di Nallo RIP (1943- 2026)

Fleury Di Nallo  the great French forward of the 1960″s, passed away at the age of 83.RIP.

Source: https://footballpoets.org/poems/fleury-di-nallo-rip/