Born on this day in 1979 is Pascal Chimbonda, Guadalupe’s most famous export behind the delicious melon and the second most important Pascal of all time after the esteemed mathematician Blaise. Chimbonda made 16 appearances for the club.
Chimbonda began his career at Le Havre, spending four years at the club before relegation saw the defender move on to Bastia. After Bastia were relegated in July 2005, he left the club. Despite this early trend of jumping ship after his team was relegated, Chimbonda’s next move did not scream opportunism. He turned down a move to Marseille in favour of a transfer to Wigan Athletic, which looks like a huge mistake on paper. He knocked back a city whose culinary exports include the delicious Bouillabaisse, a stew made from three exotic fish, to move to a town that invented pie barm pee wet – a meat and potato pie stuffed between two bits of buttered bread.
However, the move proved to be really fruitful for Chimbonda as he was one of the stand out players in Wigan’s inaugural Premier League season. He only missed one Premier League game f