Amateur football is eminently developed in France today. A study of its practice shows that it strongly reveals the symbolic identity of the players' groups. On the basis of an ethnographic investigation conducted with participative observation in a club of a Burgundian industrial village the author tries to show that the amateur club not only belongs to a locality, but also considers itself as representing it. The example developed here points out that local belonging consists in a regular appropriation of the village area, while representation is achieved by staging workers' excellence via a male body. When the relationship with work no longer enables workers to affirm their identity they can do it through other activities like football.