Here's a serie of French comic trade cards published c.1900 by French retailer Felix Potin, signed "Lebegue" (no clue..) and part of a large set of "Sports" cards. My four "Foot-Ball" cards range from n°85 to n°90... while n°86 and n°88 are missing (help!!)...

Card n°87 above reads "une touche" ("a throw in"... as "touche" could mean "hit" in French)

Card n°85 below is captioned "Pour marquer un essai, il ne faut pas marquer le pas" (can't translate this poor pun about how to score a try...)

This old lady on card n°90 says "Je t'en supplie, Joseph, ne va pas les séparer, puisque je te dis qu'ils jouent" (Please, Joseph, don't separate them, since they're playing!)

And finally, card n°89 shows a drunk guy explaining "Moi, je ne me donne pas tant de mal pour enlever un ballon" (I do not give me much trouble to raise a glass - another hard to translate poor wordplay as French "enlever un ballon" both means "to raise a glass" and "to lift a ball"...)

This is a French junior team from the late 20s, "Rugby Club de Franchepré", that I like very much...

The young guys from Joeuf, an industrial smalltown near Nancy in the East of France, are proudly posing for the photographer in their muddy jersey on a rainy winter day...

And here is my point: team photographs are often too boring... and far far more interesting when they're shot after the match ;-)

BTW : I've once bookmarked a photo project from down under where the photographer was asking amateur  players to pose after the match... same concept... great pictures... I should be able to retrieve it...

(large pic here on Flickr)

Here's a large sample of rugby cover from Boy's Own Paper...

British Youth Litterature at its best ! No need for more comments...

Publication dates (by order of appearence...) : 1919, 1924, 1911, 1930, 1936, 1937 and 1945.

Do you know of other B.O.P. with a rugy cover ?

 

Another fine rugby advertising print !

This one comes from Scotland, home of famous "Black & White" whisky... and shows the dark-blue-almost-black Scot winger crossing the white English line...

Could anyone put a date stamp on this print ? it refers to H.M.King George VI, i.e.1936-1952... I assume late 40s, then not really sure that this picture belongs to Public Domain... let's hope that B&W don't mind...

 

French presidential election 2012 will kick off next Sunday... I'd love to see Messrs Sarkozy, Hollande, Bayrou, Melanchon competing in a rugby game... and scrummaging to determine who deserves to be the captain of the team for the next five years...

That's exactly the concept of this serie of three French illustrated postcards (by artist T.Blanco) about the 1906 presidential election...

Title reads (in French) "Presidential Football in Versailles", as Versailles (see the Chateau in the background) is the city where congressmen were gathered to elect a President (no universal suffrage in these years...)

"Before" (above) shows President Emile Loubet (president 1899-1906), holding the ball... passing to candidates  Armand Fallières (the fat gentleman in red), Paul Doumer (wearing black beard and yellow jersey... future president in 1931) etc... (actually, I can't recognize the others...)

The second card, captioned "During" shows a wild scrummage... and candidate Armand Fallières getting control of the (presidential...) ball... 

Third card reads "After - Mr Fallières' triumph"... and is self explanatory!

 

For an "ordinary" amateur club rugby player here in Europe, Easter usually means that your rugby season is over, i.e. that you're not qualified for the final rounds of your local championship... I hate Easter!!

As a matter of "retaliation" against Easter, let's share some of the most stupid postcards from my rugby collection...

Interestingly, these cards are German or French... Home Unions would never had tolerated such ignominy...

Happy Easter!!

 

edited Apr.8th: it seems that the German postcard above doesn't belong to me (yet saved on my computer). So credit and thanks to the owner... should he/she read these lines, don't hesitate to say "Hello"... 

 

100 years ago, on March 31st 1912, Stade Toulousain (founded just four years before) became French champion for the first time, defeating Racing Club de France 8-6 in final (stats here)

As Stade Toulousain had remained undefeated over the whole 1911-12 season, the team was quickly celebrated as "La Vierge Rouge", i.e. "The Red Virgin"...

This said, I have no idea why "The Red Virgin" was impersonated as "Zezette" (quite a stupid nickname in French...) on this local postcard published a few days after the final!

Let's also share some views of the final featuring some of the finest players in French pre-ww1 rugby: Mouniq, Mayssonnié, Struxiano for Toulouse vs Lane, Faillot and Géo André for Paris...

Seven men from this final were soon to killed in action during ww1. Let's remember them: Joseph Servat, André Moulines and Alfred Mayssonnié for Toulouse... Marcel Burgun, Paul Descamps, Pierre Guillemin and Gaston Lane for Paris... (not forgetting Géo André, k.i.a. during ww2).

And special mention to Marc Giaccardy, the referee of the 1912 final wearing jacket and cap on the postcard above.... Giaccardy, journalist by profession, five times champion with Bordeaux between 1899 and 1909 (stats here), died in 1917 during the Battle of Verdun. His grave in a forest nearby was honoured some months ago by the local rugby committee (cf pictures in my ww1 forum in French here + local newspaper report).

And special thanks to Denis aka Zelaian who gave me the idea of this post...

 

 

Let me be honest, I'm not 100% sure (understatement...) that women rugby started to develop as early as 1895 when these colourful die-cuts were printed... 

Yet, I remember of Irish-born Emily Valentine who played rugby in 1887 in Royal Portora School in Enniskillen where her father had been headmaster (please check this BBC video on scrumqueens.com and read the whole story uncovered by John Birch on his website)

Or we could also think of the cigarette card series - the very same rugby kit imho - published in 1895 by Thomas Ogden of Liverpool to promote his "Otto de Rose" perfumed cigarettes for women. Possibly the rarest (and the most expensive...) of all rugby cigarette cards sets !

BTW I'm quite sure that the same artist (from Liverpool ??) did the artwork for this cigarette cards and my die-cuts... wonderful rugby kit!

Post-Scriptum : there was some international women rugby last week-end in Paris. While France was (logically... ?) defeated by England 3-15, the French U20 girls spectacularly "crushed" their young English opponents 50-0 !! (click for match reports on scrumqueens.com)