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« College rugby in France : Lycée Lakanal, 1902 | Main | B.C.Hartley, Blackheath and England, 1912 »

Percy Bush, from Cardiff to Nantes...

Possibly one of the most talented Welsh player before WW1, fly-half Percy Bush (23/6/1879 - 19/5/1955) played most of his career for Cardiff (171 matches, 66 tries between from 1899 to 1913) , enjoyed 8 caps for Wales (1905 - 1910) and 4 caps with 1904 British Lions (Australia & New Zealand)...

With Wales (left picture), Percy Bush was a member of the team who defeated Gallaher's All Blacks 3-0 in December 1905... A golden era for Welsh rugby...(I will not discuss the controversy about the final score vs NZ... this is a tribute to a Welsh player...!)

More surprisingly, I recently found out that Percy Bush did a break in the career with Cardiff to join French rugby championship between 1909 and 1911, and played with newly created Stade Nantais Universite Club (right picture)

(SNUC key players 1910 : Thyl, Griffiths, Bush - cap - , Laporte)

To make a long story short... Nantes is one of the main cities of Britany (not exactly the heartland of rugby in France...) where veteran Pascal Laporte - former captain of Bordeaux, 5 times champion between 1899 and 1907 - managed to gather two local clubs to form SNUC (Stade Nantais Universite Club) and build a competitive team (SNUC stadium is named afer him...)

In 1909, Percy Bush moved to Nantes as British Consul (!) and join SNUC. Is it just a coincidence ? or was he invited by Laporte ? This is my theory, as Laporte was a businessman (import/export of coal) who knew England and Wales very well, and who even used to stay and play rugby in Liverpool for a while. I am investigating...

This picture, from La Vie Au Grand Air - Nov.1910 - shows the SNUC guys before a 9 -4 victory over Racing Club de France in Colombes. The two other gentlemen are Hélier Thyl, a 90kg winger from Bordeaux (5 times champion between 1904 and 1909), and Mog (?) Griffiths, who is believed to be a friend of Percy Bush - formerly playing with Cardiff.

I am not very sure about the identity of this Mr Griffiths, but I am sure that he scored the winning try that day (full size pic : caption reads "l'Anglais Griffiths marque un essai pour Nantes") !



This French newspaper states that Bush and Griffiths both come from England... Could my welsh readers forgive it...

Special thanks to John and Roger to helped me to gather some information about Percy Bush.

Edited June 2 : Phil kindly sent me a long and detailed bio of Percy Bush (available here @ Google docs or to be d/l here in pdf )

This note is dedicated to John to celebrate the 3rd birthday of his website www.ovalballs.com ! Internet years are like dog years... you have to multiply by 7 and realize that John was a true pioneer ...


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Great books !

  • "Stade Toulousain", by B.Fabioux and H.Rozès
  • "French Rugby Football, a cultural history" by P.Dine
  • "1905 Originals", by Bob Howitt and Dianne Haworth
  • "Voyous et gentlemen, une histoire du rugby" by Jean Lacouture