Olympique, "forgotten team", 1898

Let me tell you a story...

In 1880, a 13 years old pupil from Ecole Alsacienne founded a sports society "Les Sans Noms" ("the no-names") together with 15 schoolmates. They'll soon be 130... one year before Racing Club de France was even created. This young boy was Jean-Baptiste Charcot, later medical doctor and famous polar scientist, explorer with the ship "Pourquoi Pas ?" Charcot is said to have organised one the very first college rugby match in Paris in 1880.

Early 1890s (can't find the date...), the "Sans Noms" - now senior players - were joined by a bunch of former RCF players to form l'Olympique ... a very cosmopolitan team with gentlemen from England, Cuba, Spain, Brazil... My picture is only black & white, you can only guess the black "O" and the red wings on the players' chest...

In the newly created "championnat de France" (1892), Olympique quicky appeared to be the only serious contender to Stade Français and Racing Club de France supremacy... they managed to reach the final in 1895 (lost 16 -0 to Stade Français) and to win the 1896 championship (won 12-0 to Stade Français... again).

Olympique "vanished" at the turn of the Century... I have no idea what happened, but they suddenly disappeared from the radar of French rugby history...

I was very happy to find this team picture over the week-end, in "Sports Illustrés" newspaper dated mars 1898... I have read many books about rugby in Paris and it's the first time that I see a picture of this "forgotten team"...

(full size pic here)



Technorati Tags: rugby, print, sports illustrés, olympique, charcot

Comments

[Snodroppe]

Quelle histoire "pittoresque" [comme dirait ma mère...;-)]
Merci de nous la faire partager!...

[et pittoresque aussi la traduction in french, as usual, mais avec un degré de plus, car ton texte est plus long qu'as often!]