Rugby-Pioneers

Football Club Colours, 1906 Ogden's cigarette cards

Here are some great Rugby Clubs from England and Wales in early 1900s: Northampton, Blackheath, Gloucester, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea, Penrath, Richmond, Newport...

These cards are part of a 50 cards set featuring major British clubs,  both Rugby and Association... thus suggesting that it remains 41 other cards to be displayed another time (mostly football indeed... )

I can only regret that I don't know the names of the players portrayed here...

I usually don't collect cigarette cards... except when they look as good as full-size illustrations...

Hi-res pictures are available on my Flickr account (BY-SA 2.0 Creative Commons licence, like this website)



Identificateurs Technorati : rugby, ogden

Stade Français "Hall of fame" : P. de PARANHOS DELIO BRANCO... from Brazil ! and a quizz !

"Stade Français : Champion de Paris" in La Vie Au Grand Air, January 28th 1900 (larger picture here)


"Internes" Hopital Lariboisière, Paris, 1903 - larger picture here, credit to www.leplaisirdes dieux.com

If Stade Français is now proud of its strong Argentinian squad (J.M. Hernandez, I.Corleto, P.Ledesma, R.Roncero), let's not forget that Paris team has been welcoming South American players since the very first day of French rugby championship, back in 1892.

I recently exchanged some mails with Nico, a Frenchman expatriated in Brazil, who drew my attention on the extraordinary story of Senhor P. DE PARANHOS DELIO BRANCO, a Brazilian sportsman from Stade Français who earned one of the most impressive trackrecord of French rugby history (if not any sports... or any country...) : 6 times Champion in 1893, 1894, 1895, 1897 (*), 1898 (*), 1901 and twice finalist in 1896, 1899. He also participated to all international campaigns of Stade Français, including the first victory ever of a Continental team against a British team vs Rosslyn Park in 1894.

PARANHOS played most of his career as a fullback, even though some stats records him as a hooker in 1893 final...

(*) some "official" stats often forget 1897 and 1898 as the Championship was played in pool rounds.

PARANHOS was the son of a Brazilian diplomat and a Belgian ballerina. He studied in France and became a M.D. Like many other sportsmen from this time, he died on the battlefield during WW1.

Nico is willing to draft an article about PARANHOS and is asking me for some pictures of him... which is not easy he never explicitely appears in any of my pictures from this era. I have done some searches and I would like your opinion...

Nico has provided the lower picture, showing PARANHOS and fellow doctors in 1903. He is sitting, first one from the right, wearing a bow-tie.

In my opinion, PARANHOS could be the gentleman sitting, first from the left, wearing cap and scarf, in this 1899 picture of Stade Français...

Do you agree ?


Identificateurs Technorati : rugby, stade français, paranhos

"Le Football" : French rugby trade card

Early XXth century French trade card, by Marcel Capy, advertising (on the back) for Ricqles (French mint alcohol)

You could get a larger pic here @ Flickr


Identificateurs Technorati : rugby, trade card, ricqles

Advertising for friends and introducing "sports-depoque.com"

Yes, it's advertising... and I am very happy to do it !

Last year,  Benoit - a French rugger - made a fine contribution to this website. He also explained me that he was developing the project of selling rugby memorabilia online.

One year later, his project has turned to be a company "Sports d'Epoque" managed by his wife Valerie. "Sports d'Epoque" is proposing high quality jersey replicas (France 1906, France 1927, All Blacks 1905-6), prints reproductions and lead rugby figurines. The shop is online @ www.sports-depoque.com .

It's now possible to wear a replica of Yves du Manoir's jersey (sure, I need to write a note on this great sportsman who died in 1928 in a plane crash)...

Benoit and Valerie have also designed some memorabilia reminding us of the 1906 France - All Blacks fixture, i.e. the first international match of France. Just check out these two great lead figurines, portraying team captains Henri Amand and Dave Gallaher. (on sale here)

Tony, Michael, you now have some French competitors...

I wish a lot of success to "Sports d'Epoque" !

Identificateurs Technorati : rugby

You could also meet rugby memorabilia fans on Flickr...

For those who don't know, Flickr is a photo-hosting service (I mean, my photo hosting service...) that comes with so-called "social" functionalities, i.e. the ability to comment, share, join groups of interest etc... I was very happy to recently "meet" there with Mando Maniac, from Canada (err... not her real name!). Mando is not exactly a rugby fan, but she has a strong interest - among other... - in cigarette cards (check her "cigarette cards" group) and vintage children illustrations... like me !

Today, Mando is sharing with us this wonderful cover from a 1920s "Bumper book for boys"

She has posted some 30 rugby pictures (mostly cigarette cards) on Flickr here. All her other pictures are there...

Thank you Mando !

(again, all contributors are welcome... )


Identificateurs Technorati : rugby, book, flickr

Mapping rugby Baines Cards...

Arggh... this blog is getting nowhere... this is only my second post since the beginning of November as I have tons of things to do... both business and personnal... and little time left to collect and display rugby memorabilia...

For instance, I recently came across some 20 of these wonderful Baines cards... that could be a nice opportunity to tell some stories about the Northern Union or Rugby League...

Instead, I started a useless (who knows...?) project : localize on a map all the rugby clubs featured on Baines Cards !

I have placed "pins" on a Google Map from my own collection... I have sometimes added a thumbnail picture of the card as well...
"My" Baines Cards can make you travel down to New Zealand... but, without any surprise, there is a high concentration of rugby places in the heart of industrial England - between Liverpool and Leeds -, especially around Manningham, Bradford where Mr Baines establihed his trade card business.

View Larger Map

This is an "open project" : you're invited to add your own Baines Cards onto the map (if you find it difficult to manage, just post the name of the locations in the "comments" of this post)

Add your own cards !

Technorati Tags : rugby, Baines cards, Google map

International rugby at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh

Untill tonight, I never paid attention to the similarities between these two prints...

The upper one is a chromo-litho dated 1893 which was cut off from an unknown Vicorian book (unknown to me, at least...)

The lower one is a two-pages newspaper print, dated March 1892, from Black & White newspaper (already posted here last February with a few words about the history of the Calcutta Cup)

Both of them show a Scotland-England fixture at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh

The lower one, by artist Stewart Browne, shows the actual players and crowd and captures all the rugby action... the gentleman rushing with the ball is England captain Frederick Alderson... (final score : 5-0 for England)

The upper one, unsigned, shows an unlikely international game between young schoolboys in the same stadium... a young boy's dream ? or just artist imagination ? This fine colouful print had not been copied after the other one, but it makes no doubt to me that one had clearly inspired the other... Don't you think so ?



Identificateurs Technorati : rugby, calcutta cup, raeburn place, print