Rugby-Pioneers: Magee, Reichel, two rugby legends in Paris, 1899

No blogging since three months... shame ! shame ! shame ! too many projects... not enough time... but back to work now, there's a World Cup to prepare !

The European rugby season about to end... H Cup final (Leinster v Northampton) will start in a few minutes, and it's only a few hours since London Harlequins (luckily...) defeated my fav' Stade Français in Challenge Cup final yesterday night. Bad news, but it gives me a "connection" with this other game between teams from London and Paris... a few years ago...

Here is one of my favorite French rugby postcards... I like the quality of the photography (neat action pictures are rare... it was such a technical challenge at the time...) and the "modern" attitude of the player holding the ball...

The elegant handwriting "Paris, 29 Aug. 1901" (nota : before 1903, writing on postcards was only allowed on the front of picture side) was a precious hint to identify the place as the famous Parc des Princes, and the defending team as Racing Club de France.

This said : no caption, no place, no date... and no possibility to know more about it until I was lucky enough to uncover the very same photography in this 2 pages article (signed D.Ropgoal... ha ha!) published in French sports magazine "Sports Illustrés" dated Dec.1899 (to read, in French here page 1 and 2 ). Bingo ! Happy to read that the visiting team was London Irish F.C.

Reading the article, I was surprised to discover that both teams were captained by some of the most prominent players from the XIXth century : Louis Magee (Ireland, Bective Rangers of Dublin and London Irish) and Frantz Reichel (France, Racing Club de France, SCUF)... Here are the teams posing....

Pharamond - Goudard, Rutherford, Collas, F.Reichel (cap) - Tauzin, Chastiané - Lefèvre-Hubert, Lefèvre, Aïtoff, Lesage, Bernstein, Sarrade, Ertzbeshoff, Muret

Mac Inerney - MacJoy, M.Dodd, Dinnismore, Forde - R.Dyas, L.Maggee (with two "g"...) (cap) - J.Boottman, J.Thunder, J.W.Walsh, J.Otway, Ruttven, Donovan, J.Murray, Hayes, J.Morson

Here are our "superstars" Louis Magee (Ogden's Cigarette card 1902) and young Frantz Reichel wearing first French colours (USFSA), captain of the first French side touring in England, 1893

I'm not going to give a full biography of these gentlemen... please read these former stories (Reichel or Magee) or read these good reports on Wikipedia (Reichel or Magee - you'll recognize the picture!)

Not to forget: In modern times, Louis Magee would play for Leinster...

Trivia : my upper picture is captioned "[...] L'arrière Français Pharamond arrêtant la charge de l'Irlandais Ruttven" (i.e. "French fullback Pharamond stopping the race of Irishman Ruttven"). Alexandre Pharamond (Rugby Gold medal @ 1900 Olympics in Paris, three times French Champion with RCF and Stade Français) was the owner of famous restaurant "Pharamond" named after his grand father in 1832... and basically unchanged in 2011...

Trivia again : the history section of London Irish website mentions that "1911 saw the club's first foray into Europe, to France for a game against Le Havre"... well, maybe not...

2 Comments

Comme c'est bon de vous voir encore, Fred! Sorry about Stade's late slip there, but if you know anything about soccer, Cardiff City's slip there three nights earlier was far worse!! Mr Magee would have loved Leinster's recovery yesterday, an even bigger comeback than yours to the website!!
Amities, Phil.

Posted by: Phil Atkinson | 22/05/2011 at 22:40