Like many people around, I've been impressed by this recent gigantic flooding in Australia.
There might be little to compare, but I'd like to draw a parallel with a similar drama that happend 100 years ago in Paris when river Seine rose 20 feet above normal level during a whole week, infiltrating buildings and streets throughout the city and suburbs... So far, the greatest flood in the history of Paris... (cf Great Flood of Paris on Wikipedia)
My first postcards show how Stade de Colombes (host of the 1924 Olympics, former home of Equipe de France until the 70s and now home of the Racing Club de France, then known as Stade du Matin, after the name of its owner i.e. "Le Matin" newspaper) was flooded after the river rose above its banks... bad time for rugby... good time for rowing...
If you're interested to see more about this Great Flood, you could browse hundreds of pictures on these two websites :
"crue1910", in French only, developped by French Ministry of Ecology, brings tons of old postcards on a "kind of" Google map.
Pictures below (and many others here) are supplied courtesy of the Historic Cities Center, a joint project between the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Jewish National and University Library . Let me thank the original poster, Ms Ekaterna Kislova... and the original French photographer Mr Pierre Petit.
(Seb, if you read me, the title of this post is for you - sorry, end of the private joke...)
Indeed, that's not rugby, it's Eton Wall Game, here reported in Harpers' Weekly for the American public as a strange local curiosity...
As a Frenchman, I'm very intrigued by all these old (XVIIIth century...) ball games played in English colleges... Some of them have evolved to universal sports like football and rugby as we know it, some others remain specific to the place where they're played like the "Wall game" played at Eton.
I've tried - with reasonable success - to understand the rules (here they are in pdf...) and the spirit of the game... this page on Eton website is a good start to kick into the subject... As this paper reads "[it] is exceptionally exhausting and is far more skilful than might appear to the uninitiated. The skill consists in the remorseless application of pressure and leverage as one advances inch by painful inch through a seemingly impenetrable mass of opponents"
You'll also certainly appreciate this incredible fact about scoring a goal... "The attackers can now attempt to throw a ‘goal’ which would bring them an extra nine points (the goals are a garden door at one end and a tree at the other). [...] goals are very uncommon — the last on St Andrew’s Day was in 1909." 100 years without scoring... I guess that the next one will be heavily celebrated !
It also reads that "few sports offer less to the spectator" ... which doesn't seem to prevent an impressive crowd to meet for the Game, as per this old photography (from one of my old books... but I dont remember which one to credit...)
Larger pics are available @ Flickr (top pic , bottom pic). I was also happy to find this fine movie footage on YouTube showing the Game in 1921, thanks to the efforts of British Film Institute to open and share their unvaluable archives.
Teaser : I've found incredible, astonishing, thrilling, moving - no less - movies of early rugby at the BFI... I'll share that soon... they're just unbelivable ... I mean at least for the rugby memorabilia fan...
My friend Pierre, sucessful entrepreneur and former rugger at Stade Français and RC Le Chesnay (the only French club with no website ??), referred to me last week this fantastic painting from Robert Delaunay, named "Equipe de Cardiff", first exhibited in 1913 and now at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Artists have often seen sports as an opportunity to capture modernity, movement, speed, bodies, colours... this painting brings all this, and much more... mixing the rugby game, the Eiffel tower (a recurring theme in Delaunay's work) and Paris Ferris Wheel, an aeroplane, advertising (Astra is a aeroplane manufacturer) in a splendid collage-like composition. Quote from Delaunay "Movement is produced by the rapport of odd elements, of the contrasts of colors between themselves which constitutes Reality"
The group of ruggers is said to be a photography of French (and not from Cardiff, I'm afraid...) players published in La Vie Au Grand Air, but did not manage to find it... Let's also remember that this pre-ww1 era was a great time for aviation pioneers (the Wright Bros first flying in 1903... Louis Bleriot crossing the Channel in 1909...). Here is (more or less) the same plane flying over Paris...
Interestingly, Delaunay worked out several other versions of his "Equipe de Cardiff" between 1912 and 1922... I've found three others now exhibited in Paris, Eindhoven (Van Abbemuseum) and Edinburgh (National Galleries of Scotland).
You will find Delaunay's bio (in English) and some other paintings on this nice website.
Enjoy !
(all pictures are copyrighted - credit to their respective owners)
Bashing French football is such an easy game... that I won't play it (yet...)
Having said that, let's confess a couple of things related to football...
First, I do have some nice football pictures in my rugby collection, such as this early XXth century postcard... claret and blue...
Then, I used to play international football with "Equipe de France"... okay, it was the team of French Embassy in Singapore back in 1991... some serious and "official" games vs England, Germany or Dennmark... all teams wearing their respective colours, like these French jerseys drying at home after my washing duties...
There's one thing for sure, I enjoy playing football with friends much more than watching it on TV... and let's not even think of going to a football stadium !...
Introducing a series of notes aiming to bridge between rugby history and cinema !
This is a tribute to my dearest friend Sandrine, to celebrate her new online initiative Contrechamp-Media.
Sandrine is an avid cinemaphile, smart and demanding, who shares her passion for images and movies. Her website gathers an active community of contributors and fans (I fit in this second category…)… climax being reached some nights proposing a now famous “Forbidden Quiz” (I am desperately poor at that game…)
Just bookmark and enjoy… to the only condition that you can read French ! otherwise “Google” will (try to…) translate it for you... Sandrine please forgive me… your sharp writting is being slaughtered...
And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, a Tribute to "Contrechamp” (part 1) : O’Brother
Brotherhood today… Here are two French brothers who have both excelled in their respective field… rugby and cinema…
On the right, the rugger, the elder Maurice Leuvielle.
Maurice became a
key player of Stade Bordelais during this glorious decade before WW1
when Bordeaux was the undisputed leader of French rugby. Maurice participated to six Championship finals in a row... between 1906 and 1911, winning four. He was leading the 1910-1911 team which remained undefeated all along the season.
Maurice Leuvielle also earned 7
caps with Equipe the France. In my picture, he is captaining the 1914
French side against England in Colombes (Lowe, Poulton… on the English side…). Some pictures and details are here… one of the last international games before the War…
On the left, the movie star, the
younger Gabriel Leuvielle, better known as Max Linder .
Max Linder wrote,
directed or acted in about 500 movies between 1905 and 1925 in Paris, Chicago
(with Charles Chaplin at Essanay Studios…) and L.A. (Douglas Fairbank was a
friend of him…).
He created this character of a
charming French dandy, silk hat and butter gloves, who later influenced the
greatest comic actors … Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd or… the Marx Brothers. He was both a very inventive filmmaker and a great actor, in a time when most
actors were outrageously “over-acting” like in a vaudeville theather
Max Linder, “the pioneer of all
movie comedians”, was the first real international movie star, travelling all over
Europe and America… in 1912, he was the most paid actor in the world… no less !
The bottom picture (credit to
British Film Institue) shows Chaplin and Linder acting together in the early
1920s. Chaplin once dedicated a movie to Linder with these words “To the unique
Max, the great master – his student Chaplin”.
Nevetheless, Max Linder’s life ended
as a tragedy. During WW1, Linder was seriously wounded by gas attack and
invalided out of service. He never recovered health… and comitted suicide with
his young wife in 1925.
Most of his movies have disappeared,
but his daughter Maud Linder later did a great work to make his legacy
available to the public. Just follow these links to find Max Linder’s short bio
written by Maud Linder (in French / in English in "Les Indépendants du Premier Siècle"), and to find an article in
“American Popular Culture” summerizing Linder’s contribution to cinema.
Enough talking ! there are some videos are on
the web…
"Max Linder - King of Cinema" (documentary in English / unknown credit)
"Vive la vie de garçon - Troubles of a grasswidower"
That's all, folks...! I am now starting to draft "Tribute to Contrechamp" (part 2) : The Birth of A Nation...
No rugby today ! just a kind reminder that Roland Garros French Open has started !
I hope that nobody will notice that this early XXth century postcard relates more to Wimbledon lawn rather than Paris clay...
June will be a very tough month for work... starting with tennis, followed by the World Cup in Germany... really tough, indeed... (and what about the Tour de france later in July... ?)
My friend Jerôme has bet a bottle of Champagne that Martina Hingis could make it... let's wait...
PS : last year, I wrote a fairly elaborated post to explain that Roland Garros was a rugger... check it here...
A great "art deco" postcard (illustrated by Yves Roowy) celebrating rugby at the 1924 Olympic games in Paris.
No rugby today... My favorite team , the Stade Francais, lost his second HCup final yesterday... Bad mood...
Having said that, there is a nice short-cut in history that enables me to a fine transition to tennis, as Roland Garros French Open starts today...
Let's make it short. Roland Garros was a Rugger... Maybe I will look later on for nice pics to illustrate it... but I have none on my computer right now...
The Stade Francais (omnisports) built this large tennis stadium in Paris Bois de Boulogne in 1927, in order to organize the Davis Cup final after the "Musketeers" (Cochet, Brugnon, Borotra, Lacoste) won it the previous year in the US. It has been hosting the French Open since 1928 (it was previouly hosted at La Faisanderie, SF premises in the Parc de St Cloud).
At the time, Stade Francais was chaired by Emile Lesieur, a true "sportsman", who used to play winger in SF rugby team (Champion in 1908, 2 caps with France in 1906 and 1912), but also member of the Olympic track & field team... From what I have read in the newspapers, this gentlemen was running really fast... he died 100 years old...
Emile Lesieur was an old-time friend of the aviator Roland Garros, with whom he studied at HEC (yes, the MBA...) at the beginning of the XXth century.
Following his friend Emile Lesieur, Garros joined the Stade Francais where is is recorded to have played rugby - not the A team, I admit - , and did also participate to several cycling championships...
Roland Garros was then a professional aviator in the 1910s (many of his records are listed in my previous link to EADS) and a pioneer in military aviation during WW1. He was shot down and died in october 1918, days before the war ended...
Later in the 20s, Emile Lesieur insisted strongly to have the new tennis stadium named after his friend. As it recorded : "je ne sortirai pas un sou de mes caisses si on ne donne pas à ce stade le nom de mon ami Garros..."
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