Lucien Gamblin

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Gamblin

Lucien Gamblin (born July 22, 1890 in Ivry-sur-Seine , † August 30, 1972 in Paris ) was a French football player , official and sports journalist . To this day he is considered one of the most outstanding footballers in the country in the first quarter of the 20th century; as a journalist, he has been a major influence on sports reporting and commentary in France for five decades. During the First World War, Gamblin received numerous awards as a soldier and was later accepted as a knight in the Legion d'Honneur .

Club career

Until the First World War

The defender called "Lulu" was full of verve, tireless and assertive, a "real child of the city of Paris, a rock with a cross like a movers and legs like temple pillars", and also the undisputed boss on the pitch, who motivated his teammates with his exemplary attitude and drove them with words and gestures. Lucien Gamblin had originally competed in athletics with the Union Athlétique de Saint-Mandé ; When in 1907 he received a bonus five francs less than in the previous year for a victory in a 400-meter run , he moved furiously to the neighboring capital club Red Star AC , for which he was four weeks later - just turned 17 - in the first men's soccer eleven played and soon after rose to the highest Paris league with her. This club was known for providing material incentives to good footballers to join the team; National players such as Julien du Rhéart , Alfred Gindrat and Eugène Maës also succumbed to these offers in the heyday of amateurism. He stayed with Red Star throughout his career, at times also serving as treasurer, secretary, sports director - and with a 100-franc deposit, he was also a partner in the company that built a new sports field for Red Star in 1910. In addition, "Lulu" (see below) , who was also appointed to the national team from 1911, proved his worth in recruiting other players such as Pierre Chayriguès (1911) or Paul Nicolas (1919).

At that time there was no nationwide uniform or professional league operation in France ; rather coexisted up to five football associations that have their own championships fought out (details see here ) . Red Star initially belonged to the Union des sociétés françaises de sports athlétiques (USFSA) and from 1910 the Ligue de Football Association (LFA); at this time the club moved from Paris to Saint-Ouen . Gamblin won his first title in the Coupe Manner in 1908 , a state cup competition held from 1897 to 1910. In 1912 Red Star won the LFA championship ahead of its biggest association competitor CA Paris , but lost 3-1 to Étoile des Deux Lacs in the subsequent final for the cross-association Trophée de France ; Gamblin was not used in this game, but in numerous international friendship games, including against Tottenham Hotspur , FC Barcelona and Racing Brussels . In the summer of 1914, Red Star finished the LFA championship in second behind the FEC Levallois ; A few weeks later, Gamblin had to swap his sports outfit for an army uniform. During the First World War , the infantry officer ( Capitaine , corresponding to the rank of captain ) received numerous military awards, including several times the Croix de guerre ; in January 1916 he was even featured on the cover of a French magazine because of his services to the front.

Successful post-war years

Towards the end of the war, Lucien Gamblin may have played a few games for Club Français ; this information can only be found in a single source, but it is the most detailed source for this time. Then he was on the occasion of the cup competition, which was held for the first time in 1917/18 (for which his Red Star AC had not registered), as right-back in the Club Français eleven, which after victories over local rivals Standard AC and US Suisse in the quarter-finals 2: 3 n V. lost to Olympique Pantin . Guest appearances by football players were already widespread in the prewar period, and even more so under the difficult conditions of the war years, not only in France; however, it could also have been a Gamblins namesake.

This trophy quickly developed into a full replacement for the national championship, which was still a long time coming until 1932. Red Star was eliminated early in 1918/19 (against Stade Français ) and in the quarter-finals in 1919/20 (against CA Paris), but then the team reached the final three times in a row - and won all three games: in 1921 with 2-1 against Olympique Paris , in 1922 with 2-0 against Stade Rennais UC and in 1923 with a 4-2 against FC Cette . As the team captain, it was Lucien Gamblin who received the trophy. In particular, he made a significant contribution to the first cup win when he intercepted the ball on the goal line with both hands two minutes before the final whistle, thus preventing Olympique from equalizing. The regular goalkeeper Chayriguès was able to fend off the inevitable penalty after Gamblin had previously talked intensely to the shooter Jules Dewaquez in order to irritate him ("You shoot over it, Julot, I'll tell you!") . These scenes are among France's great "cup legends" well into the 21st century, and Lucien Gamblin was - although five other players (Pierre Chayriguès, Maurice Meyer , Philippe Bonnardel , Paul Nicolas and Marcel Naudin ) were also in all three finals - one of the competition's early stars; this also contributed to the fact that three cup wins in a row have only been achieved by one other club to date ( Lille OSC , from 1946 to 1948).

Immediately after the third success, Gamblin ended his playing career in order to concentrate on his main job (see below) . He stayed close to football; he also stood by his Red Star frequently in the following decades.

Stations

  • Red Star Amical Club (1907-1923)
  • possibly Club Français (some games 1917/18)

In the national team

Between April 1911 and May 1923, Lucien Gamblin played 17 international matches for France , six of them by March 1914 and a further eleven after the war (the first of which in March 1919). Given the prevailing game system at the time, in which defenders practically never crossed the center line, he did not succeed. His defense partner was mostly Gabriel Hanot until 1914 , later also a renowned sports journalist. From April 1920, "Lulu" led the national team in nine games as team captain on the field; However, in contrast to a number of other national players who were also no longer purely amateur athletes, he was absent from the 1920 Olympic football tournament .

The French, who were already competing in blue shirts at that time, were anything but a great footballing power in those years; Gamblin won only four of his 17 encounters with the Bleus , in ten games they left the place as losers. One of these rare victories, however, contributed significantly to his reputation as one of the greats of the 1920s. In his 13th international match, on the hundredth anniversary of Napoléon's death (May 5, 1921) , France defeated England 2-1 - as usual, although only an English amateur selection, but also frequently defeats against the conceded teams from the continent. And so the French press praised the defender the next day:

"Gamblin did his difficult tasks against the« teacher »in an imperial manner ... Whether on the grass or in the air, he played like an Englishman himself."

He has also played several games against national teams from German-speaking countries, three times (1911, 1914 and 1923) against Switzerland , once (1913) against Luxembourg and four times (1914, 1919, 1920 and 1921) against Belgium .

Life after time as a player

In October 1923, the President of the Fédération Française de Football Association (FFFA), Jules Rimet , appointed Lucien Gamblin as sélectionneur to the side of Gaston Barreau , Jean Rigal and others in the committee of the football association, which nominated the national players and looked after the team during the international matches . But in the same month and after only one game, he resigned from this office.

From then on he worked exclusively as a journalist. During his almost five decades of professional activity, he wrote for the sports magazines L'Auto (the predecessor of L'Équipe ) and then for France Football , but also for Paris Jour , France Soir and the Midi Libre . His articles were, like himself as a player, often "feared because of their straightforwardness, relentless, sharp-tongued, sometimes caustic", which gave him the nickname "Lulu-la-matraque" (Lulu, the baton) among athletes and colleagues. brought in. Unlike his temporary colleague and supervisor Gabriel Hanot, and despite his own experience of secret professionalism (referred to in France as amateurisme marron ), Gamblin long adhered to the ideal of "pure amateurism" and rejected the introduction of professional football.

In the last years of his life, the also member of the pulled Legion of Honor appointed Lucien Gamblin, of severe asthma attacks drawn increasingly to his apartment on Montmartre , where he died five weeks after his 82nd birthday.

Palmarès

  • French champion: nil (but 1912 finalist for the Trophée de France [today unofficial title])
  • French cup winner: 1921, 1922, 1923
  • Winner of the Coupe Manner (cup competition held from 1897 to 1910 [now unofficial title]): 1908
  • 17 full international matches (no hit) for France

literature

  • Pierre Cazal: France (1900-1920). in: International Federation of Football History and Statistics (ed.), Football World Magazine No. 23, 1994
  • Denis Chaumier: Les Bleus. Tous les joueurs de l'équipe de France de 1904 à nos jours. Larousse, o. O. 2004 ISBN 2-03-505420-6
  • Pierre Delaunay / Jacques de Ryswick / Jean Cornu: 100 ans de football en France. Atlas, Paris 1982, 1983² ISBN 2-7312-0108-8
  • L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: La belle histoire. L'équipe de France de football. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2004 ISBN 2-951-96053-0
  • L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007 ISBN 978-2-915-53562-4
  • François de Montvalon / Frédéric Lombard / Joël Simon: Red Star. Histoires d'un siècle. Club du Red Star, Paris 1999 ISBN 2-95125-620-5
  • Jean-Philippe Rethacker / Jacques Thibert: La fabuleuse histoire du football. Minerva, Genève 1996, 2003 2 ISBN 978-2-8307-0661-1

Remarks

  1. ↑ Chaumier, pp. 132f .; Cazal, p. 9, also tests his speed, but also rawness.
  2. ↑ de Montvalon / Lombard / Simon, pp. 14/15
  3. ↑ Cazal, pp. 5/6
  4. ↑ de Montvalon / Lombard / Simon, pp. 29–31 and 276
  5. ↑ A photo of the winning eleven can be found in Delaunay / de Ryswick / Cornu, p. 46/47; de Montvalon / Lombard / Simon, p. 15.
  6. ↑ Cazal, p. 32
  7. ↑ de Montvalon / Lombard / Simon, pp. 29/30
  8. ^ Facsimile of the illustration in Delaunay / de Ryswick / Cornu, p. 72; Chaumier, p. 133; Alfred Wahl / Pierre Lanfranchi: Les footballeurs professionnels des années trente à nos jours. Hachette, Paris 1995 ISBN 978-2-0123-5098-4 , p. 24
  9. ↑ Cazal, pp. 9 and 35/36
  10. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, p. 111
  11. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, p. 334
  12. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, pp. 335–339
  13. ↑ cf. e.g. Delaunay / de Ryswick / Cornu, p. 93; Rethacker / Thibert, p. 65f .; L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, pp. 140 and 337; de Montvalon / Lombard / Simon, p. 45; Hubert Beaudet: La Coupe de France. Ses vainqueurs, ses surprises. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2003 ISBN 2-84253-958-3 , pp. 12/13
  14. ↑ de Montvalon / Lombard / Simon, p. 104
  15. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, pp. 292-296
  16. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, pp. 30/31
  17. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, p. 296
  18. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, pp. 70/71; de Montvalon / Lombard / Simon, p. 276
  19. ↑ Cazal, p. 9
  20. ^ Alfred Wahl / Pierre Lanfranchi: Les footballeurs professionnels des années trente à nos jours. Hachette, Paris 1995 ISBN 978-2-0123-5098-4 , p. 29
  21. ↑ Chaumier, p. 133

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gamblin, Lucien
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French football player, official and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH July 22, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Ivry-sur-Seine
DATE OF DEATH August 30, 1972
Place of death Paris