Division 1 1939/40
| Division 1 1939/40 | |
| master |
FC Rouen (North) unofficial OGC Nice (South) unofficial |
| Cup winners | Racing Club Paris |
| Teams | 21 (in 3 groups) |
| Games | 113 |
| Gates | 534 (ø 4.73 per game) |
| ← Division 1 1938/39 | |
The Division 1 1939-40 was the first edition of the French football league during the Second World War , the occupation of France by the German Wehrmacht (1940) and the subsequent division of the remaining after the annexation of Alsace and parts of Lorraine region into a free, reception and - near the border with Belgium , Germany and Switzerland - a forbidden zone (zone libre, zone occupée, zone interdite) .
These so-called "war championships " (championnats de guerre) between 1939 and 1945 do not count as official competitions - unlike in the state cup competition - and the respective winners of one of their seasons have therefore not won an official title. The winner of the north group was FC Rouen , winner of the south group of the OGC Nice ; there was no play-off between the two teams.
When Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, the start of the season, which was scheduled for August 27, had already been postponed, and after mobilization and the French entry into the war it remained open until late autumn whether, with which participants and in which mode Division 1 would take place would. In fact, quite a few teams that were eligible to participate due to their placement in the previous season could not compete because they had either suffered an excessive bloodletting or were at home in the northern or eastern border regions particularly at risk of invasion. This ultimately affected Olympique Lille , SC Fives , FC Metz , Racing Strasbourg , FC Sochaux and newly promoted Stade Rennes UC . At Sochaux, for example, the players Cazenave had returned to Uruguay, Lauri to Argentina and Pettersen to Norway, Mattler , Courtois , Pibarot , Di Lorto had been drafted into the army and some were already under arms at the national border, Jerusalem was an " enemy alien " in been taken to an internment camp.
When the competition was resumed, only ten of the 16 qualified intervened in the championship. These were supplemented by a club that had been relegated to the sport and ten second divisions ; In addition, the 21 participants in the first division were divided into two regional groups (north and south), with the latter also being held in two relays (south-west and south-east).
societies
Thus the field of participants was composed as follows:
- North: Excelsior AC Roubaix , Racing Lens , Le Havre AC , FC Rouen , Racing Paris , promoted Red Star Olympique as well as the second division clubs US Boulogne , Racing Arras , CA Paris and Stade Reims
- Southwest: Defending champions FC Sète and the second division clubs Girondins Bordeaux , Toulouse FC , SO Montpellier , Olympique Alès and Olympique Nîmes
- Southeast: AS Saint-Étienne , Olympique Marseille , AS Cannes , the relegated FC Antibes and second division OGC Nice .
Season course
The two-point rule applied ; in the event of a tie, the goal quotient was decisive for the placement.
In particular, the competition in the northern group suffered considerably from the political and military framework conditions; the sixth game day could only be played there on the last weekend in February 1940. In addition, there were numerous game cancellations because clubs could not muster a team suitable for the league for individual matches. This hit Racing Paris particularly hard, which at the end of the season had only been able to play nine of the 18 point games; but every other team in this group had at least three game failures. Red Star Olympique played all 18 games, but only 13 were recognized in the end (and four of them were subsequently counted as defeats) because the club from Saint-Ouen had made up its staff deficit at the start of the season with unlicensed players. In terms of sport, the Stade Reims in the north caused a sensation, as the only second division club accepted into Division 1 was able to keep up with the group victory until shortly before the end of the season, had the most dangerous attack in the league and finally took third place behind the two Norman clubs.
In the south of France, the outbreak of the world war had not had such a strong impact, so that there were no game cancellations and only two subsequent association decisions regarding the correction of results - one of them, however, with the effect that the finding of the southern group champion was moved from the lawn to the association headquarters. It was a surprise that defending champion Sète and the previous year's runner-up Marseille each had to give a second division leader the precedence in their relay.
With a total of 534 hits in 113 matches that were also rated, the average was 4.73 goals per game, with the Southwest relay even having 5.22 hits. The four northern French clubs from Roubaix , Boulogne-sur-Mer , Lens and Arras could no longer participate in the game operations of the following season because the cities were in the "prohibited zone" under German military administration in Brussels, from which trips to the others were Areas of France were subject to special restrictions. And in the south, Antibes FC voluntarily refrained from having to continue to serve as the “league's shooting gallery”.
Group north
Placement criteria: 1st points - 2nd goal quotient
|
(a) not carried out or no result known
(b) The game was rated 3-0 for Boulognes opponents.
(c) The game was rated 3-0 for Red Stars opponents.
(d)The match was
subsequently rated as not played because of the involvement of ineligible footballers at Red Star. |
Group south
Season southwest
Placement criteria: 1st points - 2nd goal quotient
|
(e)The game Toulouse FC against SO Montpellier (2: 2)
was subsequently rated 0: 3 "at the green table". |
Season southeast
Placement criteria: 1st points - 2nd goal quotient
|
|
- Decision game for the victory of the southern group
Southwest season winner Bordeaux won the game 3-0; The French Football Association later declared the opponent from Nice to be the winner of the match; a reason for this is not given in the available literature.
See also
literature
- Hubert Beaudet: Le Championnat et ses champions. 70 ans de Football en France. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2002, ISBN 2-84253-762-9
- Alex Graham: Football in France. A statistical record 1894-2005. Soccer Books, Cleethorpes 2005, ISBN 1-86223-138-9
- Sophie Guillet / François Laforge: Le guide français et international du football éd. 2009. Vecchi, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-7328-9295-5