Ghislaine Royer-Souef

Ghislaine Royer-Souef (born January 15, 1953 in Reims ) is a former French football player .

Club career

Ghislaine Royer began playing soccer with boys on football fields and sports fields as a girl in the 1960s. According to her own statements, her brothers regularly took her with them "because they needed a ball girl". This gave rise to her interest in playing herself, even though she had to overcome resistance: “It wasn't easy as a girl at the time. We had to listen to a lot, but we didn't let that deter us ”. When Pierre Geoffroy , an editor of the regional daily newspaper L'Union , organized a women's soccer game in Reims for the first time after World War II in 1968 , she responded to the public call, registered and was ultimately selected. The 15-year-old, later usually called “Gigi”, played the goalkeeper position in the game against a women's eleven from Valenciennes , which was played in front of around 6,000 spectators . Together with several of her teammates, she joined the Football Club Féminin de Reims , which was founded shortly afterwards and which was incorporated into Stade Reims as an autonomous division at the turn of the year 1969/1970 . In March 1970, the legalized French football federation FFF to women's football . She played for Stade Reims until 1979, but from 1972 - then Marie-Louise Butzig replaced Ghislaine Royer, who was only 1.50 m tall - no longer in goal, but as a defender . The club membership was only interrupted by a trip to Italy for several months , where a professional women's league was introduced in 1973 , to which her club Lazio Rome also belonged. In 1971 she had also become a national player (see below) .

The women's team at Stade Reims was trained from the start by Pierre Geoffroy, who was also the national coach from 1970. The Reimserinnen were by far the strongest club in France during Royer-Souef's career, whose women's team remained undefeated in their own country until September 1975. When the national association introduced a national championship in 1974/75 , Ghislaine Royer-Souef won the first three titles with the Rémoises until 1977 and was also in the final in 1978 and 1979. Therein Reims was subject to their strongest competitors at the time from the northern French AS Étrœungt . Although she was no longer regularly involved in the game, she occasionally stepped in for the red and whites from Champagne at friendly matches , which was due to the fact that she had married the coach Jean-Jacques Souef, who had succeeded Geoffroy from 1981. Until the mid-1980s she traveled on the extensive tours that Stade's women took to Asia, Central and North America. Royer-Souef also later rated these trips with the words:

“We needed the entire vacation to play football. [But because of that] we had a unique chance to see the world. In 1971 we played at the Aztec Stadium in Mexico in front of 60,000 spectators. In 1978 we traveled to Chinese Taipei, 1970 to the USA and Canada, 1974 to the West Indies and 1984 to Indonesia. "

Ghislaine Royer-Souef is closely connected to football well into the 21st century. She can be found regularly at the Stade Auguste-Delaune when the Reims men's team plays their games. In addition, she maintains lively contact with her former teammates: “We meet every now and then ... and then indulge in old memories.” In addition, she occasionally - most recently in 2010 - takes part in friendly games with former national team colleagues.

In the national team

Ghislaine Royer-Souef played six A-internationals for France between November 1971 and May 1976, officially recognized by the FFF . On her debut against Italy , she was placed on the left wing position, then as a club as a defender. She failed to hit a goal in the national dress, but in her last game in this circle, a 1: 2 against Belgium , she scored an own goal.

In addition, it had already been taken into account in some "wild games", in which during these "childhood years of women's football" the team from Stade Reims, reinforced by a few players from other clubs, represented France, for example in a 0-2 win an Italian selection in September 1970. She was also part of the French line-up for the match between France and the Netherlands in April 1971, which is now recognized by FIFA as the world's first official women's international match . In this 4-0 win, the French won for the Participation in the second (unofficial) Women's World Cup in Mexico in late summer of the same year, Royer-Souef was substituted on during the game and then traveled with 16 other players to the World Cup finals tournament. Whether it was used there in all three games cannot be determined from the literature used. However, it is documented that she scored the decisive goal for the French 3-2 victory in the placement match for fifth place against England in Guadalajara .

Palmarès

• French champion: 1975 , 1976 , 1977
• 6 international matches for France, participant in the unofficial World Cup in 1971

literature

• Fédération Française de Football (ed.): 100 dates, histoires, objets du football français. Tana, o. O. 2011, ISBN 978-2-84567-701-2
• Claire Gaillard: La grande histoire des Bleues. In the coulisses de l'équipe de France féminine. Hachette, Paris 2019, ISBN 978-2-0170-4705-6
• Pascal Grégoire-Boutreau: Au bonheur des filles. Cahiers intempestifs, Saint-Étienne 2003, ISBN 2-911698-25-8
• Pascal Grégoire-Boutreau / Tony Verbicaro: Stade de Reims - une histoire sans fin. Cahiers intempestifs, Saint-Étienne 2001, ISBN 2-911698-21-5
• Lucien Perpère / Victor Sinet / Louis Tanguy: Reims de nos amours. 1931/1981 - 50 ans de Stade de Reims. Alphabet Cube, Reims 1981
• Laurence Prudhomme-Poncet: Histoire du football féminin au XXe siècle. L'Harmattan, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-7475-4730-2

Web links

• Datasheet on the website of the French Association
• Article "Women from the very beginning" from April 8, 2011 on the website of the world association FIFA (accessed on January 31, 2013)

Notes and evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Quotes from the article "Women from the very beginning" (see under web links ).
2. ↑ See the article "L'histoire de l'autre Stade" of January 23, 2012 from L'Union . There is also a photo of the Reims players before this encounter, another in Perpère / Sinet / Tanguy, p. 179.
3. ↑ Gaillard, p. 16
4. ↑ Grégoire-Boutreau, p. 168; there is only one evidence that she played for Lazio and not one of the other clubs there, and the exact period for this is not given.
5. ↑ Grégoire-Boutreau / Verbicaro, p. 156
6. ↑ see the endgame women for the 1981/82 season at rsssf.com
7. ↑ Grégoire-Boutreau / Verbicaro, p. 157
8. ↑ Perpère / Sinet / Tanguy, p. 178
9. ↑ see, for example, the report on such an alumni game ( memento of the original from January 22nd, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in May 2010 on the ASJ Soyaux website 
10. ↑ see the data sheet against Belgium on the FFF website
11. ↑ see the performance data sheet that encounter at footofeminin.fr
12. ↑ Prudhomme-Poncet, p. 235; Fédération Française de Football, pp. 120f.
13. ↑ Thibault Rabeux: Football féminin: Les Coupes du Monde officieuses. Le petit livre des grandes histoires. Self-published, o. O. 2019, ISBN 978-10-9590-642-2 , p. 17; see also the tournament overview of the 1971 World Cup at rsssf.com.