Henri Germain

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Henri Germain (born May 16, 1906 in Ludes-le-Coquet , Département Marne , † December 31, 1990 in Reims ) was a French football official . He steered the fortunes of Stade de Reims for over three decades (1938 / 1941-1966 and 1970-1977) and made a significant contribution to the fact that the club became one of the most successful European top clubs in the 1950s .

The climb

Henri Germain, who was already a sports enthusiast as a teenager, grew up in a small village a few kilometers south of Reims . After completing his commercial training, he worked for the well-known Pommery & Greno champagne cellar . Already at the end of the 1920s he organized the game operations of the Sporting Club Rémois on a voluntary basis .
On June 18, 1931, several amateur clubs in the city merged, including the "company team" of the Sektkellerei founded in 1910 (initially Société , later Association Sportive du Parc Pommery ), to form the new Stade de Reims. The company Pommery & Greno supported this club financially and organizationally from the beginning - for example, the stadium was on company premises - and when SC Rémois also joined the new major club in 1938, Henri Germain inevitably came to Stade, where his experience was initially still subordinate function was required. As early as 1939, the club became French amateur champions for the second time, and although the region around Reims was directly affected by the German invasion of France , Germain contributed skillfully to resume playing as soon as possible. That is why the club's president Maurice Hutin made him président technique in 1941, i.e. the person responsible for the entire football sector. Reims now played in the northern group of the top French league, and towards the end of the war , Victor Canard, a "sandpit friend" of Henri Germain, headed the club as a whole, which further increased its influence.

This duo had a good hand and, with sponsor Pommery behind them, hired the right people for the "provincial club", which was initially ridiculed by the league competition . In particular, the trust in their own players Henri Roessler and Albert Batteux , who were hired one after the other as coaches, should pay off: under Roessler, Reims won the title with the amateur eleven for the third time (1948) and the professional championship for the first time (1949 ) and the Cup (1950), under Batteux there were then six further national titles from 1950 to 1963 as well as successes at European level. In addition, the president also attached great importance to the youth work and his own amateur team as a player reservoir for the league eleven.

The expertise by which Germain was guided can also be seen from the names of the players whom he brought to the club on his own until the mid-1950s - it reads like a who's who of French football. When you consider that most of these activists only developed into what they became at the Stade Auguste-Delaune , the president's instinct becomes even clearer. In the mid-1940s he brought Jonquet , Flamion , Marche , Pierre Sinibaldi , Jacowski , Bini and Penverne . Around 1950 came Paul Sinibaldi , Prouff , Leblond , Appel , Méano , Templin , Zimny , Cicci , Bliard and Kopa . In the mid-1950s, Henri Germain signed Glovacki , Siatka , Giraudo , Hidalgo , Vincent , Fontaine , Rodzik , Colonna , Piantoni - the list could easily be extended.

The sole presidency

In 1953, the two childhood friends from the little village of Ludes fell out over a comparatively nullity, Canard turned his back on the club and Germain became sole president. Former Reims players - including those who, like Raymond Kopa and Just Fontaine, were known for very clear, critical words - praised Henri Germain during and after his tenure, although he was the type of paternalistic "sole ruler"; on the other hand, he always had an open ear for the problems of his players and also took care of their personal well-being. The more experienced among them also saw the financial obstacles he had to overcome , often with imagination and unconventional means like in the "Piantoni case" or the buyback of Kopas from Real Madrid, in order to keep the team together and to keep targeting them over the years amplify. Because, with one exception, Stade de Reims had an average of less than 10,000 spectators even in the most successful seasons, which is why they avoided important matches in the Prinzenparkstadion in Paris and even undertook extensive friendly game tours on all continents during the season, where the team mostly on larger ones It met with approval and generated higher income than in its own city.

It was not until the mid-1960s that the criticism of management style and individual decisions increased as the sporting success waned. Above all, the surprising non-renewal of coach Batteux's contract, when Reims had just led back to the runner-up in 1963, was actually a sporting and human error, and consequently the club was relegated to the second division 12 months later. After all, the president also faced this unusual situation: only when the resurgence was established in 1966 did he announce his resignation. His record was impressive: under Germain's leadership - and repeatedly with the financial support of his own champagne company - the club had played first-class for 19 years, won countless titles, had 26 French players in its ranks, who in their time with the red -White completed a total of 127 appearances in the Équipe tricolore , the club coach Batteux had also become national coach and in this role had made France third in the 1958 World Cup , to which five current and two former Reimser contributed ...

The return

Stade de Reims appointed the departing Henri Germain honorary president in 1966, but the now sixty-year-old did not rest for long. Four years later - the footballers had three years in the second division and only rose to the upper house in 1970 through a league increase - the ex-president also returned to the club. In the following years, the club played well in Division 1 - not least thanks to Henri Germain's connections to South America, which he had established as early as the mid- 1960s : ten years later he succeeded a. a., with Delio Onnis and Carlos Bianchi, two absolute Argentine top scorer in the Champagne . In 1977 the Rémois were once again in the cup final after a long dry spell, but lost this narrowly against champions AS Saint-Étienne . Immediately afterwards, the man who had led the club for 32 years resigned - and this time he only returned as a spectator or when his advice was asked.

obituary

On New Year's Eve 1990, Henri Germain, 84 years old, died in his home town of Reims.

  • "I would have done anything for him." (Jean Vincent, player at Lille and Reims)
  • "He was the only president who remained humble in success." (Jean Sadoul, then member of the executive committee of the French football association FFF)
  • "He seemed from another century, with his respect, his affection, his selflessness." (Francis Borelli, publisher and from the 1970s himself president of Paris Saint-Germain and Cannes )
  • "The end of an era." (Just Fontaine, player at Nice and Reims, then president of the UNFP players' union )

Palmarès from Stade de Reims in the "Era Germain"

personal data
SURNAME Germain, Henri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French football official
DATE OF BIRTH May 16, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Ludes-le-Coquet , Marne department
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1990
Place of death Reims