Jules Bigot

Jules Bigot

Jules Bigot (born October 22, 1915 in Bully-les-Mines , Pas-de-Calais department , † October 24, 2007 in Lille ) was a French football player , coach and association official .

Player career

In his clubs

Jules Bigot started out as a street footballer before joining ES Bully when he was 13. When Olympique Lille , who had just become the first champion in the new professional Division 1 , wanted to sign him in 1933, the club representatives had to overcome considerable resistance from the 17-year-old's parents. Then the center forward prevailed early on, first alongside and soon even against the two strikers István Lukacs and André Simonyi . Bigot was considered friendly throughout his time in football, always with a fine smile on his face, and humble in success; he was “not a gossip and not a prettier, but a loyal, reliable worker”, and also a sleek, fast and goal-threatening attacker. With Lille he played alongside well-known athletes such as Jules Vandooren , André Cheuva , Jean Snella , Joseph Alcazar and Julien Darui until the outbreak of the Second World War, always in the top tier of the league, became a national player in 1936 (see below) and runner-up and stood in 1939 in the cup final , which then won Racing Paris 3-1. Since autumn 1938 he did his military service with an army unit in the Ardennes and fought there during the German invasion in 1940 .

After the armistice he went to AS Saint-Étienne in the unoccupied part of the country . There he was in the team that lost the final of the "free zone" 0-1 against FC Toulouse in the 1942 Cup . There is contradicting information for the following two years: in 1942/43 he was no longer with ASSE, but possibly with OIC Lille; for 1943/44 it is unclear whether he was in the squad of the Équipe Fédérale Lille-Flandres . From 1944 his affiliation to the fusion club OSC Lille, which has meanwhile emerged from Olympique, Iris Club and SC Fives , is secured. In 1945 Jules Bigot was in his second cup final and had to leave the field as a loser again (0: 3, again against Racing Paris); a year later he was absent due to injury in the final won this time by his team . But he was part of the team that won division 1 championships that same season. This was Bigot's first title win; the second and third followed at 12-month intervals: in 1947 and 1948 (2-0 against Racing Strasbourg and 3-2 over RC Lens ) he even took the trophy as team captain. In this team, which was one of the great French teams into the 21st century, he was now mostly in the position of the left runner ; In the storm, the OSC had an abundant supply of class people with Jean Baratte , René Bihel , François Bourbotte - like Bigot also with ES Bully until 1933 -, Boleslaw Tempowski , Roger Vandooren , Jean Lechantre and André Strappe and was also defensive ( Joseph Jadrejak , Marceau Somerlinck ) well staffed.

When Lille won its third Coupe de France in a row in 1949, Jules Bigot was no longer a regular. Therefore, he switched to Le Havre AC as a player-coach in November 1949 , but where he no longer positioned himself in point games.

Stations

• Étoile Sportive de Bully (as a teenager)
• Olympique Lillois (1933–1939 or 1940)
• Association Sportive de Saint-Étienne (1940-1942)
• Lille Olympique SC (1944 – November 1949)

In the national team

Between February 1936 and April 1945, Jules Bigot played six games in the senior national team , including one goal. He was used several times against teams from German-speaking countries: in March 1937 in a 0: 4 against Germany , in April 1945 in a 0: 1 against Switzerland and even twice against Belgium (in May 1939 and December 1944, each 3: 1 Wins).

However, when he was drafted into the army - from 1938 he was also a member of the national military team - he was not even considered a reservist in the French contingent for the 1938 World Cup . Later it was the war that ruined a large number of appointments for him, like many others of his generation, because France could only play six internationals between summer 1939 and summer 1945.

Coaching career

While working for the first division club Le Havre AC , Jules Bigot completed his coaching training as the best of his year. He then worked for one season at the second division club FC Rouen and went to Toulouse FC in the summer of 1953 , where he achieved his greatest success by winning the runner-up with the team in 1955 and the cup in 1957 (6: 3 in the final against SCO Angers ). During this time he was also briefly French national coach, for which the selection committee of the Fédération Française de Football appointed him to succeed Pierre Pibarot after the French had failed at the World Cup finals in Switzerland . Bigot only held this function for a short time; France was able to defeat newly crowned world champion Germany 3-1 in Hanover , to which the coach had made a significant contribution by replacing Ben Barek at an early stage against the debutant and two-time goalscorer Foix . The Bleus then did not lose against Belgium, but Bigot ended this activity in February 1955. The official reason he gave was the double burden in the club and national team; in fact, however, the minor influence that the association selection committee had left him with regard to the design of the course and the line-up of the team also played a role. His successor was also a club coach from Division 1 with Albert Batteux .

Even in those early years, Jules Bigot benefited from his experience as a player as well as his basic character traits. When Toulouse finished the 1957/58 season for the first time in Bigot's aegis only in tenth place in the table - which was also due to the bloodletting that the club suffered from the loss of three Algerian regular players who left France in the middle of the second half of the season to join the FLN football team to join - he took the responsibility for it on himself and canceled his contract. Six months later he found a new club in Racing Lens , which he stayed with until 1962. In 1959 and 1960 he took the Coupe Charles Drago with the northern French . This was followed by his first engagement in Belgium in 1962/63 at the first class club Cercle Bruges , before he followed the call of "his" OSC Lille , which now only competed in Division 2. Less than twelve months later, he returned this to the top division and worked there for another two years. Three less successful seasons in Belgium followed: with ARA La Gantoise , a team supervised by Jules Bigot was relegated for the first time in 1967, and Excelsior Mouscron remained in third class from 1969 to 1971.

From April 1975 to the end of 1980, Jules Bigot also represented the interests of the coaches' guild as a member of the Federal Council (Conseil Fédéral) of the French football association. He died in Lille two days after his 92nd birthday.

Coaching stations

• Le Havre AC (1950–1952)
• FC Rouen (1952/53, in D2)
• Toulouse FC (1953-1958)
• French national team (autumn 1954)
• RC Lens (January 1959-1962)
• Royale Cercle Sportif Brugeois (1962/63)
• OSC Lille (1963–1966, including 1963/64 in D2)
• Association Royale Athlétique La Gantoise (1966/67)
• Royal Excelsior Mouscron (1969–1971, in D3)

Palmarès

As a player

• French champion: 1946 (and runner-up in 1936, 1948)
• French cup winner: 1947, 1948 (and finalist 1939, 1945)
• 6 international matches (1 goal) for France
• at least 114 games and 69 goals in Division 1 , including 112/41 for Lille,? / 28 for Saint-Étienne

As a trainer

• French champion: Nothing (but runner-up in 1955)
• French cup winner: 1957
• Coupe Drago winner : 1959, 1960

literature

• Almanach du football éd. 1933/34. Paris 1934; ditto éd. 1934/35, 1935/36, 1936/37
• 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
• Sophie Guillet / François Laforge: Le guide français et international du football éd. 2007. Vecchi, Paris 2006 ISBN 2-7328-6842-6
• Paul Hurseau / Jacques Verhaeghe: Les immortels du football nordiste. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2003 ISBN 2-84253-867-6
• L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007 ISBN 978-2-915535-62-4
• L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: La belle histoire. L'équipe de France de football. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2004 ISBN 2-9519605-3-0
• Frédéric Parmentier: AS Saint-Étienne, histoire d'une légende. Cahiers intempestifs, Saint-Étienne 2004 ISBN 2-911698-31-2
• Alfred Wahl / Pierre Lanfranchi: Les footballeurs professionnels des années trente à nos jours. Hachette, Paris 1995 ISBN 978-2-01-235098-4

Remarks

1. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, pp. 73ff.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Hurseau / Verhaeghe, p. 17
3. ↑ ^{a b} Chaumier, p. 42
4. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, p. 101
5. ↑ Parmentier, p. 275
6. ↑ According to Hurseau / Verhaeghe, p. 17, he played at the ÉF Lille-Flandres, according to Guillet / Laforge, p. 145, however not.
7. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, p. 35
8. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, pp. 363/364
9. ^ Jean Cornu: Les grandes equipes françaises de football. Famot, Genève 1978, p. 90
10. ↑ after Stéphane Boisson / Raoul Vian: Il était une fois le Championnat de France de Football. Tous les joueurs de la première division de 1948/49 à 2003/04. Neofoot, Saint-Thibault o. J. and Guillet / Laforge, pp. 150–152
11. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, pp. 306-309
12. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, pp. 84/85
13. ↑ see the article "25 février 1955 - Batteux au pied levé" in France Football of February 25, 2014, p. 56
14. ↑ See the list of winners of the competition here ( Memento of the original from May 29, 2012 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. 
15. ↑ According to the incomplete sources, the following can currently be determined: 1933–1937 over 79 games and exactly 41 goals (Almanach 1933/34, p. 65; Almanach 1934/35, p. 71; Almanach 1935/36, p. 45; Almanach 1936 / 37, p. 45; for 1935–1937 dito Guillet / Laforge, p. 137/138), 1940–1942 unknown number of games, but 28 goals (Parmentier, p. 274) and 1945–1948 at least 32 games, number of hits unknown (Guillet / Laforge, pp. 147-149).

Web links

• Data sheet with photo on the website of the French Association
• Profile at footballdatabase.eu