Pierre Mony

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Pierre Mony (born March 23, 1896 in Paris , † January 1, 1980 in Boulogne-Billancourt ) was a French football player who had played several times in the national team of France . In the late 1920s, after his time as a player, he was acquitted of a murder charge , although he confessed .

Club career

Pierre Mony came to Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France during the First World War , where he served as a pilot in the Aéronautique Militaire and was awarded the medal of bravery such as the Croix de guerre . After the end of the war he took up law studies and played - from when exactly, the literature used does not tell - football at the US Boulogne . In the 2-3-5 line-up that was usual at the time , he was one of the two defenders (full backs) . In the 1920s, the players in France were officially pure amateurs, and until 1932 there was no national game operation for the championship . The USB competed in the highest league in the north and finished sixth among nine participating teams in the 1919/20 season. Pierre Mony was in early 1920 in the regional selection, which was defeated against the eleven of the Paris League 3: 5, and he also received a first appointment to the national team (see section below). The following season Boulogne finished in fourth, and then Mony moved back to his hometown, where he played for CASG Paris . With the Banquiers he reached the quarter-finals in 1922 and the second round in 1923 in the cup competition for the Coupe de France, which was then considered the actual championship .

After two years he returned to Boulogne, played there for the smaller local club OSC and was not included in either 1924 or 1925 in the prestige duels between North and Paris selection. In 1926, the now 30-year-old Mony, who had also taken over a bar-restaurant called Phénix that year , rejoined the US Boulogne, with which he finished the regional championship round as second behind the AC Amiens . Whether he was still part of the first team of the USB in the 1927/28 season , which surprisingly reached the round of 16 in the national cup competition, can neither be determined from the literature nor the time of the final end of his playing career. The club itself mentions Pierre Mony, after all, one of its most successful players, only in a list of its former national players, but does not offer any personal or career data.

Stations

  • US Boulogne (until 1921)
  • CASG Paris (1921-1923)
  • OSC Boulogne (1923-1926)
  • US Boulogne (1926 to probably 1928)

In the national team

In January 1920, Pierre Mony was used together with his younger brother Alexis for the first time in the national team . At that time, a selection committee of the FFFA football association appointed a group of players for each game, which was often put together according to a regional proportion. For the friendly against Italy , this group, which Father Mony had also joined, traveled by train to Milan , where, after a 40-hour journey, they only arrived an hour and a half before kick-off. The guest lost 4: 9, and although the local media then specifically blamed the defending brothers and goalkeeper Maurice Cottenet for this "poor performance", Fred Pentland , who was only appointed coach for this tournament, called Pierre Mony into the French Olympic squad , did not use it in the two games in Antwerp , but gave preference to the defense duo Huot / Baumann .

Pierre Mony did not return to the national team until three years later, after he was often in the focus of association leaders at CASG Paris. From January to May 1923 he played four more matches in the blue dress, two of them at the side of the experienced Lucien Gamblin . The French lost all of these encounters, including a particularly drastic 1: 8 against the Netherlands . In the 1: 4 against England in front of 30,000 visitors at the Stade Pershing in Paris , Mony made an own goal after just under ten minutes. With this encounter, his international appearances ended.

Murder and trial

On the night of May 15-16, 1928, Mony closed his Phénix bar, pocketed his loaded pistol and then went to a nearby bar, where he met his friend Jean Delpierre , who was ten years older than him , a formerly regionally successful bicycle and motorcycle -Racer, met. The two "drank, laughed and sang together" before they and two other men looked for a restaurant that was still open around one o'clock. In front of a hotel, Mony suddenly drew his gun and shot Delpierre four times. While the two companions were taking the severely bleeding victim to a hospital, where Delpierre died a good 24 hours later, the shooter threw the murder weapon into a harbor basin and drove to his recently separated wife who wanted to divorce him, and their little daughter to Calais, 35 kilometers away . He returned to Boulogne early in the morning and turned himself in to the police. He admitted the shots, which he justified by saying that his friend had had a relationship with his wife Paule, for which he wanted to get revenge. He was then deliberately arrested on charges of murder.

The trial took place on October 2, 1928 before a jury in Arras and met with a large audience; Journalists from the capital are said to have argued with their regional colleagues about the eight press positions. The line of defense of the three lawyers consisted essentially in the impeccable, exemplary way of life of the accused against the "frivolous habit" of his wife through nine witnesses named by them - among them Mony's squadron commander in the war, meanwhile admitted as a lawyer at the Paris Cour d'appel to highlight. Pierre Mony, who wore his World War II medals on his lapel, repeated his confession and regretted his "jealous act of madness". When the judge asked how this could come about when the friends had laughed and sang so intimately together that evening, he replied that Delpierre had suddenly started a song about an unfaithful woman and her betrayed husband, which made him think about him wanted to mock. When Delpierre started doing it again on the street, he saw red. Mony's wife denied having had an affair with Delpierre on the stand and described her husband as "immoral, lazy and brutal". But although several witnesses confirmed that Pierre Mony had cheated on more than once himself, public and published opinion remained on his side; a daily called Paule Mony "the real culprit" and asked "Will she show any sign of pity for the man who died because of her or for the man who killed for love for her?" After a 14-hour trial and a brief discussion that followed, the jury declared at three o'clock in the morning to cheering from the audience, which was still full, that the accused was not guilty of murder; Pierre Mony left the courtroom a free man.

Whether he was actually acquitted because of his "great local popularity" at the time, as the title of the Guardian article suggests, cannot be answered without looking at the trial files. At least in a more recent book about the so-called “immortals” of northern French football, its high sporting status is disputed: Unlike 182 other players, Mony is not considered in it. He later moved back to the Paris region, where he died on New Year's Day in 1980.

literature

  • 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
  • L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: La belle histoire. L'équipe de France de football. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2004, ISBN 2-951-96053-0
  • Jacques Verhaeghe / Gilbert Hocq: Le football en Nord-Pas-de-Calais 1892–2007. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2007, ISBN 978-2-84910-681-5

Web links

Notes and evidence

  1. Date of birth according to Chaumier, p. 221, and Matthieu Delahais / Bruno Colombari / Alain Dautel: Le Dico des Bleus. Marabout, Vanves 2017, ISBN 978-2-501-12142-2 , p. 246; the indication “1. January 1887 ”on the association's website (see under web links ) seems to be a placeholder or a confusion with the day of his death.
  2. ^ Date of death according to archivesenligne.paris.fr and Matthieu Delahais / Bruno Colombari / Alain Dautel: Le Dico des Bleus. Marabout, Vanves 2017, ISBN 978-2-501-12142-2 , p. 246.
  3. a b c d e after the Guardian online article (see under Weblinks )
  4. ^ Pierre Delaunay / Jacques de Ryswick / Jean Cornu: 100 ans de football en France. Atlas, Paris 1983², ISBN 2-7312-0108-8 , p. 104; Thibaud Leplat: Le football à la Française. Solar, o. O. 2016, ISBN 978-2-2630-7340-3 , pp. 27ff.
  5. Verhaeghe / Hocq, p. 41
  6. Verhaeghe / Hocq, p. 43; There is also a team photo of the USB with the Mony brothers.
  7. L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007, ISBN 978-2-915-53562-4 , pp. 336-339
  8. Verhaeghe / Hocq, pp. 45 and 47
  9. Verhaeghe / Hocq, p. 50
  10. L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007, ISBN 978-2-915-53562-4 , p. 344
  11. see the outline of the club's history on usbco.com
  12. ^ Jean-Philippe Rethacker / Jacques Thibert: La fabuleuse histoire du football. Minerva, Genève 1996, 2003², ISBN 978-2-8307-0661-1 , p. 60
  13. L'Équipe / Ejnès, La belle histoire , p. 295
  14. Chaumier, pp. 221f.
  15. L'Équipe / Ejnès, La belle histoire , p. 383
  16. In L'Équipe / Ejnès, La belle histoire , p. 33, there is a photo of the game scene in which England's Charlie Buchan hurries to Mony and scores 2-0.
  17. The contemporary article from L'Égalité of May 17, 1928 reports that the group consisted of four instead of just three men - as stated in the Guardian article ( this entire section, including the quotations, is based on these articles, which can be found under web links ).
  18. ^ Article from L'Égalité of October 2, 1928, p. 2
  19. According to the Guardian, the song "Manon" was from the opera of the same name Manon (Lescaut) ; Manon was also a nickname given by guests of the Phénix Paule Mony.
  20. ^ Paul Hurseau / Jacques Verhaeghe: Les immortels du football nordiste. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2003, ISBN 2-84253-867-6 , only mention Mony in the tabular list of national players (pp. 179/180), but do not devote any biographical article to him.