RC Roubaix
The Racing Club Roubaix, or RCR for short, was a traditional French football club from Roubaix , a town in the northern department , right on the border with Belgium . The French cities of Roubaix, Tourcoing , Lille , Wasquehal and others together with the Belgian cities of Courtrai / Kortrijk and Mouscron / Moeskroen form a cohesive built agglomeration , similar to the Ruhr area.
The RCR was founded in 1895 ; The club kept this name until its dissolution as a result of a merger ( 1945 - see below "The end of the RCR" ) and took it back when it was briefly re-established (1963-1964).
The club colors of the Racing Club Roubaix were light blue and black; the league team played in the interior of the cycling track in the Parc des Sports , which cycling fans know as the destination of the one-day classic Paris-Roubaix .
history
Before the First World War: France's most successful club
After its founding, Roubaix joined the only football association until then , the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA), which from 1898 carried out a national championship competition called Championnat de France . The footballers from the textile and coal district dominated this competition until 1910, despite tough competition in their own region, on the English Channel and in Paris in an impressive way: in 1898 it was "only" enough for the runner-up in northern France (behind the Iris Club Lillois ), but in the ten years from 1900 to 1909, the RC Roubaix was nine times champion of the Northern League, reached the final of the Championnat de France seven times and won this title five times (1902-1904, 1906 and 1908). This achievement is not devalued by the fact that from 1905 there were competing associations that played their own championship - the USFSA remained the association with the largest number of members, as did most of the other traditional clubs in France (e.g. Standard AC , Racing Club de France and Club Français from Paris, to which Le Havre AC , FC Sète , Stade Helvétique Marseille , Olympique Lille and US Tourcoing belonged.
Between the wars: Cup fright
After the founding of the uniform football association FFF (1919) and the introduction of a nationwide, professional league operation (1932), the RC was never able to build on the "golden era": it was not until 1936 that it was promoted to the 1st division and only stayed there for three years. This was partly due to the fact that the Excelsior AC Roubaix was a new competitor in the same city, which played consistently first class from 1932 until the 1940s. In the cup, however, Racing triumphed repeatedly: in 1923 it reached the quarter-finals of the Coupe de France for the first time , and a few years later the second division made it to the cup final twice, which the opponents then won both times: AS Cannes in 1932 , local rivals in 1933 Excelsior AC. It is said that "half of Roubaix" went to Paris back then ... In 1934, the RC, trained by Ferenc Plattkó , reached the semi-finals again, but failed there at Olympique Marseille .
The end of the RCR: the foundation of the large association CORT
Immediately after the liberation and under the difficult conditions of the necessary reconstruction (Roubaix was in the part of France occupied by Germany during the Second World War ), the leaders of several clubs from the twin cities of Roubaix-Tourcoing decided to pool their footballing forces: the RC Roubaix merged in 1945 his old rival Excelsior AC Roubaix , the US Tourcoing (which had also been USFSA national champion in 1910) and the US Roubaix to Club Olympique Roubaix-Tourcoing ( CORT for short ); 1970 this union was dissolved again.
The Racing Club was re-established under its historical name in 1963; In 1964, however, it finally disappeared from the football map when the RC merged with Stade Roubaisien and called itself Racing Stade Roubaisien . In 1990 this merger joined the also re-established local rival of the 1930s, the Excelsior AC Roubaix , and traded under the name SC Olympique de Roubaix . Today this "successor to the successor" of the RC Roubaix no longer exists.
League affiliation and achievements
After the introduction of professional football, the RC Roubaix played first class from 1936 to 1939 ( Division 1 , renamed Ligue 1 since 2002 ).
- French champions : nil, best placement was table rank 8 (1937/38)
- National champion of the USFSA Championnat de France : 1902, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1908
- French cup winner : Nothing (but finalist 1932 and 1933 )
French national team
The number of international matches for the club and the period of these international appearances are given in brackets
- Jules Cottenier (4, 1932-1934)
- Edmond Delfour (4, 1937–1938, including at the 1938 World Cup ) previously made 37 other international matches for two other clubs
- Jean Dubly (1, 1908)
- Raymond Dubly (31, 1913-1925, scored four goals)
- Émile Dusart (1, 1914)
- André François (6, 1906–1908, scored three goals)
- Michel Frutuoso (1, 1937)
- Gérard Isbecque (4, 1923-1924, scored one goal)
- Albert Jenicot (3, 1908)
- Edmond Leveugle (1, 1926, scored a goal)
- André Renaux (1, 1908, the unlucky goalkeeper in 0:12 against England)
- Charles Renaux (1, 1908)
- Émile Sartorius (5, 1906–1908, scored two goals)
- Marcel Vanco (1, 1923) previously seven more internationals for another club
- Maurice Vandendriessche (2, 1908)
- Georges Verriest (14, 1933-1936)
- Raymond Wattine (1, 1923)
literature
- Thierry Berthou / Collectif: Dictionnaire historique des clubs de football français. Pages de Foot, Créteil 1999 - Volume 1 (A-Mo) ISBN 2-913146-01-5 , Volume 2 (Mu-W) ISBN 2-913146-02-3