René Bihel

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René Bihel (born September 2, 1916 in Montivilliers , † September 8, 1997 in Blois ) was a French football player and coach .

Club career

The mostly acting as a center forward "Bibi" came from the youth of a suburban club from Le Havre , for which he also competed in the men's eleven , before he moved a few kilometers up in 1934 to the amateur club US Quevilly . Two years later he signed his first professional contract with the second division US Valenciennes . When war broke out , Bihel left northern France and played, as far as possible as a soldier, for Le Havre AC in the northern group of the top division . In 1942/43 he wore the outfit of the Liller suburban club SC Fives , where he took third place in the final table of Division 1 North together with François Bourbotte , Marceau Somerlinck , Joseph Jadrejak , Jean Prouff and his strike partner from Valenciennes, Boleslaw Tempowski reached. When in the following season in France regional selection teams had to compete in a uniform, national league instead of the club teams, he and several of his teammates were in the ranks of the Équipe Fédérale Lille-Flandres , who at the end of the season were runners-up behind their neighbors and biggest rivals of the ÉF Lens-Artois has been. This title in the "war championships" is now only considered unofficial, as is Bihel's second place in the top scorer list , to which his 38 goals had helped him.

The 1.76 m tall, muscular striker, also known as the "Norman bull" (taureau normand) , had a good shot, but also remarkable technical ability and the ability to create the necessary space in a tight space with a short turn . When club teams were allowed to play again in 1944/45, SC Fives merged with local rivals Olympique, and René Bihel, like many teammates, was part of the first team of Lille Olympique . The LOSC reached the cup final at the end of the season , which however was lost 3-0 to Racing Paris ; but Lilles center forward was together with his Reims counterpart Pierre Sinibaldi (30 goals each) the most successful attacker in this last war championship. He also became a national player (see below) . In the following year, this goal-hungry team, in which Jean Lechantre , Jean Baratte , Roger Vandooren , Jules Bigot and Jacques Grimonpon had joined the Bourbotte, Somerlinck and Tempowski , even managed the doublé : in Division 1 , Lille won the now official again Championship title and after a 4-2 final win over Red Star also the national cup. Bihel had “only” scored 28 goals in the league, but was again the most accurate striker; and in the cup final he had also been successful by shooting out the 2-0.

Nevertheless, he then moved back to his Norman homeland and Le Havre AC; In addition to football, he and his brother ran a bar tobacco shop in the port city. But when the club had to relegate to the second division in the summer of 1947, Bihel accepted an offer from southern France. At Olympique Marseille he immediately fulfilled the hope of becoming the new striker alongside the “pre-war greats” Mario Zatelli and Emmanuel Aznar : his 15 goals in the 1947/48 season contributed significantly to Olympique winning the championship, and also 1948/49 his 17 goals helped the team around captain Roger Scotti to a top placement (3rd place). In 1949 he was attracted by the neighboring second division Sporting Toulon , but "Bibi" returned to the more northerly climes and the top division during the winter break: with Racing Strasbourg in 1950 and 1951 he ended up only in the middle of the table, but at almost 35 years of age he was a third time in a final for the Coupe de France . The "lively veteran" himself played an active part in the fact that this enabled him to win a second cup by opening the scoring after 24 minutes and shooting his team onto the winning road (final score 3-0 against his first professional club US Valenciennes). And again he left his club after winning this title; it followed two years as a player-coach at the amateur club AAJ Blois . In 1953 he returned to Division 1 in the same position , where he - for the third time - played five point games at Le Havre AC as a 37-year-old, among others alongside a great talent named Michel Hidalgo .

Stations

  • Union Sportive des Trèfileries du Havre (1929–1936, until 1934 as a youth)
  • Union Sportive de Quevilly (1936–1938, as an amateur)
  • Union Sportive de Valenciennes-Anzin (1938/39)
  • Le Havre Athletic Club (1939-1942)
  • Sporting Club Fivois (1942/43)
  • Équipe fédérale Lille-Flandres (1943/44)
  • Lille Olympique SC (1944-1946)
  • Le Havre Athletic Club (1946/47)
  • Olympique de Marseille (1947-1949)
  • Sporting Club de Toulon (1949 – December 1949, in D2)
  • Racing Club de Strasbourg (January 1950–1951)
  • Association Amicale de la Jeunesse de Blois (1951–1953, as player-coach, below D2)
  • Le Havre Athletic Club (1953/54, as player-coach)

In the national team

From April 1945 (0: 1 in Switzerland ), Bihel stormed for the senior national team ; including a game against Austria (3-1 in May 1946). His only goal in this circle, scored in his last game (March 1947), was the goal of the day for the 1-0 victory over Portugal . The fact that the most successful French goalscorer of the immediate post-war period only made six appearances in the blue jersey was largely due to his year of birth and the fact that "an important part of his career was amputated by the world war".

But at least he was in the sporty important match of the Bleus those years on the lawn of Wembley Stadium when the French in a "friendly game of war allies" to "teacher" England brought on 26 May 1945, the brink of defeat - it would be England first been in front of their own audience against a team from the continent. The game ended 2-2, and so “Bibi” and his teammates had to leave this triumph to the Hungarians .

Palmarès

  • French champion: 1946, 1948 (and runner-up in 1944 [unofficially])
  • French cup winner: 1946, 1951 (and finalist 1945)
  • 6 international caps (1 goal) for France, 5 of them during his time at Lille and one at Le Havre
  • from 1945 at least 116 games and 82 goals in Division 1 , of which 25/28 for Lille, 5/12 for Le Havre, 53/32 for Marseille, 33/10 for Strasbourg; plus 68 goals in the two war seasons 1943–1945
  • Division 1 top scorer : 1946 (and 1945 [unofficial title])

Life after time as a player

In 1954 René Bihel returned to Blois, where he settled permanently and ran a café called Le Penalty . In addition, he coached the AAJ Blois for many years. A few days after his 81st birthday, Bihel died in 1997 in the city on the Loire .

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
  • 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 978-2-915-53562-4
  • Alain Pécheral: La grande histoire de l'OM. Des origines à nos jours. Ed. Prolongations, o. O. 2007 ISBN 978-2-916400-07-5

Remarks

  1. ^ According to Pécheral, p. 422, Bihel died on September 4th.
  2. ↑ All information on Bihel's placements in the goalscorer statistics from Guillet / Laforge, pp. 141–155.
  3. ↑ Hurseau / Verhaeghe, p. 19; Chaumier, p. 43
  4. ↑ A photo of Bihel and Sinibaldi can be found in Hurseau / Verhaeghe, p. 18.
  5. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, p. 362
  6. ↑ Hurseau / Verhaeghe, p. 19
  7. ↑ Pécheral, pp. 388f. and 422
  8. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, p. 367
  9. ↑ Chaumier, p. 43
  10. ↑ L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: La belle histoire. L'équipe de France de football. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2004 ISBN 2-951-96053-0 , p. 71
  11. ↑ 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., Guillet / Laforge, pp. 145–155, and http://www.racingstub.com/page.php?page=joueur&id=221
  12. ^ Alfred Wahl / Pierre Lanfranchi: Les footballeurs professionnels des années trente à nos jours. Hachette, Paris 1995 ISBN 978-2-0123-5098-4 , p. 154

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bihel, René
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Montivilliers
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 1997
Place of death Blois