Robert Guérin is hailed as the founder of FIFA, having hosted the meeting in May 1904 that brought football nations together in common cause. He then served as its President for two years and is rightly celebrated as a sporting pioneer.
   Yet there is an amazing mystery behind the man, as his true identity has been hidden for over a hundred years: Robert was his surname, not his first name, while Guérin was a suffix he adopted in adult life.
   I would like to introduce you to Maurice Robert. That was the real name of FIFA's first President.

When he was born in Reims in 1876, his full name was registered as Clément Auguste Maurice Robert. He was the son of Jean-Marie Robert, a cloth manufacturer and merchant, and his wife Louise.
   Little is known about the first two decades of his life but he must have learned English - a skill which was essential in years to come - as in 1898 Maurice Robert was accepted into the Society for the Propagation of Foreign Languages. By then he was working in commerce and living in Paris, in a narrow street in Montmartre that was to remain his home for the rest of his life.
   He joined Union Sportive Parisienne, a multi-sports club founded in 1896, but was not much of a player and became its secretary between 1900 and 1904. He was therefore mentioned regularly in the press as the club's contact for fixtures, which reveals that he was known as Maurice Robert until the end of 1900, then early in 1901 he changed his surname to Robert-Guérin.

Although his reason for change is not clear, the root of this addition can be found in his family tree: his grandfather Jean-Pierre Robert had married Reine-Antoinette Guérin, and the family firm of Robert-Guérin had exhibited its merino fabrics at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
   Maurice Robert-Guérin became more involved in sport and joined the USFSA, a national governing body for many sports, where he was in turn its treasurer and secretary, working from its base at 229 rue Saint Honoré in Paris. His first love at the time was football, refereeing several high profile matches, but he was also involved in a range of activities which no doubt helped him to make his way as a sports journalist.
   The story of the founding of FIFA is well known and Robert-Guérin recalled the spirit of the times for FIFA's 25th anniversary: 'It was not difficult to foresee in 1903 that football was going to become more popular all over the world. I decided to found the International Federation of Association Football, with the collaboration of very good friends.
   'I was rather surprised that the initiative was not taken up by England, where football was triumphing. I though that, by rights, the chairmanship belonged to the Football Association of England.'
   He went to London to meet Frederick Wall, the FA secretary, who listened but merely replied that he would refer the matter to the FA board. Robert-Guérin waited patiently for months but heard nothing, so he asked again and was invited back to London where, this time, he met Lord Kinnaird who was friendly but non-committal. 'It was like cutting water with a knife,' he recalled.
   Faced with English prevarication, 28-year-old Robert-Guérin felt he had no option but go ahead without them, and called the meeting at which FIFA was established on 21 May 1904. Reluctantly he accepted the role of President, which was not a role he cherished but he remained at the helm of the fledgling organisation for two years until Englishman Daniel Woolfall was persuaded to take over in 1906.

Meanwhile, as president of the association football section of the USFSA, he was effectively the manager of the France national team for its first 12 matches, from their 1904 debut against Belgium up to the disastrous 1908 Olympic Games in London.
​   His time included defeats of 15-0 and 12-0 to England amateurs, and ultimately the humiliating 17-1 crushing by Denmark at the Olympics.

In 1907 he married, and as his formal name had never been changed he signed the document as Maurice Robert. His wife was an Englishwoman called Edith Harris, who already had a two-year-old daughter called Rosetta. The marriage certificate specifically includes Rosetta so that she was legitimised and took the surname Robert. It is not clear whether Maurice was the father.
   For the rest of his professional life, he was known as Robert Guérin, with the ambiguity of Robert being a first name or part of a double-barrelled surname. I cannot find any instance of him using Maurice as a journalist, and he appears always to have described himself simply as Robert-Guérin, sometimes with a hyphen, sometimes not.
   In his private life, however, his surname remained simply Robert. After Edith died in 1926 he remarried the following year to Andrée Brunel and again he signed the certificate as Maurice Robert.
   Having given up sports administration in 1908, he worked for most of his life as sports editor of Le Matin, and although he continued to report on football he developed a passion and expertise in aviation, writing for several specialist magazines. He was highly respected in his field, and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1922, then promoted to Officer in 1934.

Despite his prestigious reputation, Robert-Guérin appears to have kept a fairly low public profile. I was amazed when researching this article that only one photo of him appears to be available, and he left little in the way of personal reminiscences. 
   After Le Matin folded in 1944 (with its reputation sullied for taking a pro-German stance during the occupation) he was left impoverished, and that led to the only time he is known to have used another version of his name. A few years ago some of his personal letters came up at auction and they were apparently signed Clément Robert-Guérin. Written in the late 1940s, they revealed he was in difficult financial circumstances and losing his sight.

​Clément Auguste Maurice Robert, also Robert-Guérin

Born 28 April 1876 at 16 boulevard du Temple, Reims.

Married (1) 11 July 1907 to Edith Emma Harris.
Married (2) 27 January 1927 to Andrée Brunel
​
Died 14 February 1952 at 17 rue Germain Pilon, Montmartre, Paris.

Sixty years ago today the French author Albert Camus was killed in a car crash, aged 46. He had won the Nobel Prize for Literature and will always be considered an intellectual giant, but in a sporting context he is remembered best for his quote on football: 'Everything I know most surely about morality and duty, I owe to football'.
   The philosophical quote came at the end of an article he had written, and which really only came to widespread notice on its second publication. As a youth, he had been an enthusiastic and talented goalkeeper in his native Algeria with a junior team of RUA (Racing Universitaire d'Alger). He was forced to give up the game aged 17 when he contracted tuberculosis, but remained a great fan of the sport throughout his life. When he moved to Paris he supported Racing Club de Paris, purely because they played in blue and white hoops, the same strip as his old club.
   His strong affection for RUA was such that he wrote a lengthy article for the club magazine in April 1953. Then, when he won the Nobel Prize, the weekly magazine France Football asked him to contribute a piece but he was short of time so he simply submitted the old article: you can read it here. It was so impressive that it took over the whole of the back page of the issue of 17 December 1957, which had a picture of Alfredo di Stefano on the cover to mark his selection as European Footballer on the Year. This edition of France Football is now a real collector's item.

A couple of years later, Camus reinforced his point in an interview: 'What little I know about morality, I learned it on football pitches and theatre stages - these were my true universities.'
   Football intellectuals are ten-a-penny these days, but in the 1950s Albert Camus was a trailblazer for the 'socceratis' to follow, and for that he deserves enormous respect.

I have long had an interest in French football - see my posts on Victor Gibson and White Rovers, for example. And this is another example of a little-known tale, the first ever football match between English and French clubs.
   It took place in Southampton on 19 February 1873, between Portswood Park and Le Havre. Thanks to detailed reports in the Hampshire Advertiser, which have recently become available thanks to the British Newspaper Archive, I have been able to piece together the story.
   Portswood Park was originally a cricket club with a home at Abbot's Park, now better known as North Stoneham Park. The club was formed in 1867 as a successor to the Olympic Cricket and Athletic Club, and its members had played football in the winter months from about 1870. In those fledgling days of the sport, there was still much confusion about rules, and they played a kind of hybrid football that was neither association nor rugby.
   As the newspaper makes clear, this particular match came about thanks to George Harper, a local ship owner, who originally proposed a cricket match with his contacts in Le Havre. The reply came back from Rev George Washington that they would rather play football, and the clubs agreed to play the game.
   It was quite a venture for the visitors, who travelled by steamer on the Tuesday from Le Havre to Southampton, and booked into the South-Western Hotel. There, they agreed the arrangements of the game with their hosts, including the rules and the number of players.
   On Wednesday afternoon the match drew a crowd of 3-400 spectators, including 'many ladies', to the Antelope Ground in Southampton. This was the home of Hampshire County Cricket Club and later the home ground of Southampton FC until 1897.

The teams had 12 players on each side, and everything went fine with the arrangements until Le Havre kicked off: 'in a few minutes it was evident to all that their opponents were too powerful and heavy for them, and also that they did not understand the rules on this side of the water, especially the carrying of the ball'. It was one-way traffic throughout, and the final score was emphatic, with the match report declaring that Portswood Park had won by a goal, eleven touchdowns and eleven rouges to a single rouge for Le Havre. This contradicted the reporter's own description of play, which credited two goals to Lungley. Regardless, it was clearly not much of a contest.
   At this distance in time it is hard to work out what rules the teams were playing to, or the origins and influences which led to this form of football. Even the scoring system requires some scrutiny as the reporter appears to have confused touchdowns and rouges. A touchdown, as in rugby, gave the opportunity to kick for goal over the posts and historically this is similar to the rouge, a term from the Eton field game and also used in Sheffield football. 
   The teams enjoyed a marvellous dinner that evening at the Philharmonic Rooms and the visitors were entertained by numerous speeches and toasts. The visitors then returned to the docks at midnight for the return journey to France. Despite every best intention of arranging a return match in the coming months, it never happened and the game remained a one-off.
   Portswood Park had only a short life as a club thereafter and appears to have stopped playing cricket in 1874. Le Havre, on the other hand, went from strength to strength and Havre Athletic Club became a successful multi-sport club including teams playing both association and rugby football.
   Given the nature of the football they played in 1873, this match is difficult to categorise and it will not find a place in the histories of rugby or association football. Yet it was 'football' of a sort, and indicates that innovative sporting contacts were feasible outside the usual framework of established clubs and schools. 

Finally, I have looked into the background of the players taking part.
   The Portswood Park team is easier to identify, as they were mainly middle class professionals at the start of their careers as solicitors, clerks and shipping agents.  Most of them also played cricket and took part in local athletics meetings.
   Team captain was Peter Vosper Buchanan, a clerk who later emigrated to New Zealand. The others were: Caleb Joshua Wood, a clerk; brothers Charles Roberts Welsh, still at school, and Frank James Tizard Welsh, a brewer; Sidney Gater Warner, trainee solicitor; Arthur George Payne, son of Southampton's mayor; Lucius Melville O'Brien, trainee solicitor; James Lungley, son of a local shipowner; Bernard Harfield, a clerk; Frank Henly Elliott, slate merchant; Dunbar Wilson Johnston Duncan, who later played cricket for Hampshire; and the goalkeeper identified only by his surname Cecil, possibly one of the brothers Aubrey or Egerton Cecil, who also played cricket for Hampshire.
   Others mentioned include the club president, Councillor John Neat Pocock, and vice-president George Thomas Harper. Tickets were sold at the High Street shop of Thomas Dartnall, who also provided the catering.
   As for Havre Football Club, the most prominent player was Reverend George Washington (1835-1906), resident minister in Le Havre, who had been educated at Winchester College and Cambridge University, hence he probably had a good football background. The only other player I can identify with certainty is Charles Edward Gabain, the club treasurer and a wealthy coffee importer.
   The remaining Havre players were Bateson, Roberts, Moir, Mitchell, Barlow, Bruin, Bordier, Harding, Stephenson and Furneaux. From the names, most of them were British but they do seem to include two or three Frenchmen.

I've written before about the British football coach Victor Gibson, who was highly influential and successful in France in the 1920s, leading Olympique de Marseille to two French Cup victories. 
   However, his identity and origins have proved frustratingly elusive - until now. I have established that he used a false first name throughout his football career, and can finally fill in the gaps in his life story. I can also confirm that he was not Scottish, having been born and brought up in Woolwich.

As Victor Gibson himself does not appear in any UK records or censuses, it suggested that his real name was something different. But what? Along with other researchers I tried all sorts of alternatives without success. But then I focussed on an Arthur Henry Gibson, born in Woolwich in 1888. Finally, the pieces fitted together.
   ​There had been an important clue to Gibson's identity in the French press after he left the country in the mid 1930s. He was reported to be working back in England a 'jardinier', ie a gardener or groundsman. This tallied with the cutting below, which described how Gibson had gone from Woolwich to Barcelona as a professional footballer in 1911 - the exact year that 'Victor' Gibson had gone there on tour with Plumstead, and stayed on to play for Espanyol. And what is more, he is now working as a groundsman.

There are still some gaps in the Victor Gibson story, not least why he never used his own name for football. Reports in the Kent newspapers of his football and cricket matches from 1908-1911, starting long before his marriage, described him variously as 'SS Gibson', 'SS Rayne Gibson', 'V Gibson' and 'V Raine Gibson'.
   Also, neither he nor his first wife have yet been found in the 1911 census, although it seems clear that they should have been in Woolwich at the time. The census was taken just a few weeks before Plumstead FC, an amateur select, embarked on their tour to France and Spain. Gibson, along with team-mates Frank Allack and William Hodge, remained in Barcelona after the tour and all of them played for Espanyol. A year later, Gibson was persuaded to join Olympique Cettois in France, the club which later became FC Sète. There is a persistent story that Sète play in green and white hoops because Gibson was a Celtic supporter, but that can clearly be discounted.
   He was with the club for 12 years and took them to two French Cup finals (both lost), in 1923 and 1924, playing in the latter. Then he had five successful years coaching Marseille (cup victories in 1926 and 1927), a similar time with newly-formed Sochaux Montbéliard, and concluded in 1935 after a farewell year with Hispanola-Bastidienne in Bordeaux.
​   The man from Woolwich was a key figure in the history of FC Sète, Olympique de Marseille and Sochaux, among others, and deserves a place in the French football hall of fame now that the mystery of 'Victor' Gibson has been solved.
​

A couple of years ago I wrote about William Sleator, an Englishman who is regarded as one of the fathers of French football. In 1891 he founded White Rovers FC, the first club in Paris, and imported the first set of goalposts to France.
   When I wrote that article, I appealed for further information and was therefore delighted to be contacted by his grandson, Christopher Robbie. We met up and exchanged information - he was unaware of many of Sleator's exploits - and he found his grandfather's priceless gold medal, pictured here. He also provided a snapshot of the man himself. 

The gold medal is the top honour of the French Football Federation, presented to those who have made a major contribution to football in the country. In general it is awarded to long-serving officials, who have already accumulated the silver and gilt category awards, so it was really something special for Sleator to be recognised in this way. The presentation was made 1949, half a century after he gave up playing the game, and showed that his pioneering role in French football had not been forgotten.

Christopher Robbie shared fond recollections of his grandfather, who died in 1955. The story was made all the more interesting as Robbie himself has a fascinating life story as a TV announcer and actor - there are plenty of clips online - and I am sure I saw him in action as a cyber leader on Dr Who in the 1970s (Revenge of the Cybermen). It just goes to show that sport history can lead in all sorts of interesting directions!

There is a curious anomaly in the creation of FIFA in 1904. Seven countries are listed as founding members: France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland. Yet Germany, which agreed to join and sent a message of support, is not.
   It has long puzzled me why Germany are not also considered as founders. It is even more confusing as Sweden and Spain are included in the list, although they did not attend the opening meetings either. What is more, Spain did not have a national association until the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) was founded in 1909.
   A detailed examination of the circumstances suggests there may be scope to challenge FIFA's assertion that it was established by just those seven nations, and that Germany should also be recognised.
   In May 1904, a number of football federations were invited to Paris by French football administrator Maurice Robert-Guérin, who drafted a cooperation agreement (described as a treaty), and the original articles of the FIFA Statutes. These were ratified in the course of the historic three-day Congress which was attended by just eight men, from whom the first FIFA committee was chosen.
   The French governing body of sport, the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA), hosted the meeting at their offices at 229 rue St Honoré in central Paris. Somewhat surprisingly, despite FIFA's prominence in world sport, there is no plaque or indication that such an important event took place there; there are shops at street level, with offices and apartments above. At the entrance to the courtyard there is a Paris History info panel, but it only commemorates a medieval convent which stood on the site.

The opening session of the FIFA Congress on 21 May 1904 was chaired by Alphonse Fringnet, the 60-year-old vice-president of USFSA but he took little further part in the deliberations. More importantly the event was a personal triumph for Robert-Guérin, the chair of the USFSA's football section, who had been the driving force in creating the international body and bringing together the fledgling football nations. By the end of the Congress he was elected its first president, aged just 28.
   Sitting alongside Robert-Guérin was André Espir, secretary of the USFSA, who took the minutes. There were two representatives of the Belgian sports body, the Union Belge des Sociétés de Sports (UBSSA), Louis Muhlinghaus and Max Kahn. Also in attendance were Ludvig Sylow of the Dansk Boldspil Union (DBU), Cornelis 'Carl' A W Hirschman of the Nederlandsche Voetbal Bond (NVB) and Victor E Schneider of the Association Suisse de Football (ASF). They were all relatively young men, four of them in their twenties.
   By prior agreement, Sylow represented by proxy the interests of Sweden’s Svenska Bollspells Förbundet (SBF) while Espir performed the same function for the Madrid Football Club (now Real Madrid), who had sent a letter of apology from Spain.
   However, there was no German representation, despite Germany being invited as one of the strongest European football nations. The Congress had been arranged at fairly short notice, and this is where fate conspired against the Deutscher Fussball Bund (DFB) as it coincided with their own annual congress and elections, held in Kassel. Nonetheless, they wanted to send a delegate to Paris and nominated Dr Gustav Manning, who had been a founding member of the DFB in 1900 although he was no longer on its board.
   Manning was unable to travel - there is a suggestion that he missed a ferry connection, perhaps from England - and DFB president Dr Ernst Karding sent a telegram in time for the opening FIFA meeting to say that Manning would be replaced by Philipp Heineken. However, he too failed to make it to Paris, for reasons unknown.
   When Dr Karding realised that there would be no German delegate present, on Monday he sent a further telegram which confirmed the DFB's support and its agreement in principle to the statutes, a decision that had just been made in Kassel. The minutes stated 'Germany subscribes to the Congress' [French original: 'L'Allemagne adhère au Congrès']. Yet despite this, Germany has never been recognised as a founder of FIFA.
   On the other hand, Madrid Football Club's letter requesting a proxy somehow carried more weight than a national federation sending a clear message of intent, and Spain has always been credited as a founder.
   Now, over a century later, there is a case for FIFA retrospectively acknowledging Germany's role in its creation. Of course, the question has to be asked: does it matter? I believe it does, as it is important to celebrate our sporting heritage and give due recognition to football's pioneers.

Click here to read a full transcript of the minutes, translated into English.

The missing delegates

What of the two German delegates who failed to reach Paris? They both have fascinating stories, in particular Dr Manning. By an extraordinary twist of fate, he did make it onto the FIFA executive committee – over 40 years later, and for a different country!

Manning was born in the London suburb of Lewisham to German parents in 1873 as Gustav Rudolph Leo Mannheimer, and when his father applied for British citizenship in 1876 the family name was anglicised to Manning. In the 1880s they moved back to Germany, where his enthusiasm for football made him one of the founders of FC Freiburg, and he was also the first secretary of the DFB in 1900. Meanwhile, he had qualified as a doctor in 1898 and worked at a clinic in Strasbourg (which was, at that time, in Germany).
   In 1905, a year after he should have attended the first FIFA congress, he emigrated to the USA and anglicised his name even further as Dr G (or Gus) Randolph Manning. He continued to be heavily involved in soccer and in 1913 he was the driving force behind the foundation of the United States Football Association and was elected its first president. He also developed his medical career and was an eminent gastroenterologist in New York, while serving in the US Army reserves.
   His commitment to football remained constant and in 1948, a mere 44 years after he should have attended that meeting in Paris, he was the first American to be elected to the FIFA Executive Committee. He attended the 1950 FIFA Congress, and died in 1953. Manning is buried in Arlington Cemetery and has been inducted into the US Soccer Hall of Fame.
   Philipp Heineken (no connection with the beer industry) also led a wandering life. He was born in 1873 in New York, where his father was a jewellery maker. The family returned to Germany after his father died and he became a football enthusiast in Bad Cannstatt, a suburb of Stuttgart, initially playing rugby. He helped the spread of football by translating the rules of the different codes from English into German, launched a football magazine and published one of the first German football yearbooks. As a student he was one of the founders of FV Stuttgart (which later merged with Cannstatt to form VfB Stuttgart). He was a vice-president of the DFB and sat on the German Olympic Committee, frequently travelling abroad.
   Then in 1910 he walked out on his wife and daughter and headed back to New York, working as an electrical engineer, living on his own. But after the Second World War he suddenly turned up at his daughter’s door and they were reconciled. He remained in Stuttgart and died there in 1959.
 
FIFA's seven founding fathers

Maurice Robert-Guérin (1876-1952) 
André D Espir (1879-c1950) 
Louis Muhlinghaus (1870-1915)
Max Kahn (1871-1959)
Ludvig Sylow (1861-1933)
Cornelis 'Carl' A W Hirschman (1877-1951)
Victor E Schneider (1876-1948).

As I am currently in Paris, working at Euro 2016, I took the opportunity to visit a fascinating exhibition in the French National Archives which examines the role of the state when it comes to major football events.
   Le Foot, une affaire d'État, is not in the easiest of locations to find, being staged in the northern suburb of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, right at the end of Metro line 13. However, the journey is worthwhile (although I had to make it twice, as the first time the building was closed due to industrial action).
   As you might expect, there is a strong focus on the major tournaments hosted by France, including the World Cups of 1938 and 1998, and the Euros of 1984 and this summer. It is not just a celebration of the football - albeit there is a constant film loop of France's triumph in the 1998 final - but an opportunity to show how the bidding process and the staging of the tournament involved the French government.  Among the rare souvenirs are posters and tickets from 1938.

   There are also some surprising elements to the treatment of these tournaments, not least a display devoted to the fight against hooligans at the 1998 tournament, which includes copies of faxes sent by the National Criminal Intelligence Unit with pictures of suspected English thugs. Their personal details have been obscured, but the instruction to 'shred when no longer required' has clearly been ignored.

   Several displays are devoted to the construction and management of the great stadia in Paris, all of which are still in use, starting with the Stade de Colombes, moving on to the Parc des Princes, and now the Stade de France.
   It is not just a dry account of state finance and construction, however. There are touching personal accounts of the struggle for acceptance by footballing immigrants to France - a story which continues to have echoes today -  such as the impact of Algerian independence. 
   Football in wartime also throws up some little known tales, not least an incident which was new to me: in the autumn of 1939, after war broke out, Frenchman and FIFA president Jules Rimet attended a FIFA meeting in Switzerland at which two Germans were present. On his return to France he was arrested for having contact with the enemy, and the notes of his interrogation reveal that he was in tears at the accusation and offered to resign. In the end, the affair was resolved and he remained in post, but it does shed light on the tensions at the time.
   It is not a comprehensive history of French football - for example there is nothing on the game's origins in France, and little on club football - but I strongly recommend it.
   Le Foot, une affaire d'État runs until 18 September 2016 (with various closures in August), and admission is free. There is also an accompanying book, price 10 euros.
   Follow this link for further details: http://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/fr/web/guest/le-foot-une-affaire-d-etat

​Some time ago I bought this old French football medal, presented to the players of White Rovers FC in 1897. Having researched its background, there is a fascinating story about the impact of the club and its founders, all of which is particularly relevant in the build-up to this summer’s UEFA European Championship.

 
In 1891, the first football club in France had a problem: customs officials were suspicious that their newly imported corner flags carried the emblem of some political party.
   An Englishman called William Sleator went to see the Prefet de Police to sort it out, and had to start by describing this new-fangled game of football. The policeman was mystified, asking why they couldn’t just play the game indoors. But Sleator not only charmed the official into releasing the flags, he even talked him out of charging customs duty on the goalposts which had been brought over from England.
   Sleator came to be considered the ‘father of French football’ and for many years football veterans would raise a glass and toast his memory. He was even presented with the French Football Federation’s gold medal for services to the game, but his legacy and the adventures of his fellow pioneers are now largely forgotten.
   Although British sailors had introduced football to France at ports like Le Havre in the 1870s, and there was a failed attempt to set up a Paris club in 1889, the genesis of the modern game can be pinpointed to 30 October 1891.
   On that day, at the Café Francais on rue Pasquier, a football club was founded by a group of young English and Scottish sportsmen. They voted narrowly to play association rather than rugby rules, agreed to call the club White Rovers and elected Sleator as treasurer.
   Having successfully sourced essential playing gear like those flags and goalposts, the team’s first match, against a YMCA eleven, was very low key, as Sleator later related: ‘We had ten spectators, most of them boys. One of the boys told his father he had seen English lads, in uniforms, kicking a huge ball about, knocking it with their heads, and charging each other to get at it. The boy’s father said the English were mad enough for anything.’
   White Rovers worked hard to establish the game in France and were one of six clubs in France's first-ever football championship in 1894. Sadly they were never crowned champions and after losing the inaugural final to Standard AC in a replay, they also finished runners-up for the next three seasons. The championship, somewhat incongruously, was backed by the New York Herald, whose European edition was based in Paris, and whose proprietor James Gordon Bennett donated a magnificent silver trophy.
   Playing in white shirts with a large blue Maltese cross, White Rovers were based in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie, near the railway station at Bécon-les-Bruyères, where they were granted the use of a ground by the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer de l’Est.
   This was thanks to a director of the railway company called Henry Blount, son of the British Consul and a well-known socialite, who became the club’s patron. In 1897, Blount felt so proud of the players as once again they fell at the final hurdle that he presented them with silver medals to commemorate their efforts.
   White Rovers lasted just eight years, but in that time they were hugely influential, inspiring French players to form their own clubs, the first being Club Français in 1892, which was founded by Charles Bernat and Eugene Fraysse who had learned the game while at school in the UK.

Rovers also introduced an international element, and in 1893 they invited Marylebone, an amateur team from London, to play the first ‘international’ match in France. Paris soon became a popular Easter tour destination for English clubs, and Rovers also travelled to Belgium. Then in 1898 the German football pioneer Walther Bensemann brought his All Germany team to Paris, and photos exist of their crushing 7-0 win over White Rovers.
   Not long after that, as some of the original players drifted back to the UK, the club foundered and it did not survive to the end of the century. However, its legacy remains.
   Today, although few French fans know the debt they owe to the pioneer players, the vibrant football culture in France can trace its roots right back to the heady days of William Sleator and his White Rovers.
 
Who were the White Rovers pioneers?
 
William Henry Sleator was born in Worcester in 1871 and grew up in the town’s Lansdowne Inn, run by his parents, but his father died before his second birthday. Although his mother remarried to the man who took over as landlord, that man also died ten years later, leaving her in sole charge of the tenancy.
   Despite these upheavals, William and his elder brother Alec were well educated at Worcester Middle School and Barbourne College, where they enjoyed sport and as well as playing football, both were active members of Worcester Rowing Club.

​Around 1890 William headed to Paris to go into business as a tailor, and he was soon joined in the city by Alec, who also played for White Rovers, and their mother. Around the turn of the century William established Sleator & Carter, high class English tailors and gentlemen’s outfitters, and would remain in business in Paris until the second world war, based in the Avenue de l’Opéra then the Rue des Pyramides. William lived in the city until shortly before his death in England in 1955.
   Alongside Sleator at the club’s foundation in 1891 was Walter Herbert Hewson (1868-1945), appointed secretary. He was born in Surrey and set up in business in Paris as a clothing outfitter.
   One of the most prominent players was Jack Wood (John Bertram Wood, 1872-1921) from north London, who went on to play for Standard AC and Club Français, then became a referee and officiated at the 1900 Olympic football tournament; his brother Tom also played for White Rovers.
   Edward Barclay (1872-1932) was a Scottish lawyer who attended Westminster School before taking a law degree at the University of Paris. He spent the rest of his life in Paris, where he was President of the British Chamber of Commerce.
   Robert James MacQueen (1871-1921) was a tailor like Sleator, but left Paris for Chile with his French wife, returning to England shortly before his death.
   Claude Farnworth Rivaz (1872-1958), a British artist who was educated at Westminster and spent three years studying in Belgium, where he played for Royal Antwerp, before coming to Paris around 1894 and joining White Rovers.
   These are just some of the early White Rovers players, but many others are recorded only by their surname in reports and are difficult to identify. I would welcome any further information and in particular a photo of William Sleator.

Sadly, there will be no Scots in France at next summer's European Championships. So I've been taking a look back at an era when Scottish football played a key role at the very top of the French game: the 1920s.
   And in particular the 1924 French Cup Final, when both sides may have been led by Scottish coaches.  I say 'may have been' as there is an air of mystery about one of them, but what is in no doubt is that Olympique de Marseille won the cup for the first time under the charge of a Scotsman, Peter Farmer. His team won 3-2 after extra time against FC Sete, who were captained and trained by Victor Gibson.
   Peter Farmer is often referred to as 'anglais' in the French reference books, but while there are some gaps to be filled in his career, he was definitely a Scot; in fact he was born in the football hotbed of Renton on 26 October 1886.
   Little is known of his early life or how he embarked on a life in foreign football. I have seen references to him playing for clubs in Scotland but no facts to back that up. Similarly, there are sources that say he coached in Vienna, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and Berlin, but there is scant contemporary evidence.
   However, I did find a mention of him holding a diploma in medical massage from Glasgow's Western Infirmary, and this would have been as much an essential qualification as his coaching skills.
   Peter Farmer was appointed to train Olympique de Marseille in 1923, and soon took the club to its first major triumph, the French Cup on 13 April 1924.

   And what of Victor Gibson, the opposing coach in 1924? He is a man who had an enormous impact on French football over two decades, yet who remains a complete enigma outside of his time there. He is described as Scottish in many sources, even as playing for Falkirk and Morton, but I have not been able to confirm anything about his origins, despite extensive research.
   The earliest mentions of Gibson come in 1911 when he was with a touring team of amateurs from Plumstead, Kent, who played a couple of games in Barcelona against CD Espanyol.
   Apparently then aged 22, Gibson (and a couple of his colleagues) liked it so much there that he stayed and was appointed captain of the team. He even made the front cover of the sports magazine 'Stadium'. There are potential clues to his identity as he is sometimes described as 'V. Raine Gibson' but unfortunately this has not led to any breakthroughs.

After a year in Spain, Gibson was persuaded to head for Sete (or Cette as it was then known) and he would spend the next 12 years there as captain and coach. He was already described as a veteran in the early 1920s but continued to play and score goals throughout the decade. Sete reached the French Cup finals of 1923 and 1924, losing both, with Gibson only playing in the latter match.
   He then succeeded Peter Farmer as Marseille coach and in five years he led them to two more French Cup successes, in 1926 and 1927. 
   Regarded as one of the top coaches in the country (in fact known as 'Papey' which translates as 'Daddy') he was poached by the Peugeot family in 1929 to manage their new club in Sochaux. Their free spending led to the game in France finally turning professional, but his five years there were not a great success and he left in 1934 (they won the league the following season!). He was still playing in 1930, although not as a first team regular.
   Gibson's coaching powers were probably fading and his last appointment was for the 1934/35 season at an amateur club in Bordeaux, called FC Hispanola-Bastidienne. 
   There is one delightful anecdote of him watching a Marseille match and each time his side scored he took a bottle out of his pocket and had a swig; his colleague asked what was in it and the answer was 'water and tea'. It was only when he stood up at the end of the game that it became apparent the (now empty) bottle had contained whisky.
   Although Victor Gibson is often now described as Scottish, contemporary reports are inconclusive and he disappears from view after 1935 - there are no newspaper reports, no comments, no death notices. It seems nobody knows what happened to him.
   The only potential clue is that in 1934 he was interviewed about the chances of the France team in the forthcoming World Cup, and the reporter noted that Gibson had recently become a father, with a charming young daughter. So perhaps, somewhere, there is a family who have proud memories of their football pioneer grandfather.

Update (January 2019): The true identity of Victor Gibson is discovered!

Victor Gibson and Peter Farmer belonged to a generation of British coaches who were successful in France but were virtually unknown in their own country. It would be wonderful to find out their full stories, so please get in touch if you have any additional information.
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