The ticketing for the next 2007 Rugby World Cup in France is open !

All the details here.

Not all the tickets are available (1st round and 1/4 finals only) for sale but you can buy "packs" (expensive of course...):

"City packs" : to see several matches in one of the 12 cities (including Edinburgh and Cardiff).

"Team packs" : to follow your favorite teams during the first round.

Click there !

I have bought some ! so that my boy (he will be 8 in 2007) has the opportunity to see the first French team winning the World Cup... Our first match on Sept.21st 2007 (!), Stade de France : France vs Ireland...

And here is the official site of the RWC.

You know what ? I joined the eBay community three years ago for one main reason : finding this book ! done !

This book was written in 1906 (mine is not the original edition, as it is a 1907 reprint… ) by two famous ruggers and is known to be the very first book about Football Rugby ever published in France. The book explains how to play the game, give some elements of tactics and some recommendations to the players.

As a proud supporter of Stade Francais, I am happy to introduce the authors E. Saint-Chaffray, who was captain of the team for its first “Champion de France” title in 1893, and Louis Dedet, a passionate pioneer who did a lot to promote the rugby game in France.

Actually, I am wondering why Louis Dedet is not publicly recognized as one of the "“godfathers”" of Rugby in France (such as Frantz Reichel for instance…). IMHO, some stadiums or schools should be named after him… Maybe one of these days I will write a book about those days of Rugby in Paris, and Louis Dedet would be one of the main characters…

Maybe some of you, dear readers, used to play in amateur teams, where things only happen thanks to the dedication, the efforts and the personal involvement of a few key people… Louis Dedet was one of these guys in the newly created Stade Francais at the end of the XIXth century…

On the pitch, he was one of the key forwards of the Stade Francais in its early days : championship final lost to Reichel'’s Racing Club de France in 1892, championship won in 1893 under the command of Saint-Chaffray, then champion again –as captain - in 1894, 1895 and 1901. He was also commanding the first French team to record a victory against a British one,i.e. Rosslyn Park FC, in 1894… After his career as a player, Dedet became a reputable referee.

Off the pitch, he joined the nascent “Union des Societes Francaises de Sports Athletiques” (USFSA, created in 1887) which is the very first attempt to promote sporting activities in France, especially in schools, colleges and universities. USFSA organized the very first championships in various sports (track and field, cycling, rowing,… and Football Rugby of course )… All this traction resulting in the organization of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens (kind of exotic rehearsal...) then in Paris in 1900, as USFSA was chaired by… Baron Pierre de Coubertin ! At USFSA, Louis Dedet did a lot to promote Football Rugby in schools (he was a teacher) and to spread the rules and tactics (a direct import from the UK..)

Please read below to know a little bit more about Louis Dedet...

According to official records, Louis Dedet (see my post above) earned international cap number 3 in 1906 in the first Equipe de France ever which played against the “Originals” All Blacks returning home (USFSA – again ! organized the match on January 1st,1906). Funny enough, Dedet never played that match… as he was the referee (but surely deserved the cap)!

If you check that picture here, he is the gentleman standing in the middle of the second row. In his diary, All Blacks manager G.H.Dixon mentioned that “"the referee proved himself very capable and gave a capital interpretation of the rules - –moreover he was invariably with the game”…" the last sentence to be certainly read in connection with the fact that some days earlier, his team lost 0-3 to Wales in this famous match were the Blacks were denied a victorious try by a referee who was 40 yards away from the spot…

edited January 4th : here are the names of the players + the name of the one who is missing as there are only 14 guys on the picture...

Standing, from left to right :
C.Rutherford (line referee), A.H. Muhr (an American, SF...), H.Levée (RCF) , N.Cessieux (F.C.Lyon), P.Sagot (SF), L.Dedet (referee), A.Branlat (Stade Bordelais), M.Communeau (SF), J.Duffourcq (Stade Bordelais)

Sitting, from left to right :
P.Dedeyn (RCF), J.Pujol (S.O.E.Toulouse), A.Verges (SF), H.Amand (SF, captain), A.Lacassagne (Stade Bordelais), G.Jerome (SF), W.H.Crichton (a Britton, Havre A.C.)

The missing one is Gaston Lane (RCF)...

nota : SF and RCF respectively stand for Stade Francais and Racing Club de France

This picture was taken on the occasion of the first visit of an English team to France. Stade Francais, captained by Louis Dedet, lost 21 to nil against Rosslyn Park F.C.

Louis Dedet (see my post above) is the tall gentleman in dark blue shirt, sitting in the recond row, third from the right.

(credit to "La Fabuleuse Histoire du Rugby" by Henri Garcia for the picture.... it isn't mine, I am afraid...)

No rugby memorabilia today, just a fine aerial picture of the Singapore Cricket Club ... For those who have never been to Singapore, it is this nice colonial building in the lower part of the picture...

Well, today and tomorrow the International Olympic Committee is in Singapore to elect the city which will organize the 2012 Olympics. It seems to be a close race between Paris and London, and I sincerely hope that the Olympic Games will land in France... I would like to share that with my kids... (if it is London, maybe we'll cross the Channel but I won't be the same thing...).

All this fine people is gathered at the Raffles hotel, which is about 500 yards north to the Cricket Club, on the opposite side of this large pitch in central Singapore (called "the padang") that you can see on my picture...

I like this place so much... actually, I used to play rugby there !

I had been living in Singapore for almost a year a loooong time ago (15 years ago, indeed..). Quite a exiting country, say... and possibly one of my best experience as a (humble) rugby player to meet all those guys from England, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, etc... at the Singapore Cricket Club Men's Bar...

PS : as you probably all know, it's very likely that rugby will be back at the Olympics in 2008 or 2012 (most likely @ 7)... a long break since 1924 ...

Some time ago, I posted a not-so-serious picture of me wearing one this old nice rugby caps...

Here are the real guys wearing the same cap... they look much more formidable... don't they ?

I have googled a little after this team to find out that they have triggered one of the milestone event of rugby history... the schism between professional or amateur rugby that led to the opposition between XV and XIII at the end of 19th century...

The whole story is reported here on the RFU website, here is an abstract :

The 'Great Schism' - Professional or Amateur?

In 1893 the Committee of the Union began to hear reports that some players in the north of England were being paid for playing. This was contrary to the strict amateur code and efforts were made to collect hard evidence. The evidence arrived with a complaint by Cumberland County Union that a leading Yorkshire club had induced one of their players to leave for a monetary consideration. The Union set up an inquiry but was warned privately and through letters to the press that if the club was punished all the chief clubs in Lancashire and Yorkshire would secede from the Union - a serious threat because a large proportion of international players were drawn from these counties. The inquiry was held and the club concerned was suspended. There followed two large general meetings at which efforts were made by the northern clubs to carry a resolution that men should be paid for "broken time" - that is to say when playing football instead of working. The motion was defeated.

In August 1895 twenty two clubs seceded from the Rugby Football Union and formed the Northern Union (which in the 1920s became the "Rugby League").

In 1995 the International Board announced that the game would become "open" - that is, players could be paid for playing. So, exactly 100 years after the Northern Union had broken away, the ethos of the game had completely changed...

The question could be : why this ? .......

Another print from L'Illustration magazine (November 24, 1906): South Africa Sprinboks on tour in 1906, here defeating Cambridge.

One year after the All Blacks (See below my posts of March 9th), an other "colonial" team went touring Great Britain with an impressive success : 15 w / 1 d (against Scotland), 354 points "for" and 21 points "against"...

Following on the same topic, here is the very first "Equipe de France", on January 1st 1906, before their first international test match against the All Blacks (8-38 to NZ).

I am starting some research to identify them ! Ironically, the gentleman wearing impressive ear protections (front row) is a Briton ! William Hay Crichton, a rich wool trader from Le Havre, who did participate to the "import" of the rugby game to France. Some say he was selected (as full back) because the team needed an interpret...