LA COUPE DE FRANCE
1921 … first title
The heros of 1921, back : Marion, Hugues, Gamblin, Chayriguès, Bonnardel, Meyer.
Front : Bourdin, Brouzes, P. Nicolas, Naudin, Clavel.
Red Star have had a love affair with the Coupe de France; very few clubs have five wins written in their honours list, even if these go back a long way in time. Those old enough to remember the last win in 1942 will remember a win tainted by the era of a France still under the occupation of the Nazis.
Red Star are the first club to have remained unbeaten in the Coupe de France for three years, with wins in 1921, 1922 & 1923.
Here we look back at the first win in 1921. A final 100% Parisian featuring Red Star and the Olympique de Paris.
Several years later the two clubs were to merge. From this merger the new Red Star would adopt the green colours of Olympic.
At the outset of the Coupe de France, edition 1920-1921, 202 clubs started out on the cup trail.
On the way to reaching the final, on the 24th April 1921, Red Star had knocked out Lutetia SC, in the 1/32 final (6-0), at the Stade de Saint-Ouen. In the next round in Saint-Brieuc, Red Star won by the score of 3-1; next Lucien Gamblin and his teammates beat Belfort away 3-0. At the same time Saint-Ouens' other club, JA de Saint-Ouen lost 4-6 in Lyon against Cannes.
For the quarter finals Red Star were drawn against JA's victors, and earned revenge for the town by beating Cannes 4-0 in Marseille.
For the semi-finals, three out of the four teams were from Paris: Red Star, Racing, Olympique de Paris and the fourth clubs was US Tourquennoise.
Olympique de Paris were drawn to face the latter club, and in Lille, Olympique won 3-2 after extra time.
Red Star struggled to overcome Racing in Paris, finally running out 4-3 winners (ht 3-2). Red Star had to come back from behind twice in the game (0-1 then 1-2). Just before the half time break, Red Star scored two important goals to take the upper hand.
Red Star lined up for that semi final with : Stoffé, Meyer, Gamblin, Marion, Hugues, Bonnardel, Bourdin, Brouzes, P. Nicolas, Naudin & Clavel. Goalscorers were Brouzes, Baumann (og), P. Nicolas (2) – Devic (2), Triboulet for the Racing
THE FINAL
The final took placee at the Stade Pershing and Red Star wrote themselves into the Coupe de France record books by beating Olympique de Paris 2-1 (ht 0-0).
This final will stay in the Coupe de France legends because of a penalty. Lucien Gamblin, who later went on to be a famous journalist, contrived to stop a shot from the Olympien Darques with his hand, in Red Stars' penalty area. At this point, Red Star were leading 2-1 and there was only fifteen or so minutes remaining. Olympics' strikers all looked at each other - who would take the penalty ? In seeing this. « Lulu » did something rather unsporting - he performed one of the earliest known examples of "sledging", that is to say passing unsporting comments to his opponents. The result ? Dawaquez took it upon himself to take the penalty, and snuffed his shot, making the save easy for Red Stars' goalkeeper Pierre Chayriguès. Thus Red Star won their first Coupe de France
Some interesting trivia from the game :
Brouzes went off injured so Red Star finished the game with ten men.
Chayriguès played his first game following a serious injury in the final of the "Jeux Interalliés" of 1919. In goal for Olympic was his main rival for the French national goalkeepers' shirt, Maurice Cottenet.
Six of the participants of this final, including four from Red Star went on to take part one monthe later in the historic win by France against England.
All together thirteen French internationals took part in the 1921 final. Impossible today as most of the national side ply their trade abroad !
Red Star started with eleven Frenchmen, whereas one Racing fielded a Belgian, Huysmans.
For the fourth succesive time the Coupe de France was to stay in Paris … or more accurately in the Paris region.
MATCH DETAILS
Referee : M. Slawick
Goals : Clavel (53), Naudin (77) – Landauer (78)
RED STAR : CHAYRIGUES, MEYER, GAMBLIN (cap.), MARION, HUGUES, BONNARDEL, BOURDIN, BROUZES, NICOLAS, NAUDIN, CLAVEL.
OLYPIQUE DE PARIS : COTTENET, LANGENOVE, HUYSMANS, BARON, PARACHINI, HAAS, DEWAQUEZ, ROUCHES, LANDAUER, DARQUES (cap.), REBUT
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