Trailblazing black players who lit up the game before door closed
It’s Black History month and, as we are finding in every corner of society, there is much more ‘history’ concerning black rugby players in the early days as well as now than perhaps we have ever realised. It’s just that nobody ever tells it or their contribution has been suppressed, so we need to start rectifying that as a matter of some urgency.
It is generally accepted that Constantin Henriquez, a well to do Haitian medical student in Paris, was the first black rugby player to appear in an international rugby match and the IOC celebrate him as the first black competitor at the Olympics. Henriquez played for the French team that ‘won’ the 1900 Olympic rugby title and by all accounts was a bit of a dandy and man around town.
Now although the accomplished Henriquez was unquestionably a trail blazer – he also introduced soccer to his native land when he returned home – the rugby statos bristle a little when he is proclaimed as rugby’s first black Test player, arguing that strictly speaking it is not true.
In the triangular 1900 Olympic rugby tournament France were represented by a pick-up side mainly consisting of Paris-based players from Stade Francais and Racing, while Moseley flew the flag for Britain and Hanover RFC for Germany. The Home Unions pointedly ignored the minor upstart competition and even the French Union refuse to acknowledge the games as internationals 120 years on.
It would, in all honesty, be a push even retrospectively to call the games internationals and the parallel would be that of the Cornwall XV who represented GB in the 1908 Olympic rugby match. None of those are considered to have won an England cap that day although one or two did earn bone fide England honours on other occasions.
For France, Test rugby unambiguously began on January 1, 1906 when they played New Zealand at the Parc des Prince in their first ever Test match. Like every side in Britain, bar Wales, they came off second best, but there was no disgrace in an entertaining 38-8 defeat with No.8 Georges Cassieuc and lock Georges Jerome scoring tries.
Now Jerome, who was universally declared France’s best player on the day, was a fascinating larger than life character. A black West Indian born in Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana, he was a superb athlete and despite being only 5ft 8ins played mainly in the forwards. He appeared in the back row in an uncapped game against an Ireland XV in 1905 but it was at lock – lineouts weren’t a big factor back then – that he impressed against the All Blacks.
Another black French West Indian – Andre Verges – propped against the All Blacks that day and you can make a good argument for this duo being the first bone fide black Test match rugby players. England’s James Peters – whose story is well known to readers of these pages – didn’t make his debut until March 1906.
Jerome was box office and had been Stade’s star man when they won the French championship in 1903 and also featured prominently in the side that finished runners-up in four consecutive finals against Stade Bordelais before he retired.
He was also one of the pin-up boys for a quite extraordinary Blacks v Whites France trial game in 1905 in the lead up to the New Zealand match.
Such a game would, of course, be totally unacceptable these days although I do recall a charity football fundraiser back in the 1970s featuring a black team of professional footballers including Cyrille Regis and others playing a white team, it’s there on Youtube for you to watch.
This negres contre blanc game in Paris appears to have been quite a big deal with the popular Jerome posing for a jokey publicity shot with the white skipper Frantz Reichel, the legendary Racing captain and 400m runner who was also one of the world’s leading aviators. Some PR wizard had come up with the idea of playing with a specially produced black and white quartered ball. What a wheeze.
It was a 6-5 victory for the Black team – one try and a penalty to one converted try. In another picture there is the unmistakable figure of Henriquez, still around if out of favour with the French selectors.
Now these images and this match can play with your mind a little. They are totally unacceptable to 21st century eyes and sensibilities yet at the same time the black rugby playing community circa 1905 was clearly well established and embraced in France and in particular Paris student circles. They seem very much part of the scene and the pitting of a black team against a white if anything indicates there was no great tension or divide, it appears to be of no more consequences than if the selects opted for a North v South or Probables v Possibles game.
Both sets of players were confident enough that the game wasn’t an issue and there was no outcry or controversy at the time. It is perhaps worth noting however that, despite their win, the Black team had only two players picked for the prestigious Test against the All Blacks. A portent of prejudices that were soon to follow?
Jerome and Verges played against England later that season and Jerome was again a star man and a try scorer in adversity when a French XV played the all-conquering Springboks in 1907 which curiously was not considered a capped game. The South
Africans had insisted on the dropping of Peters from the England team a few months earlier, perhaps they were not willing to countenance their game with France being termed a Test match if Les Bleus included two black forwards?
That was Jerome’s France swansong – he went on to coach Perigueux but died a relatively young man – but Verges played against England again in 1908 as did another French Caribbean player with the Stade club, full-back Henri Isaac, who hailed from Basseterre on St Kitts and Nevis, a former French colony acquired by the British back in the 18th century. There were still strong links with the island’s capital and its old ‘French’ families and Paris though.
After that it seems the door was suddenly slammed shut on the considerable black rugby playing community in France, just as it was in England where it was admittedly less of a presence.
The next black French Test player was Toulouse wing Roger Bougerel in 1969, the next English was Chris Oti in 1988.
What happened in between times to alienate black players and to make them second class citizens in the sport they loved while large chunks of the sporting world became very white, intolerant and racist is a big subject which we need to return to.