It was organised by the U.I.A.F.A. (Union internationale amateur de football
association), a short-lived rival federation to F.I.F.A., which was founded
in March 1909 in Paris by the A.F.A. (Amateur Football Association, England,
created in 1907 by a number of clubs dissatisfied with the role of professional
football within the F.A.), the Č.S.F. (Český svaz footballový,
Bohemia, which, like the A.F.A., had been denied F.I.F.A. membership at
the 1908 congress in Vienna) and the U.S.F.S.A. (Union des sociétés
françaises de sports athlétiques, France, which had left the F.I.F.A.
after that 1908 congress out of disagreement with the non-admittance of
the A.F.A.). The first president of the U.I.A.F.A. was Victor Schneider
from Geneva, formerly a F.I.F.A. vice-president, who represented the
francophone clubs of Switzerland loath to renounce on matches against
U.S.F.S.A. member clubs. Some second level clubs from
Vienna had also toyed with
the idea of joining but eventually all remained with the Ö.F.V.
(Österreichischer Fußball-Verband).
In February 1910 a rebel Belgian federation, the F.B.S.A. (Fédération belge
des sports athlétiques), joined the U.I.A.F.A.
Later that year, the F.E.C.F. (Federación Española de Clubs de Foot-ball),
a Catalan initiative vying for supremacy in Spain with the U.E.C.F. (Unión
Española de Clubs de Foot-ball), entered as well, followed by "Austria";
or rather, Galicia, as this "Austrian" federation was
the Z.F.P. (Związkiem Footballistów Polskich) from Galicia (then part
of Cisleithanien, the Austrian half of the Habsburg Doppelmonarchie),
a federation officially founded in May 1911 at the initiative of Wisła Kraków,
which had already joined the U.I.A.F.A. on its own in December 1910 after
withdrawing from the Ö.F.V. – only to return within a year, in
July 1911, by joining the newly founded Z.P.P.N. (Związek Polski
Piłki Nożnej, known in Austria as Deutscher Fußball-Verband
für Polen), a Galician subfederation of the Ö.F.V. initiated by
local rivals Cracovia, thus killing off the Z.F.P. after a mere two months.
Finally, at its January 1911 congress in Paris the U.I.A.F.A. reportedly admitted
federations from Switzerland (L.S.S., Ligue sportive suisse), British East Africa (!)
and "South America" as new members. There is no doubt about the Swiss entry, but
one can only surmise that the latter two territories were represented at the congress
by some resident Englishmen sympathetic to the A.F.A. who happened to be in Europe
at the time – in the case of East Africa possibly a member of the then
Amateur Football Association of British East Africa, which had been founded as the
Nairobi District League Committee in 1906 and subsequently became the
Football Association of Kenya.
The U.I.A.F.A. started disintegrating when the U.S.F.S.A. joined the C.F.I.
(Comité français interfédéral), by then established as the new
French F.I.F.A. members, at the end of December 1912.
At the beginning of 1913, both Spanish federations applied for
F.I.F.A. membership, while the A.F.A. returned to the F.A. fold in 1914.
Apart from the original three founder members and to some extent the F.E.C.F.,
none of these federations commanded substantial support in their home countries.
Even the A.F.A. was joined by but a relatively small minority (less than one tenth)
of the amateur clubs in England, mostly based near London.
The football tournament at the Roubaix exposition is sometimes, quite preposterously,
termed a "first European championship"; this is most tellingly belied by the fact
that neighbours Belgium (Roubaix is very close to the border) were not
even invited to enter. (The claim in the relevant
wikipedia article,
as archived in February 2024
and again in September 2024,
that the tournament originally was to be contested by all U.I.A.F.A. member federations
(including, staggeringly, British East Africa) is a blatant lie, reminiscent
of the wanton gibberish produced by the IFFHS on
the 1920 Olympics,
and cannot be substantiated by any contemporary sources.)
The contemporary French press called it, somewhat more modestly,
"Grand tournoi européen" or "Grand meeting de l'Exposition de Roubaix".
Even so, the use of the adjective "grand" is merely indicative of
the French predilection for agrandissement and not justified by either
the modest scale or the haphazard set-up of the event.
If one insists on looking for a "first" European championship avant la lettre,
the football tournament at the 1908 Olympics
(open to all countries with an existing football federation) is the obvious choice.
Note that the A.F.A. side should not be confused with the England Amateur
side fielded by the F.A. at the same time (which was much stronger).
Tournament hosts France had been the laughing stock of the continent ever
since their embarrassing performance at
the 1908 Olympics; after
a 2-1 win against Switzerland in March 1908 they went winless for more
than three years and a half (in which they played fifteen matches, drawing
one and losing the remainder, scoring 13 goals and conceding exactly 100;
for these matches, France were represented by the U.S.F.S.A. until the end
of 1908 and by the C.F.I. since 1909), before finally getting a win at
the end of October 1911 – against Luxembourg.
Thus, it was no surprise Bohemia won the competition; they had a strong side,
which had only lost 0-4 at home to the full England side
in June 1908 (Austria
and Hungary had suffered heavier losses against the same opponents), and
the Slavia club side had made a name for itself across the continent before
leaving F.I.F.A.
All matches were played at the Stadium de l'Exposition de Roubaix.
Participants (4):
A.F.A. (England)
Č.S.F. (Bohemia)
U.S.F.S.A. "France A" (France)
U.S.F.S.A. "Nord" (France)
NB: U.S.F.S.A. "Nord" replaced L.S.S. (Switzerland), which had withdrawn;
instead of the Č.S.F., "Hungary" had been announced as participants on April 11,
but it is not clear to what federation this referred (no Hungarian federation has
as yet been confirmed to have ever been U.I.A.F.A. members) and probably this was
due to a confused French journalist, as it is unlikely the U.I.A.F.A. would have
considered holding such a tournament without its strongest (and founding) member
federation from Bohemia.
Semi-finals
[May 25]
U.S.F.S.A. "Nord" 1-2 A.F.A. [HT: 0-1]
[May 28; att: 4,000; ref: Gardner (A.F.A.)]
U.S.F.S.A. "France A" 1-4 Č.S.F. [HT: 1-4]
[Chandelier 1-2; Bělka 0-1, 1-3, Košek 0-2, Medek 1-4]
Final [May 29; att: 3,000; ref: Collier (U.S.F.S.A.)]
A.F.A. 1-2 Č.S.F. [HT: 0-0]
[N.N. 60; Košek 70, Bohata 73 (scorers according to [Bor 57]; according to French
newspaper reports, Bělka scored both Bohemian goals); Pimmer saved penalty (83)]
NB: see below for line-ups.
The original programme as announced in L'Auto on April 11 also included the following
matches as part of the tournament:
[May 7]
Final of the "Championnat militaire d'association de l'U.S.F.S.A."
U.S.F.S.A. "Nord" - A.F.A. member club to be announced
[May 14]
Swindon Torun FC (sic!) - Hull City
This is rather peculiar as both Hull City and Swindon Town were regular F.A. member clubs
and thus forbidden to play in any event involving the U.S.F.S.A. or U.I.A.F.A. In fact,
both clubs did play each other in Europe, one week earlier, in Brussels, Hull defeating
Swindon 1-0 in a match for the De Decker Cup (which Hull would also win in 1912 and 1913)
on May 7.
On April 29, the Brussels newspaper "La Dernière Heure" announced, under the heading "Le
tournoi international de football à Roubaix", that the Stadium de Roubaix would be opened
with a "grand match de football" between the amateur team of Wales and the representative
team of Northern France (so U.S.F.S.A. "Nord") on May 7, but the Welshmen clearly changed
plans within a few days and had to be replaced (by the Old Malvernians).
In addition, the final of the "Championnat militaire d'association de l'U.S.F.S.A." was
only played on May 14 in Le Havre; instead a semi-final for that tournament was the first
ever match in the Stadium de l'Exposition de Roubaix; eventually the following matches
were played:
[May 7, inauguration du Stadium de l'Exposition de Roubaix]
43eme Infanterie Lille 12-0 23eme Bataillon Chasseurs Alpins Grasse
U.S.F.S.A. "Nord" 3-1 Old Malvernians [HT: 2-0]
[May 14]
Roubaix XI 1-0 Lyford FC [HT: 1-0]
Finally, on May 25, the Č.S.F. played a friendly against the Belgian U.I.A.F.A. members
on their way to Roubaix (a return visit after the Belgians had visited Slavia in March,
losing 2-6 and 0-5; this match was in no way related to the Roubaix tournament):
[May 25; stade La Forestoise, Bruxelles]
F.B.S.A. 1-6 Č.S.F.
[the visitors were announced as Slavia and played in Slavia jerseys but the team
included three players (Hajný, Bělka and Pilát) of other clubs]
Additional Available Match Date
Reported Line-ups May 28 (L'Auto) [several spelling errors in source corrected]:
U.S.F.S.A. "France A":
Guy De Gastyne (RCF); Rouxel (SF), Auguste Schalbart (USC), Remy (ASF), Gaudin (RCF),
Alphonse Nicol [c] (RCF), Carlos Bacrot (OL), Paul Chandelier (OL), Albert Eloy (OL),
Raymond Dubly (RCR), Paul Voyeux (OL).
NB: prior to the match, line-ups were announced with first Henri Moigneu (UST) and then
Robert Diochon (FCR) instead of Gaudin, and with Emile Sartorius (RCF) instead of Dubly;
Nicol was a naturalised Romanian born as Niculescu;
ASF = AS Française; FCR = Football Club de Rouen; OL = Olympique Lillois;
RCF = Racing Club de France; RCR = Racing Club de Roubaix; SF = Stade Français;
USC = Union Sportive de Clichy; UST = Union Sportive Tourquennoise.
Č.S.F.:
Karel Pimmer (Slavia); Richard Veselý (Slavia), Miroslav Hajný (Smíchov);
Karel Kovařovic (Slavia), František Rosmaisl-Majzl (Slavia), Emanuel Benda (Slavia);
Ota Bohata (Slavia), Ladislav Medek (Slavia), Josef Bělka (Sparta), Jan Košek (Slavia),
Miroslav Široký (Slavia); trainer: John Madden (Slavia; from Scotland).
NB: Czech sources list Rudolf Holý (Slavia) instead of Kovařovic and Václav Pilát (Sparta)
instead of Medek.
Announced Line-Ups May 29 (L'Auto) [several spelling errors in source corrected]:
A.F.A.:
G.M.C. Taylor, J.C.D. Tetley, J.E. Hobbs, H.H. Milton, B.H. Farnfield, Y.L. Emell,
Mouton Hing, C.E. Brisley, E. Melliar-Smith, A.H. Birgs, W.H. Gardner.
NB: Melliar-Smith replaced W. Stebbing, injured in the match on May 25;
a later match report mentioned Dickson and Wilson as players.
Č.S.F.:
Karel Pimmer (Slavia); Richard Veselý (Slavia), Miroslav Hajný (Smíchov);
Karel Kovařovic (Slavia), František Rosmaisl-Majzl (Slavia), Emanuel Benda (Slavia);
Ota Bohata (Slavia), Ladislav Medek (Slavia), Josef Bělka (Sparta), Jan Košek (Slavia),
Miroslav Široký (Slavia); trainer: John Madden (Slavia; from Scotland).
NB: Czech sources list Rudolf Holý (Slavia) instead of Bělka and Václav Pilát (Sparta)
instead of Medek.
Sources included: [Bor 57], [Del 23], [DHL 08], [FIF 31], [HiL 11], [HoK 97], [JeJ 05], L'Auto, Dunkerque-sports (both available through Gallica), various contemporary Dutch newspapers (available through Delpher), various contemporary Belgian newspapers (available through Belgica Press), Chroniques bleues, http://historiawisly.pl, La Fútbolteca, Xtratime.org
Thanks to Matthieu Delahais and Jérôme Perani for additional information
Prepared and maintained by Karel Stokkermans for the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation
Author: Karel Stokkermans
(karel.rsssf@gmail.com)
Last updated: 21 Sep 2024
(C) Copyright Karel Stokkermans and RSSSF 2021/24
You are free to copy this document in whole or part provided that proper
acknowledgement is given to the author. All rights reserved.