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 E. 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 sports federation,
the F.B.S.A. (Fédération belge de 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
(although its actual substance is highly doubtful, as no clubs of any importance
withdrew from the official federation and in fact no information on L.S.S. member
clubs or matches played was found in the contemporary Swiss press; according to
[Ruo 53], p. 31, a split within the S.F.A.
(Schweizerische Football-Association) was avoided and the only noteworthy internal
result of the international tensions was the demission of V.E. Schneider
as "internationaler Delegierter" in August 1909), but as for the latter
two territories, one can only surmise they were represented at the congress
by some resident Englishmen sympathetic to the A.F.A. who happened to be in Europe
at the time, or had just sent a letter of support – 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 significant 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 F.B.S.A. was formed
by minor clubs from around Brussels and the francophone regions of Hainaut and
Namur (although the athletics section of Stade Gantois apparently also joined); its
regional football champions included Cercle l'Union et Progrès
de Bruxelles, Châtelineau, Gosselies Sports and Union Sportive Molenbeckoise.
Even in France its teams were described as "faible".
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) and Spain were
not even invited to enter.
Note that the claim in the relevant
wikipedia article,
as archived in February 2024
and 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; in
November 2024,
the reference to British East Africa was removed from this mendacious
wikipedia article and the Belgian "withdrawal" suggestively linked
to their defeat against Bohemia on May 25, which is
also utter nonsense as the
entire programme for the tournament had already been published
in February 1911, when, on the 10th of that month,
La Tribune de Genève
(a newspaper published in the home town of Victor E. Schneider, which probably is
no coincidence) announced "trois matches internations" at the occasion of
the exposition: "Le 25 mai se jouera le match Angleterre contre Suisse et
le lendemain France contre Bohême. Le 29 mai, les gagnants de
ces deux matches seront opposés l'un à l'autre."; that two months later
L'Auto listed the four participants explicitly as "France, Hongrie,
Suisse et Angleterre" only shows (apart from the fact that neither Belgium nor
Spain were ever considered as entrants) that French understanding
of Central European geography left much to be desired.
In addition, the assertion in the
November 2024
version of that wikipedia article that the L.S.S. had withdrawn following tensions
between "the Alemannic and the Romands" (which were a decisive factor in the Swiss
withdrawal from the 1920 Olympics)
is an invention, originally introduced in an
article by Matthieu Delahais
on the Chroniques bleues website, given that any members the phantomlike L.S.S. may have
had (none are confirmed and based on the (un)available information the very existence of
the L.S.S. may have been nothing but an elaborate hoax by Victor E. Schneider) were
surely all francophone. It is more likely the L.S.S. withdrew because monsieur
Schneider could not assemble a team – faute de joueurs, faute de clubs membres,
faute de tout. In fact, rather than any dissensions, it probably was the
more or less unanimous stand of the Swiss football community, on both sides of
the Röstigraben, to remain loyal to the F.I.F.A., that caused the Swiss
withdrawal from this tournament and,
ultimately, contributed to the unlamented demise of the U.I.A.F.A. (together with
the lack of unity within France, which
made it easy for F.I.F.A. to replace the U.S.F.S.A. by the C.F.I., and the
lack of all but vague verbal support from Hungary).
Finally, the statement in both the aforementioned
article by Delahais and the
November 2024
version of the wikipedia article that the match on May 25 was
played "après l'arrivée de la course cycliste Paris-Roubaix",
i.e. "after the end of the Paris-Roubaix cycling race", is, to put it mildly, misleading:
there was a cycling race that day between the two cities, but the sixteenth edition
of the Paris-Roubaix had taken place more than five weeks earlier, on April 16, 1911 (cf.
BikeRaceInfo,
CycleBase
or www.procyclingstats.com,
or, of course, the contemporary Belgian, Dutch and French newspapers).
The contemporary French press called the Roubaix football event, 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 limited 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. representation should not be confused with the England Amateur
side fielded by the F.A. at the same time (which was much stronger, winning
both official Olympic football tournaments before the Great War).
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, given the poor quality of the opposition, it was no surprise Bohemia won
the competition; they had a strong team, which had only lost 0-4 at home to
the full (professional) England side
in June 1908 (Austria
and Hungary had suffered heavier losses against the same opponents; three
of Bohemia's players in that match, after which unhappy home supporters had
viciously assaulted the referee,
were part of the squad for Roubaix: Vesely, Benda and Bělka), and the Slavia
club side had made a name for itself across the continent before leaving F.I.F.A.;
after the draw for the football
tournament of the 1908 Olympics, Bohemia,
who had been paired with France in the first round, had been considered favourites
to win the silver medals by the Dutch press, but they eventually withdrew less
than a week before that match.
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 this
was due to a confused French journalist, as two months earlier a Swiss newspaper
(La Tribune de Genève) had already identified the participants as Bohemia, England,
France and Switzerland, and it is unthinkable the U.I.A.F.A. would have considered
holding such a tournament without its strongest (and founding) member federation;
in addition, no Hungarian club or federation ever joined the U.I.A.F.A.
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 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]
43e rgt. inf. de Lille 13-0 23e bat. chasseurs alpins de Grasse
U.S.F.S.A. "Nord" 3-1 Old Malvernians [HT: 2-0]
NB: result of the semi-final between the 43e régiment d'infanterie de Lille
(champions of the 1er corps d'armée) and the 23e bataillon de chasseurs
alpins de Grasse (champions of the 15e corps d'armée) as given by L'Auto
on May 8; other sources gave the result as 12-0.
[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, apart
from presumably being the cause of the postponement of Bohemia's first match there from
May 26, as announced in February, to May 28):
[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], [Ruo 53], L'Auto, Dunkerque-sports (both available through Gallica), various contemporary Dutch newspapers (available through Delpher), various contemporary Belgian newspapers (available through Belgica Press), various contemporary Swiss newspapers (available through e-newspaperarchives.ch), 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: 8 Jan 2025
(C) Copyright Karel Stokkermans and RSSSF 2021/25
You are free to copy this document in whole or part provided that proper
acknowledgement is given to the author. All rights reserved.