Portraits

Catalan Rugby

Joseph Desclaux, “A Catalan star”.

Born February 1, 1912 in Collioure (Pyrénées-Orientales).
Died March 26, 1988 in Perpignan (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).

The Roussillon region has produced many great players for French rugby. In chronological order, they include Brutus, Giral, Got, Ramis, Baillette, Ribère, Galia, Coderc, Raynal, Puig-Aubert, Sanac, Roucariés, Maso, Imbernon and, more recently, Mas and Marty. But there is one player who most surely embodied this Catalan rugby. Joseph Desclaux was that player, because, apart from a few escapades in Grenoble, Bordeaux or Esperaza, he spent his entire sporting career, from 1928 to the early 1970s, in Collioure, with Les Arlequins and with USAP, as a player and then as a coach. Unfortunately for him, when he was a player, this was the period of the break with the British and of the Second World War, which shows just how important his ten caps were at a time when, between 1934, when he was first called up at the age of 22, and 1945, when he was last selected, France played just twelve matches. Even if comparison is not reason, since the advent of professionalism, when the French team plays around ten matches a year, that would be around a hundred caps! This remarkable career, enriched by two XIII caps, two French first division XV championship titles with U. S. A. Perpignan, a victory in the Challenge Yves du Manoir as a player and a double championship-challenge in 1955 with the USAP, and a third-series French championship title with Collioure in 1960 as a coach, Joseph Desclaux owed it to “all the qualities of a top-class player: speed, grit, opportunism, suppleness and judgment”, according to Maurice Capelle, in “Le Figaro” of April 19, 1937, and to his constant involvement in rugby and the clubs where he was a member.
Jospeh Desclaux had started playing rugby with the Collège de Perpignan team. That was in 1928, when he was sixteen. At the same time, he was playing in Collioure. Spotted by the directors of Arlequins de Perpignan, a rival of US Perpignan in the twenties and early thirties, he made his debut in the first division at the age of seventeen. In 1933, at the age of 21, after a brief spell with the Grenoble Football Club during his military service, he was selected for the Midi national team and then the Rest opposed to France. It was the following season that he was revealed to the public at large during the France-Reste match. According to the weekly magazine “Match”, he shone there with the most vivid brilliance, revealing himself to be in the class of the great forwards of the previous decade, Borde and Crabos. After that, he had no choice but to be selected for the only international match between France and Reste. According to the weekly magazine “Match”, he shone with the most vivid brilliance, revealing himself to be in the class of the great forwards of the previous decade, Borde and Crabos. After that, he was bound to be selected for the only international match of the year.

And so, for five seasons, he was to be one of France's most brilliant forwards. Adding to his flair for the game and his natural physical qualities, a charisma that easily imposed him on his partners, he was also captain of his club team, Union Sportive Arlequins Perpignan, born of the merger of the two great clubs of the Roussillon capital. And by his third cap, he was also captain of the French national team. It was during this period that he won his first two titles, including the championship in 1938. His switch to XIII in the autumn of that year came as a bolt from the blue. The entire national press, even the non-specialist press, relayed the news. For a sum that some estimated at 50,000 francs at the time, the wonder of wonders, as the journalist from Ouest-Eclair put it, signed for Bordeaux XIII. During the few months he spent on the banks of the Garonne, Joseph Desclaux played in two victorious matches for the French national team, and was considered the best player in the match against England. The Second World War brought the adventure to an end. After his demobilization, rugby à XIII no longer existed, and Desclaux returned to Catalonia to play for the club closest to his home, Collioure Sportif, as had been the rule for a year under the Vichy regime. Not content with strengthening his former club considerably, he took advantage of the opportunity to challenge the French 100 m champion in a fifty-meter race. The two runners could not be separated. He was also captain of the Languedoc-Roussillon team that won the championship of the unoccupied zone.
In 1941, he was back at USAP. The championship had not yet resumed and the Cup had not yet been created. So he had to wait a year, especially as Languedoc-Roussillon did not qualify for the national cup finals that season, which they went on to win in 1943 and 1944. That same year, at the head of the young Catalans, he became French champion for the second time. After being selected for the French team for the last time on January 1, 1945, and despite being announced for XIII in Albi, he remained loyal to the XV, even though his pre-war stint in the opposing camp made him ineligible for selection. During this period, he spent two seasons at Espéraza before coming to Perpignan to end his playing career. He was thirty-eight at the time. He then began a coaching career with USAP from 1949 to 1958, 1962 to 1964 and 1969 to 1970, and with Collioure from 1958 to 1960. Very close to his players, he was held in high esteem by all. Even when he was no longer coaching, he always remained close to his beloved club, and it was during a meeting to celebrate the anniversary of the 1955 title that he died suddenly after singing his favourite song “les quatre-vingt chasseurs” one last time. The following year, U. S. A. Perpignan named a rugby schools tournament after him. Joseph Desclaux retained a special place in the hearts of Catalan rugby players, and his former players, such as André Sanac, testified to his contribution to Perpignan rugby in the film devoted to him in the mid-2000s by André Soucara. The “Mister of Catalan rugby” well deserved this tribute.

Jean Galia, father of the "pioneers"

The man who imported XIII rugby to France was born on March 20, 1905, on Avenue Pasteur in Ille-sur-Têt. The son of a fruit and vegetable shipper who delivered as far afield as Germany and Algeria, he was a keen athlete, boxer (he was French amateur heavyweight champion in 1929, just two months after his debut in the noble art) and, of course, rugby player.

“A force of nature”, recalled his cousin, Sébastien Galia.

He put on his first boots in Millas, and played an active part in the family's flourishing business, which at the time owned the only truck in Ille, a commune where his father, also named Jean, was mayor from 1927 to 1935.

This skilful forward, tall for his time (1.80 m) and muscular (85 kg), was soon playing for TOEC in Toulouse in 1925, during his military service, then for US Quillan for five seasons in a row (1926 to 1931), a club coached by... Gilbert Brutus, with whom he was crowned French champion, and finally CA Villeneuve-sur-Lot, where he joined Max Rousié, a future treiziste star, and also discovered rowing.

BEST XV FORWARD IN EUROPE
A 19-time international, he was part of the French team that beat England (3-0) for the first time in its history in 1927, and the British considered him to be the best forward in Europe.

His destiny changed with the “Noguères affair”. It was early 1933, and Galia urged the Boulounenc, who was then doing his military service in Agen, to join him in Villeneuve. However, a telegram referring to a sum of money intended for the US Perpignan full-back was intercepted by the Catalan club's directors. Threatened with disqualification on professional grounds, when in fact it was no more than a travel allowance, Noguères retracted his statement and remained loyal to USP. Although the money circulated under the cloak of secrecy, it was officially taboo.

“Maurice Vails, the club secretary, said to me on the station platform: 'Don't go or you'll be disqualified. I turned back, challenged my suitcases and put on the USP jersey again, although not for long...” he recounted in 1984, in the book ‘XIII Catalan, cinquante ans d'épopée’.

Noguères was eventually disbarred by the FFR, as was Galia in January 1933, and joined the first XIII Catalan team, a year and a half after the “affair” bearing his name.

“HE'S JUST AN ADDRESS...”
Soon, the British Rugby League, eager to establish neo-rugby in France, appointed Jean Galia as its ambassador. On December 31 of the same year, invited by Harry Sunderland, director of the Kangaroos tour, and John Wilson, general secretary of the British federation, he attended the first XIII rugby match in France, Australia-England, at the Pershing stadium in Paris, won 63-13 by the Australians, in front of 20,000 stunned spectators, and fell under the spell of a sport he baptized the XIII game, praising it with unbridled enthusiasm: “It's all about skill, intuition, elegance, imagination and virtuosity. You can't describe rugby like this, you have to savor it like a rare delicacy. As soon as you approach it, you are overwhelmed with admiration. It lends itself to the subtlest combinations, with criss-crossing passes from every angle”.

Rugby could not have dreamed of a better ambassador than Galia, a leader at heart, elegant to the core, though also “very short-tempered”, according to Fernand Périé, a novelist from Ille-sur-Têt who shared his passion for the sport in the village. He was also a shrewd businessman, owning, with his Catalan friend Ernest Camo, a millinery and sporting goods store in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, before opening two cinemas on the banks of the Lot, then another, “Le Fantasio”, later in Toulouse, and who, in the company of Victor Breyer, director of “L'écho des sports”, made it his duty to preach the good word of Treizism throughout France.

At the wheel of his Alfa Romeo or his Nash with its lanky hood, he was on a mission, and managed to put together a selection made up of players from Bordeaux (Jean Duhau), Esperaza (Jean Cassagneau), Toulouse (Jean-Marie Vignal), Chalon-sur-Saône (Antonin Barbazange), Lézignan (Gaston Amila), Narbonne (Joseph Carrère), Agen (Bob Samatan), Lyon (Maurice Porra), Oyonnax (Charles Mathon), Avignon (Laurent Lambert), Roanne, Nancy, Pau, Villeneuve-sur-Lot, Capbreton.

17 “GALIA BOYS
The “Galia Boys” were born, and seventeen of them played six matches on the other side of the Channel, losing to Wigan 30-27 despite two tries from Galia himself, London, Leeds and Warrington, before celebrating their first success in Hull (26-23), followed by a final defeat in Salford. The study trip was nonetheless a success.

History was in the making, and on April 6, 1934 the statutes of the Ligue Française de Rugby à XIII were filed with the Paris Prefecture. Nine days later, the first French XIII match took place on home soil, against England at the Buffalo stadium in Paris. Despite the polar cold, the 21,000-seat stadium was packed to capacity, hundreds of curious onlookers were prevented from entering, and the few troublemakers appointed by the orthodox rygby leaders had their work cut out for them, almost being lynched by spectators spellbound by the spectacle on offer, which was won by the English 32-21.

The following year, a Yorkshire team toured France, playing against Lyon, Paris, Bordeaux, Pau and Villeneuve, and on the evening of the match played in Lot-et-Garonne on May 6, 1934, Marcel Laborde, from Perpignan, attended the speech given by Jean Galia, who confirmed his intention to continue the adventure with XIII.

Laborde, nicknamed “The Rabbit”, had previously been the victim of the merger between USP and the Quins (giving birth to USAP), the latter imposing the exclusion of Laborde as a condition. On July 7, Laborde joined a new XV rugby club in Perpignan, ASP, before signing up under the banner of Galia, who had just switched CA Villeneuvois, now SA Villeneuvois XIII, to XIII. AS Perpignan followed suit on August 24, 1934, under the name XIII Catalan, under the aegis of Gaston Banet and Marcel Laborde, who took his revenge for being banished.

And in October of the same year, the Catalans, along with nine other pioneering clubs - Villeneuve, Béziers, Bordeaux, Côte Basque, Pau, Albi, Roanne, Lyon-Villeurbanne and Paris Rugby XIII - began the first French championship for a sport that aroused enthusiasm wherever it was played, overcoming the many obstacles placed in its path by the other rugby (excluded from the 5 Nations Tournament since 1931 for repeated violence, it lost 105 clubs between 1934 and 1939), in particular the ban on access to pitches, which led to the construction of new stadiums for “players with no intention of giving up their profession, the compensation they receive being in short a loss of earnings”, as “Monsieur Jean” explained to Miroir des Sports.

As a symbol, Jean Galia, captain-coach, led Villeneuve-sur-Lot to its first French championship title, awarded on points, ending his international XIII career two years later with an 8-5 victory over the British Dominions in Paris, and being named “man of the match”.

Rugby à XIII continued to grow, notably under the patronage of Léo Lagrange and Jean Zay, ministers of the Front Populaire, until it was abjectly banned under the Vichy regime.

After the Liberation, although the father of XIII in France no longer held a position at federal level, he was nevertheless a member of the Toulouse Olympique management team, and led the club, as coach and president, to the championship final in 1945 and 1946, losing to AS Carcassonne on both occasions. He died of a heart attack at home on January 18, 1949, before being buried in Ille, where he will forever remain the man through whom it all began.

It's only fitting that today, stadiums, sports and entertainment venues, schools, libraries and streets bear his name.

Hervé Girette
(Article published in La Semaine du Roussillon on September 11, 2024)

Eternal Pipette

Although we didn't have the chance to see Pipette play - he was French champion with USAP in 1944, before going on to win laurels with AS Carcassonne XIII and XIII de France - we at least had the pleasure of talking to him on several occasions, between the late 1970s, when he was a coach with the French Rugby XIII Federation, and the early 1990s, when he never missed a match with XIII de France.

The image of the most famous XIII rugby player, and perhaps even of rugby itself, is that of an affable, epicurean man, never stingy with a juicy anecdote, and passionate about the sport that made his reputation.

From “Bébert”, the nickname of his childhood, he had become “Pip” to his close friends, and when asked about the highs, for a long time, and the lows (only during his farewell season with RC Castelnaudary, in 1959-1960) of his inimitable career, he would reply straightforwardly: “I've never been bored on a pitch, and I almost regret not having demanded a healthier lifestyle of myself, because it's not at 34, but perhaps at 40, that I'd have put my cleats away.

Square-tipped crampons that a cobbler in Carcassonne would tailor-make for him, to better fit the shape of his feet, and thus accentuate his insolent success in penalty shoot-outs.

“Born to play
As his friend and Carcassonne team-mate Martin Martin told our colleague Bernard Pratviel in “Immortel Pipette”, he was “born to play”, both with his hands and his feet, but it was his penalties, conversions and drops, attempted and successful from any position on the pitch, that made his reputation, even more than his feint passes and sudden bursts.

Almost an injustice for the man his former team-mates compared to a magician.

Like André Bourreil, who shared the 1957 French championship title with XIII Catalan alongside the phenomenon.

“I'd started out in the center, but he taught me my role as a winger, which I was then given. “A fullback will never take you on if you think about taking him on the inside, but not too much, so as to be able to maneuver him,” he assured me.

For Aubert Puig, whose stadiums at Arles-sur-Tech and Pennautier in the Aude region bear his nickname Puig-Aubert, was also a master tactician.

Not to mention his dexterity, “due to his long arms”, as Francis Levy, who first rubbed shoulders with him at Paris Celtic, told us in 1952, just after his exceptional career with Carcassonne, a short interlude in Paris before his arrival at XIII Catalan.

“The genius of the game
A skill he also displayed in soccer during his school years, in pétanque, table tennis and darts, and which on the rugby pitch won the admiration of André Passamar, journalist with “L'Equipe”: “He had a genius for the game. Anyone who hasn't seen this fullback in action will find it hard to understand his unique art, his finesse, his admirable handling of the ball”.

Australian journalist Ernie Christensen was equally effusive on the evening of the legendary 1951 tour of the Antipodes: “In addition to his magic boot, he was capable of eradicating all defenders in a half with his hooks and acceleration alone.

Jean Bobet, racing cyclist and writer, was similarly seduced by the man's arabesques: “With Louison, my brother, we've always nurtured an admiration for Pipette's work and... pumps.

Another writer, Fernand Albaret, who sang the praises of a different kind of rugby, was no less enamored: “He defies the laws of rhythm, the lines of the race. If he rolled instead of advancing and rocketing on his short legs, he wouldn't surprise anyone.

“Lulu” Pariès, a Biarrot player who made Narbonne and the XV de France very happy, was obviously attached to the striker that he himself was, but not only: ”If I have to make a pilgrimage, it won't require a long journey: I'll go and get Pipette's advice. That devil of a man has always fascinated me. With his posture bent double, buttocks back, arms and legs forming tentacular jaws waiting to swell, he was always ready to explode his power and release. What releases! What starts! What hooks! He achieved all the feats I dream of.

From the corner
A sense of relaxation and perception of space that he attributed, among other things, to the fact that, as a teenager, he had been a winged pole vaulter, winning the Languedoc-Roussillon junior championship.

A champion whose apparent casualness on the court did little to conceal an inextinguishable thirst for winning, according to his companion from the '51 tour, the Catalan from Bages, Elie Brousse, who confided in us in 2005: “He was a gambler at heart and didn't like to lose”.

And “Le Tigre de Sydney” added: “There was no other phenomenon like him. He turned and scored without looking at the ball. In training, he would pass goals from the corner.

A technique, however, that had been worked on at length in training, the player readily admitted, although he was reluctant to accompany his team-mates around the pitch before the purely technical sessions, but not to take kick after kick, “which I never tire of”, he assured us.

A golden foot, like the bridge of the same name offered in vain several times by the Australian club of Manly, at the end of August 1951, before boarding the Stradheten, the ship that brought home the “Fabulous Frenchmen”, unofficially crowned world champions.

Having broken his arm in a tackle two weeks before the start of the 1955 tour, Puig-Aubert did not return to Australia until 24 years later, as coach of the French national team.

And his aura remains intact, as evidenced by his many paid speeches to universities and the media on the island continent.

Because a Pipette, who has his own statue in Carcassonne's Albert-Domec stadium, can never be forgotten.

Hervé Girette

Fernand Vaquer, “Le Maréchal” (The Marshall)

Born June 22, 1889 at Latour bas Elne (Pyrénées Orientales)
Died September 17, 1969, Tresserre (Pyrénées Orientales)

Fernand Vaquer went down in history under the nickname Le Maréchal. This nickname could have come from his military background, or from the authority with which he led his troops. In fact, the nickname was given to him by Marcel Graule, one day when US Perpignan had beaten him at Poitiers, telling him: “Maréchal, you've just won the battle of Poitiers”. Posterity will also remember Fernand Vaquer's long history of rugby.
Born to a farmer father who died in his early thirties, little Fernand had a difficult start in life. But this didn't stop him from taking up rugby at the age of fourteen with the Stade Roussillonnais. He played mainly in the back row and three-quarter center. He left his first club in the autumn of 1907 to join the Association Sportive Perpignanaise (ASP). In 1909, when he enlisted in the army to improve his living conditions, with the 23rd artillery regiment stationed in Toulouse, he opted for Toulouse Olympique (TO). In 1910, he returned for a season to his club in Perpignan, where he played fly-half to become champion of the second series (2nd division at the time). Returning to TO, it was with the Toulouse club that he was champion of the same category in 1912. He played in the third row for this final. The following season, ahead of a meeting between the two clubs, he left TO for Stade Toulousain, with whom he was quarter-finalist in the French championship.
The Catalan from Toulouse began to make a name for himself, and played two selection matches in the 1913/14 season. The Great War put a temporary end to this rise. In 1917, he was selected for the XV of the 17th Army Corps, after taking part in the battle of Verdun. But it was not until after the Armistice that rugby really took off again. As a member of Racing Club de France, closer to the army than Toulouse or Perpignan, he was selected to play against the team that had won the British imperial tournament. He played against the New Zealanders for the first time, then met them twice in Colombes and Toulouse in the spring of 1919. A full member of the French wartime XV, he played in both matches at the Jeux Interalliés in early summer 1919. In the autumn of 1919, he signed for Union Sportive Perpignanaise, the result of a merger between ASP and Stade Olympique Perpignanais. It was his last club. At the time, it was one of France's top clubs, as evidenced by its run in the French championship (knocked out of the final after a play-off in 1920, French champion in 1921, runner-up in the semi-final pool in 1922, knocked out of the semi-final pool after a play-off in 1923, finalist in 1924). Fernand played in all these matches except the last ones in 1924. His club's good results and his wartime international background made him a natural choice for selection. As early as the 1920/21 season, he took part in selection matches and played two games in the V Nations Tournament. A few weeks later, he was champion of France, earning praise from a journalist in the local newspaper l'Indépendant: “Vaquer is an ace. His strokes are impeccable. His courage is inexhaustible and his command as energetic as it is wise”. The following season, as captain of his club, he won a final cap in the Tournament and was also a military international, captaining the Languedoc squad against the Royal Navy. For his final season, wishing to take a step back, he relinquished the captaincy. He took part in the Languedoc championship, but did not continue the adventure in the French championship. At the age of 35, it was time for him to put away his boots and take a new direction in his life. Claiming his proportional retirement rights from the army, he set up as a winegrower. However, he remained close to his club, which he served for a further 34 years as coach, manager and president. In 1959, following an internal crisis within the Union Sportive Athlétique Perpignanaise, the players wanted him back at the helm of the club, but he declined, putting all his faith in his successor, Joseph Desclaux.
Three times a wartime international, three times called up to the French national team, three times French champion in all divisions, a time referee and national coach, Usapiste's long history made him a major figure in Catalan rugby, attracting a number of prominent figures to his coffin at his funeral in Tresserre.