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New
year’s day 1913, Parc des Princes,
Paris
. After what one would imagine was a relatively quiet Hogmanay the Scottish
fifteen were scheduled to meet
France
in the first international of their season. It was to be only the fourth
meeting of the two sides. Two years previously, the last time that the Scots had
ventured to
Paris
, the rugby world had been stunned by their sixteen points to fifteen defeat at
the Stade de Colombes. To date this remained
France
’s only international victory. The two sides other meetings at Inverleith in
Edinburgh
had been perhaps predictably one sided affairs with the Scots winning easily.
The partisan home crowd, in excess of twenty thousand for this game, may even so
have hoped for or even expected a repeat winning performance.
As
it transpired this was to be a forlorn hope. The French side played well, in
particular their pack had the better of the play in the second half, but overall
they lacked a shade of technical nuance that the Scots enjoyed. Furthermore they
failed to capitalise on the chances that they enjoyed which was a charge that
could not be levelled at the Scots. It was accepted that the French were
improving year after year, but they still lacked the composure and skill to be
truly competitive at the international level. As the game progressed the Scots
gradually drew away to a twenty one points to three lead. Reports of the game
concede that the run of play was far close than the score suggested; that the
Scots were flattered by it and the French were unlucky to be on the wrong end of
such a defeat, but such it was.
The
match had been refereed by James ‘Bim’ Baxter, who was a former
England
international himself having gained three caps in 1900. Overall he was to have
an interesting career. He had taken silver in the twelve meter sailing class at
the 1908 London Olympics. Later he would be President of the Rugby Football
Union in 1926-7 and manage the 1930 British Lions tour to
New Zealand
, where he would cause controversy over his condemnation of the All Blacks
‘Rover’ system that utilized a detached forward. Today he had been busy.
Whether due to Gallic passion or a still less than perfect grasp of some of the
subtleties of the game
France
frequently infringed. Baxter, as perhaps befitted an international meeting was
fairly strict in his own interpretations and penalised them with equal
frequency. As the score began to rise so the crowds temper began to fray.
Baxter’s whistle was soon drowned out by the derision of the spectators. It
has been mooted that misinterpreting the crowd’s cat calls Baxter smiled and
waved to them, which inflamed them all the more and that often lacking even the
most basic appreciation of the laws of the game most of the crowd could quite
simply not understand why their national side was being so harshly disciplined.
Even if true it is fair to say that these could in no way excuse the crowd’s
subsequent behaviour.
As
the final whistle blew a large number of spectators, some would say more than
half, stormed the pitch, mobbing both the referee and the Scottish team. Some of
the Scots were hit by flying stones, although fortunately none received serious
injury. Baxter himself was physically assaulted and at least one assailant
arrested as Gendarmes, both mounted and on foot, struggled both to restore order
and bundle the referee and players to safety. It was in all a dark day in the
history of rugby.
Condemnation
of the crowd’s behaviour was swift, not least in
France
. By the day after the game both Le temps and Le Figaro had accepted implicitly
that the referee of a game had the right to judge it as he saw fit and that his
decisions should be accepted in the spirit of the game. By January 11th
the French central rugby committee were being warned that essentially their
continued existence in the international arena depended upon the referee being
afforded the respect that his position demanded. The French authorities quite
publically stated their regret regarding the incident and issued an appeal to
spectators to refrain from such demonstrations again as they would invariably
damage sport in
France
. These sentiments were echoed when an emissary from the French Rugby union
travelled to
Glasgow
to a meeting of the International Board to formally state their sorrow.
England
,
Ireland
and
Wales
were prepared to leave it at that, although
France
may have been considered to be on some form of unofficial probation. The Scots
themselves were less forgiving, electing to refuse further matches with
France
. In a letter to Cyril Rutherford, foreign secretary to the central rugby
committee of the Union Sportive Francaise des Sports Athletiques they outlined
their decision at the end of January. The Scottish Rugby Union had taken their
time mulling over the matter to avoid a rash response. They recognised that
Rugby was a relatively new sport in
France
and that the crowds there had not been fortunate enough to grow with the game
from its inception and therefore lacked an adequate education in its etiquette.
Whist they felt that this to some extent extenuated the antics in
Paris
the incident itself was so serious that it was prejudicial to the best
interests of the game. It was noted in particular that those who stormed the
pitch were by no means restricted to those who had been in the cheap seats! The
Scots were of the opinion that the French crowds needed to be taught a lesson in
the traditions of the game. Foremost of these was the inviolate nature of the
referee, whilst also noting that a game that could only be played under police
protection was not worth playing. The Scots accepted that there were many in
France who deplored the incident, not least the French committee members and
players who did their best to protect Baxter and the Scottish players and
presumably the half of the crowd that did not storm the pitch. Even so the
decision had been made and the 1914
Scotland
v
France
match was cancelled. The two sides would not meet again until after the first
world war.
Sources
The
Times Online Digital Archive
Rugby-pioneers.blogs.com
Statsguru
at scrum.com
‘
Rugby
and all That’, Martin Johnson, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000
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The
Rugby History Society