• Source: Raymond Gigot

      • Raymond Pierre Gigot (11 May 1885 – 25 September 1915) was a French footballer who played as a Forward for Club Français and the French national team in 1904–05.


      Early life


      Raymond Gigot was born in Perpignan, Pyrenees-Orientales, on 11 May 1885, as the son of a soldier, and who became a fencing instructor at the Cercle d'escrime de Sèvres. His father introduced him to fencing, but Gigot was rather eclectic, also practicing athletics and football.


      Playing career


      Gigot began his football career at Club Français in 1904, aged 19, where he played for only one season, before moving to Stade Français. He was a fast winger, whose game was limited to "going down" the field, as they used to say at full speed along the touchline, and to cross at the end of the run, which was the norm at the time. In April 1904, A.S.S. requested the postponement of his third series class match against P.A.C. because of the absence of Gigot, who playing for the Club Français, so the commission of the Paris committee of the USFSA decided could not take part in the postponed match either; Ignoring this, however, the A.S.S. called Gigot for help, and as a result, the club was hit with a one-month suspension.
      On 7 May 1905, just four days before his 20th birthday, Gigot earned his first (and only) international cap for France in a friendly match against Belgium in Brussels, which ended in a resounding 0–7 loss. Interestingly, he won this selection with a game of musical chairs: Pierre Allemane had failed to get permission to go to Brussels, so it was Marius Royet who took his position of center half, and in turn, Louis Mesnier gave up his place on the wing to play inter, thus allowing Gigot to came in on the right. However, Gigot was rather clumsy, and therefore, in France's next match against the Belgians in 1906, he was only a substitute, and it was another Raymond, Jouve, who was lined up on the right, although he was not at all a winger.
      Two years, Gigot was selected as a reserve for the French B squad that was going to compete in the football tournament of the 1908 Olympic Games, but he ended up not traveling to London, thus avoiding France B's humiliating 0–9 loss to Denmark on 19 October. A week later, on 26 October, Gigot started in the final of the 1908 Coupe Manier at the Stade de Charentonneau, which ended in a 7–2 loss to Red Star.
      In November 1910, the journalists of L'Auto (the forerunner of L'Équipe) stated that the 25-year-old "Gigot has lost a little of his value, but he still has a good burst of speed and a serious shot". In 1911, Gigot started in Club Français' opening match of the season against FC Rouen. On 14 April 1912, Gigot started in the final of the Coupe Dewar in 1912 at Colombes, in which he and Lepage "were the source of great runs"; Français lost 1–3 to Racing Club de France.
      On one occasion, Gigot refused a selection for the Paris football team in a friendly against a London XI, to play an obscure game in Reims with the Club Français.


      Later life and death


      During the First World War, Gigot was sent to the Western Front, where he was placed in the sector of Neuville-Saint-Vaast, just like his fellow one-time international André Puget, whom he had faced on numerous occasions in the USFSA Paris championship. They did not belong to the same regiment, but they might have crossed paths in the trenches, and while Puget died in May 1915, during the initial assault on the German "Labyrinth" stronghold, located near Neuville-Saint-Vaast, Gigot died on 25 September 1915, during another assault on that same stronghold.
      As a good son of a soldier, Gigot was a drill sergeant in Bernay, and it was reported on 6 July that he was going to the front with the recruits he had trained, and who were launched in the last, victorious, assault against the famous Labyrinth. His body was never found, which means that he was hit head-on by a shell, and the death was thus not officially registered in Sèvres until October 1918.


      Honours


      Club Français
      Coupe Manier:
      Runner-up (1): 1908
      Dewar Cup:
      Runner-up (1): 1912


      References

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