Match Summary

France Team

England Team

PARIS, MAY 9.

The English International football team began their Continental tour with a fairly easy victory over France at the Colombes Stadium to-day by four goals to one. Ascension Day, being a general holiday in France, a large crowd of about 25,000 persons was present to witness a game that was in some respects a little disappointing. With one exception the English team was composed of professional players, and the French have come to look upon this match as their annual lesson in football, but they could not have learned very much from the form shown by England to-day...

England opened the scoring within five minutes of half-time. Adcock was well down when he passed in, and Kail neatly placed the ball into the corner of the net...

France went off with a burst of speed on the restart, and their efforts were rewarded in the first five minutes with a magnificent goal. Gallay on the extreme left put in a high pass towards the goal, and Devaquez, the right-winger, ran in to head the ball into the net from about 10 yards out. This seemed to brace the English side, and in a few moments Camsell shook off the French backs and put them ahead again with a low shot...

The third goal scored by England put the result beyond doubt. Kail gathered up a pass from the right and put in a terrific shot from about 25 yards out, but the ball rebounded at a tangent from underneath the crossbar into the goalkeeper's hands. The referee immediately gave a goal, but the roar of protest that arose from the spectators was evidence that his decision was not at all popular. The French captain also protested, but the linesman supported the referee, and the goal was allowed...

Shortly before the end Camsell again scored from a pass by Adcock. - The Times - Friday 10th May, 1929

IN OTHER NEWS...

It was on 9 May 1929 that a Croydon housekeeper was cross-examined throughout the day at the inquest into the mysterious case of the mother and daughter, Violet and Vera Sidney, who had apparently both died from "natural causes", within three weeks of each other, just under a year after the mother's son-in-law had died under very similar circumstances. Only when the bodies were exhumed was it discovered that they had all been poisoned with arsenic. The inquest found that the housekeeper had served soup to Vera that had made her ill, but she herself was also ill from the soup, as was the family cat. No one has ever been charged for the murders. Violet's other daughter, Grace, the widow of the first victim, was strongly suspected by the police as being responsible for all three deaths, but they could never gather enough evidence to support a prosecution and she died, aged 86, in 1973.

Source Notes

Alex Villaplane would go on to become France's first Captain at the World Cup Finals. But more notoriously, he would be caught up in the conflicts of WWII, becoming a leading member of the French Gestapo, eventually being shot as a traitor on 26 December 1944 for heinous crimes against his own people.

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