A Happy Black Country Day all
https://twitter.com/WFCOfficial/status/1282978144224456704?s=20
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⊠and a happy Bastille Day! What would we give for another Jean-François Peron?
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Jeff Peron⊠what a player!!!
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Great player, have we had any other good Frenchmen? I thought Boli but he was Ivorian. Bossu wasnât exactly good and thatâs me all out of French Saddlers!
Didier Tholot?
Biancalani
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There was Jean Jacques Eydelie (same time as Tholot I think), also known as Jean Jacques Idlegit.
Pierre Essers sounded a French name but I think he was actually Flemish or a Walloon or something.
Was Regis Gerrault French?
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Found a site listing clubs and players by nationality, and according to that these are our French Foreign Legion:
Samassi Abou
Frédéric Biancalani
Roger Boli
Bertrand Bossu
Jean-Jacques Eydelie
Claude Gnakpa
Jean-Phillipe Javary
Mathieu Manset
Jean-François Péron
Ludovic Pollet
Eric Skora
Didier Tholot
Sofiane Zaaboub
Matthew Mansett has to be the pick of the bunch
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Apparently Essers was Dutch. Canât find any mention of Regis Gerrault?
His name sounds French. I donât think he played a League game though, iirc his career was a start in that classic win over Brizzle Rovers by penalties in the Autoglass and then a sub appearance in a miserable F A Cup defeat at Deepdale. And then he disappearedâŠ
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With a name like Rene (âListen carefully, I will say zis only onceâ) youâd expect Gilmartin to be at least part French.
Didnât leave an impression on me at all.
Curly blond hair, smallish, left winger. Iâm pretty sure those were his only two games, and Iâm not sure how long he played at PNE, I know he came on at some point, maybe only for a few minutes.
Looks like about a 30% success rate on French imports . We did find a few gems in peron and boli though. Even if as the rumour goes boli seemed to think he was signing for a team in a league higher.
Did you know that the first-ever French footballer to play in the English Football League was EugĂšne Langenove, for Walsall in 1922? Fame for the Saddlers!
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Thatâs a heck of a fact @Pedagogue . What a pub quiz question that would be.
According to Google images, this is the man:
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Do we need to retitle this thread to âFiertĂ© du pays noirâ?
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To tie these posts together, I recall, many years ago, a university did a study (why? I donât know) about which British regional accents the French most liked. To much sneering, incredulity and guffawing from the London media, the Black Country accent came out top!
Perhaps thatâs not so strange if you think that the Black Country became home to large numbers of French men and women here in the 17th Century, who arrived, amongst other things to start the glass industry. Methinks thatâs why they say âbonkâ (banque) in Gornal, rather than bank!
Anyway all of this goes to prove that Bescot was the natural home for Andyâs list of Frenchies who have worn the red. As you say, itâs the Saddlers LĂ©gion Ă©trangĂšre (which means, I think, two pints of Bathamâs, landlord)
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Many French Huguenots fled to Britain to escape Catholic persecution in the 17th century. Many would have settled in the Black Country.
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