Rammies at rugby matches are relatively rare but the level of crowd violence for the Olympic Games final in Paris in 1924 effectively killed off rugby as an Olympic sport.
The match at Colombes stadium ended in carnage with the USA winning 17-3 against the favourites, France. Fighting broke among spectators, rocks and bottles were thrown on to the field. A steady flow of injured onlookers were stretchered from the stands.
French fans invaded the pitch at the end and police had to escort the American team away.
It didn’t receive much press coverage, partly because it was it was a bit of a rubbish tournament – only three teams took part – Romania being the third. The Westminster Gazette merely noted: “The game was a very rough one and there were several free fights in the grandstand.”
Nor did the newsreels turn their cameras to the violence on the terraces.
The American team was Californian, mostly made up of players from Stanford University. They had been schooled in American football and its tough tackling.
Things didn’t go well from the start with alterations with immigration officials on their arrival. Thieves made off with kit and money when the team was practising and they were booed from outset in their first game against Romania
In the first half of the final, France’s key player Adolphe Jauréguy was stretchered off unconscious and a team-mate later went off with a dislocated knee. It got much worse as kicks and punches were freely exchanged on the pitch and in the stands.
So much for the Olympic spirit. Rugby was dropped from the 1928 Amsterdam Games which retained safer pursuits such as drawing and town planning.
Curiously, the 1928 Olympic drawing medal went to Jean Jacoby for a rugby sketch:
And the gold medal for town planning was awarded to Alfred Hensel for his parkland vision for Nuremburg which later hosted Hitler’s Nazi rallies.
France and America eventually kissed and made up. Rugby Sevens is now an Olympic sport. In contrast to the rough game of rugby, the USA’s 1924 Olympic soccer team came over as perfect gentlemen going on to play the Irish Free State in Dublin.
As well as limited coverage of the Colombes final, British newspapers did report on other events.
The London Daily Chronicle reported: “EH Liddell, the British sprint and furlong champion has definitely given up Rugby football, and unless he changes his mind Scotland will be much the poorer. He is back from America, and tells me that he has benefitted a great deal from the trip”
The Athletic News noted his decision not to take part in the 100 metres because the heats were being held on the Sabbath.
A dip into the British Newspaper Archive just shows what a busy news day May 19 1924 was for rugby. The Sportsman also recorded the beginnings of Murrayfield:
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