A back room in a bar called the Horse Shoe located on the Rue Copernic in the 8th Arrondissement was the birth place of Standard Athletic Club, an English speaking, Paris-based British sports and social club which was the most dominating force in the early days of French football.  It was the middle of the Belle Époque (Beautiful Era), a period of Western European history characterised by peace, optimism and prosperity as well as many cultural, scientific and technological innovations.

 

The clubs heyday saw the construction of the Eiffel Tower (which some of the clubs founding members helped construct), the opening of the Paris Metro, the completion of the Paris Opera, the 1900 Universal Exposition, and the 1900 Paris Olympics, in which the club’s players represented France against England in the only Olympic cricket game to ever take place. Amusingly, neither team realised that they had competed in the Olympic Games, believing that the match was played as part of the Exposition. But back to football.

 

Standard Athletics first great achievement came on the 6th of May 1894 when, with the odds stacked against them, they won a momentous final  in Courbevoie by two goals to nil against White Rovers to become the first ever football champions of France. The trophy from this game, which was actually a replay following a draw between the two clubs two weeks prior, remains in the clubs cabinet to this day. The next seven years ushered in a period of glory for the club, as they won the French championship four more times, in 1895, 1897, 1898 and 1901. In 1902, RC Roubaix overtook control of the league, becoming the first club to win three championships in a row. In the following years, the league winners rotated between clubs from the south and north of France, and Standard Athletic were never able to replicate their own Belle Époque. Today, amateur British expat footballers continue to turn out on cold Sunday mornings to represent Standard Athletic Club, following in the footsteps of this great, turn of the century team – one of the founders of football in France.

Achievements: French Football Championships – Champions x5