Agence Rol · Paris · 1920–1927
The Continent
Paris between the wars, on glass. The Agence Rol photographers worked the Bergeyre, the Pershing, Colombes and the Buffalo every Sunday for a decade, and the plates survive at a resolution nothing else from this period comes close to. The game had left Britain; here is where it went.
The pieces in The Continent
Agence Rol · 1908
The Bordeaux Ground, 1908
The earliest surviving Rol plate of the French game — a provincial ground before the crowds arrived.
Everything starts on a field with a rope round it.
Agence Rol · 1920
Lisbon and Barcelona in Paris, Boxing Day 1920
A Portuguese club against a Catalan one, in France, two days after Christmas — the game already stateless.
The rules travelled faster than anything else Britain exported.
Agence Rol · 1921
An English Club in Paris, May 1921
A London side lines up at the Bergeyre — the missionary fixture, photographed at last.
Football was taught by demonstration, on tour, in the spring.
Agence Rol · 1921
Glasgow at Colombes, May 1921
A Scottish side against a Paris one — the Scots brought the passing game and everyone copied it.
What the Continent learned, it learned in a Scottish accent.
Agence Rol · 1922
Kraków v. Geneva, New Year’s Eve 1922
A Polish club against a Swiss one at Saint-Ouen, on the last day of the year.
The fixture list organised Europe before the treaties did.
Agence Rol · 1923
France v. Switzerland, April 1923
The neighbours’ international at the Pershing — the fixture that taught France the modern game.
The rivalry that improves you is the one you play every year.
Agence Rol · 1923
Turin at the Bergeyre, May 1923
An Italian club in Paris — calcio arriving as a visiting professional standard.
Nothing improves a league like a visitor who is plainly better.
Agence Rol · 1925
France v. Uruguay, March 1925
The Olympic champions come back to Paris — and the crowd came to see how it was done.
Uruguay did not join European football. It corrected it.
Agence Rol · 1925
France v. Brazil, March 1925
Brazil in Paris, four days before Uruguay — South America arriving twice in one week.
Two Sundays in March, and the centre of gravity moved.
Agence Rol · 1926
The Armies at the Buffalo, March 1926
A French army side against a British one, eight years after the guns — football as the safe rematch.
Some rematches are arranged precisely so that nothing is at stake.
Agence Rol · 1926
France v. Yugoslavia, June 1926
A country seven years old plays an international at Colombes.
The century decided that nations come with an eleven.
Agence Rol · 1927
France v. Italy, April 1927
The last of the Rol football plates — the neighbours, at Colombes, in the year everything got serious.
The photograph is ordinary. That it survives is not.