Albert Jouve

Raymond Marius Jean Jouve (10 February 1886 – unknown) was a French footballer who played as a winger and defender for Gallia Club and the French national team in the first decade of the 20th century. He later worked as a referee.

Early life Raymond Jouve was born on 10 February 1886 in the Hérault city of Cette (currently known as Sète), to a father who worked at the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway line (PLM). On 27 October 1902, he started in the opening match of the Paris championship's top series against Racing Club de France; in its preview, the journalists of La Presse stated that "two players stand out clearly from the lot, Jouve at the front and Nicolet at the back, the others are ordinary".

In December 1902, the 16-year-old Jouve scored a hat-trick against Paris Star, and a brace against Levallois in April 1903, thus being quickly labeled as a goalscorer.

In March 1904, Jouve refereed a match between the second teams of RC France and United SC, which ended in a 3–1 win to the former; both sides found his performance "satisfactory".

National and international success In 1905, Gallia Club won the USFSA Paris championship, and this victory qualified the club for the USFSA national championship; in the semifinals against Amiens in Toulouse on 9 April, Jouve was involved in each of the five goals scored by his team, opening the score with a header, followed by a shot from twenty meters away, and one assist in the first half, plus two more goals in the second. In the final against RC Roubaix at the Parc des Princes on 16 April, Jouve scored the only goal of the match with a header in the fifth period of extra-time, after nearly two and a half hours played, thus contributing decisively to his team's triumph.

On 26 October 1905, Jouve started for Gallia, the newly-crowned champions of France, in a prestigious international friendly match against the champions of Spain, Madrid FC (currently known as Real Madrid), who were playing their first-ever international match that day.

Two weeks later, in May 1906, Jouve was unable to take part in the final of the Coupe Dewar in 1906 because he was detained by his duties as a security guard during that year's general election. In October 1906, Ernest Weber, the star journalist of the French newspaper L'Auto (the forerunner of L'Équipe), stated that his change of positions from center-forward to center-half improved the Gallia team because it forced him to abandon his personal game, adding that after "realizing that he can no longer shine with a particular brilliance, he will become the perfect player he believes himself to be".

Later career On 18 April 1909, Jouve, now a full-back, started in the final of the Coupe Dewar in 1909 at Stade de Charentonneau, helping his side to keep a clean-sheet in a 5–0 win over AS Française. On 8 May 1910, he started in the final of the 1910 Coupe Dewar, again as a full-back alongside Emile Fontaine, and Jouve "had some good moments, but he made, just like Verlet, some big mistakes" in an eventual 1–3 loss to CA Paris. He was still a full-back in Gallia as late as May 1911, aged 25.

International career

Later life and death A railway employee like his father, Jouve was assigned to the PLM during the First World War because the continuity of railway services was essential; therefore, he escaped the carnage that killed so many French internationals.

The date of his death is unknown, as it cannot be found either on his birth certificate or in the INSEE registers.

Legacy Like many French internationals from the start of the 20th century, Jouve was the victim of mistakes by historians, being initially given the first name Albert, until further research found the initial R as his first name, at the French press of the time, on several occasions. In the 1986–87 season, the FFF directory referred to him as René, but eventually the name "Raymond Jouvé" was discovered in a report of the 1905 match between Gallia Club and Real Madrid made by Spanish magazine Marca.

Honours Gallia Club USFSA Paris Championship: Champions (1): 1904–05 USFSA Football Championship: Champions (1): 1905 Coupe Manier: Champions (1): 1903 Coupe Dewar: Champions (1): 1909 Runner-up (2): 1906 and 1910