Henri Sellier

André Louis Sellier (26 October 1890 – 10 March 1920) was a French footballer who played as a forward for Étoile des Deux Lacs and the French national team between 1906 and 1910.

Club career Born in the 16th arrondissement of Paris on 26 October 1890, (Some sources wrongly state that he was born in 1889.) He lived on rue de la Faisanderie, in the 16th arrondissement, barely 300 meters from the parish church of Saint Honoré d'Eylau, where the Étoile club was based.

Sellier was a member of the Étoile team that won the FGSPF Football Championship in 1907, and this victory allowed the club to compete in the inaugural edition of the Trophée de France in 1907, an inter-federation national competition organized by the CFI, which had just been founded by Simon. In the day after Wanstead, on 29 March, he started for the CFI's Paris selection against the prestigious English club Bishop Auckland, winner of 3 FA amateur Cups, helping his side to an impressive 1–0 win.

International career These performances did not go unnoticed by the CFI, which pre-selected him as a substitute for a friendly against England amateurs on 16 April 1910, but he ended up not traveling to Brighton.

In 1911, Sellier was replaced at Étoile by the younger Ernest Gravier and Jules Verbrugge, and he thus completely disappeared from the press with no further explanation since no one was interested in Sellier. There, a fall from a horse on 1 September 1917, while on "commanded service", caused a skull fracture that left him with after-effects, such as deafness in one ear, dizziness, and headaches. He was kept in the auxiliary services following his accident as Secretary of Staff and then as a worker in aviation.

Sellier died in Houilles on 10 March 1920, at the age of just 29, most likely from the after-effects of his skull fracture.

Legacy Like many French internationals from the start of the 20th century, Sellier was the victim of mistakes by historians, being initially given the first name Henri in the 1972 federal directory, an error that persisted until the 21st century, even appearing in the Equipe de France de Football, l'Intégrale des 497 rencontres ("French Football Team, All 497 Matches"), a book published by the FFF in 1991. It was not until 2022 that the French football historian Pierre Cazal found the initial A as his first name on several occasions in the French press of the time, and thus, following a quick glance at the digitized military records of conscripts, André Sellier was found.

Honours Étoile des Deux Lacs FGSPF Football Championship: 1906–07 Trophée de France: 1907