Albert Camus

I'm sure you're all aware that Albert Camus was a goalkeeper in his youth, and have probably heard him (mis)quoted on the subject of football and morality ad nauseam. Years ago, I encountered the article from which that quote derived (taken from a 1957 issue of France Football) in a football compendium and typed it up. It's a warm and sentimental piece which contrasts with the tenor of much of his oeuvre.

What I Owe to Football - Albert Camus

Yes, I played for several years at the University of Algiers. It seems to me like yesterday, But when, in 1940, I put on my boots again, I realized that it was not yesterday. Before the end of the first half, my tongue was hanging out like those kabyles dogs that ones comes across at two o'clock in the afternoon, at Tizi-Ouzou. It was a long while ago, then, from 1928 onwards, I believe. I made my debut with Montpensier sports club. God knows why, since I lived at Belcourt, and the Belcourt-Mustapha team is Gallia-Sports. But I had a friend, a shaggy fellow, who swam in the port with me and played water polo for Montpensier. That's how one's life is determined. Montpensier often played at the Manoeuvre Grounds, for no apparent reason. The ground was bumpier than the shin of a visiting centre-forward at the Alenda Stadium, Oran. I quickly learned that the ball never came to you where you expected it. This helped me in life, above all in the metropolis, where people are not always straightforward. But after a year of bumps and Montpensier, they made me ashamed of myself at the lycee: a "university man" ought to play for Algiers University, R.U.A. At this period, the shaggy fellow had gone out of my life. We hadn't quarrelled, it was merely that he now went swimming at Padovani, where the water was not pure. Nor, frankly, were his motives. Personally, I found his motive charming, but she danced badly, which seemed to me insupportable in a woman. It's the man, is it not, who should tread on the toes? The shaggy fellow and I had merely promised to see each other again. But years have gone by. Much later, I frequented the Padovani restaurant (for pure motives) but the shaggy fellow had married his paralytic, who must have forbidden him to bathe, as is the usual practice.

Where was I? Yes, R.U.A. I was very pleased, the important thing for me being to play. I fretted with impatience from Sunday to Thursday, for training day, and from Thursday to Sunday, match day. So I joined the university men. And there I was, goalkeeper of the junior team. Yes, it all seemed quite easy. But I didn't know that I had just established a bond which would endure for years, embracing every stadium in the Department, and which would never come to an end. I did not know then that twenty years later, in the streets of Paris or even Buenos Aires (yes, it happened to me) the words R.U.A. spoken by a friend would make my heart beat again as foolishly as could be. And since I am giving away secrets, I can admit that in Paris, for instance, I go to watch the matches of the Racing Club de Paris, whom I have made my favourites solely because they wear the same jerseys as R.U.A., blue and white hoops. I must say, too, that Racing has some of the same eccentricities as R.U.A. It plays "scientifically", as we say, and scientifically loses matches it should win. It seems that this has changed (so they write to me from Algiers) so far at least as R.U.A. are concerned. It needed to change - but not too much. After all, that was why I love my team so much, not only for the joy of victory, so wonderful when it is combined with the weariness that follows exertion, but also for the stupid desire to cry on evenings when we had lost.

At full-back I had The Big Fellow - I mean Raymond Couard. He had a tough time of it, if I remember correctly. We used to play hard. Students, their fathers' sons, don't spare themselves. Poor us, in every sense, a good half of us mown down like corn! We had to face up to it. And we had to play "sportingly", because that was the golden rule of the R.U.A., and "strongly", because, when all is said and done, a man is a man. Difficult compromise! This cannot have changed, I am sure. The hardest team was Olympic Hussein Dey. The stadium is beside the cemetery. They made us realize, without mercy, that there was direct access. As for me, poor goalkeeper, they went for my body. Without Roger, I would have suffered. There was Boufarik, too, that great big centre-forward (among ourselves we called him Watermelon) who always came down with all his weight, right on my kidneys, without counting the cost: shin-massage with football boots, shirt pulled back by the hand, knees in the distinguished parts, sandwiches against the post...in brief, a scourge. And every time, Watermelon apologized with a "Sorry, son" and a Franciscan smile.

I shall stop. I have already exceeded the limits set for me. And then, I am softening. There was good even in Watermelon. Besides, let us be frank, we paid him back. But without cheating, as this was the way we were taught. And at this point, I no longer want to go on jesting. For, after many years in which the world has afforded me many experiences, what I most surely know in the long run about morality and the obligations of men, I owe to sport. I learned it with R.U.A. That, in short, is why the R.U.A. cannot die. Let us preserve it. Let us preserve this great and good image of our youth. It will keep watch over yours, as well.