Fernand Desrousseaux

Refereeing career

In 1900, Desrousseaux took the exam to become an official referee, which he passed. He refereed several matches, most notably the final of the 1905 Challenge International du Nord, which was won by the Belgian champions Union Saint-Gilloise. On 9 May 1907, Desrousseaux refereed that year's Paris-Nord meeting, which served as an annual test matches for the French national team.

Playing career

In the first and second leg matches of the 1900 Northern Championship final, Desrousseaux appeared as full-back, but since his brother Paul also played for the club at the time, it is not possible to confirm if that was Fernand. Having initially played in the positions of fullback and forward, it was in 1904 that Desrousseaux took up the position of goalkeeper. Despite having no specific training for such position, he did well, probably because of his corpulence and great height (1.76 meters, or 13 cm more than the average height at the time); he soon became the club's captain as well. In 1905, he was selected as the goalkeeper of Northern France for the very first Paris-Nord match, an annual test match for the French national team, but the US Tourcoing players ended up not showing up on the day of the match. In the late 1900s, Desrousseaux was France's fourth or fifth choice behind the likes of Zacharie Baton, Maurice Tillette, André Renaux, and Henri Beau, but despite this, he was able to earn one international cap during the 1908 Olympic Games in…

Fernand Desrousseaux was born in Tourcoing on 23 October 1879. Just like his fellow future internationals Émile Sartorius, Adrien Filez, André François, and Gabriel Hanot, Desrousseaux was introduced to football at the Lycée de Tourcoing by an English teacher, Achille Beltette (1864–1932), with whom he co-founded a non-school club, the US Tourquennoise, in May 1898, along with Albert Fromentin, one of the supervisors of the same high school.

During the First World War, Desrousseaux, then secretary of the UST, was taken to Germany as a civilian prisoner, but returned to his homeland in 1915, and was then mobilized in a factory for war supplies. Desrousseaux died in Tourcoing on 26 August 1956, at the age of 76.

As a player

US Tourquennoise USFSA Football Northern Championship Champions (2): 1900 and 1909

As a manager

US Tourquennoise USFSA Football Championship: Champions (1): 1910