Georges Garnier

Early career

Club Français joined the USFSA in March 1894, and on 22 April of the same year, the 15-year-old Garnier played on the left wing in the semifinal of the inaugural USFSA championship, which ended in a 0–1 loss to The White Rovers. Together with Lucien Huteau, Marcel Lambert, Gaston Peltier, and captain Eugène Fraysse, Garnier was a starter in the Club Français team that won the 1896 USFSA Football Championship, doing so without losing a single match, and with Garnier netting 6 goals. On 3 April 1898, he started in the final of the 1898 USFSA Football Championship against Standard AC at Courbevoie, which ended in a 2–3 loss. In the following year, on 16 April 1899, he started in the play-off match against Standard AC to decide the 1898–99 USFSA Paris Championship, scoring once in an eventual 3–2 win. This victory qualified the club to the 1899 USFSA national championship, in which Club Français withdrew from the final before facing Le Havre AC. Later that year, on 23 October, he started in the 1899 Coupe Manier final at Suresnes, helping his side to a 6–0 win over RC Roubaix.

1899–1900 season

Together with Lambert, Peltier, and Fernand Canelle, Garnier was a member of the Club Français team that won the 1899–1900 USFSA Paris championship. On 29 April 1900, Garnier sustained an injury during the 1900 Challenge International du Nord final against Le Havre AC, so he changed to the position of goalkeeper, conceding a goal in extra-time in a 2–3 loss.…

Unofficial appearances

Garnier was listed as a forward for the USFSA team at the 1900 Olympic Games. He was selected for both matches, which ended in a 0–4 loss to Upton Park on 20 September, and in a 6–2 victory over Belgium, which was mostly made up of students from the French-speaking Université libre de Bruxelles. The French team came second and Garnier was thus awarded with a silver medal.

In 1903 and 1904, Garnier played three unofficial matches for France, namely against Corinthian (4–11), as well as Southampton twice (0–11, and 1–6), which was already a professional team at the time; he even scored a consolation goal against Corinthians at the Parc des Princes. The scale of the defeats did not ruin the enthusiasm, because the French then had the modesty to consider themselves as pupils of their British masters. On 7 March 1905, he played for a France XI (USFSA) in a friendly match against a London League XI, which ended in a 1–3 loss.

Official appearances

On 1 May 1904, Garnier was one of the eleven footballers who played in France's first-ever official match, a friendly cup match against Belgium at the Stade du Vivier d'Oie, providing an assist to Gaston Cyprès's 87th-minute equalizer to salvage a 3–3 draw. Aged 26, he was the oldest player in the French team, because at that time the practice of football concerned young people and often stopped with marriage, so he remains the earlier born player to have ever played for the Blues. He earned his…

Garnier was a member of Racing Club de France (athletics), being a French champion in the 400 metres in 1895 and the 800 metres in 1897, and winning the first edition of the Prix de France 1896 (200 metres flat of the RCF). His brother André, also from the RCF, was French champion of the 100 meters in 1896 and vice-champion in 1897, as well as vice-champion of the 400 meters that year. They should not be confused with a Garnier of US Le Mans, active between 1903 and 1906 in the 400 meters hurdles, 110 meters hurdles, as well as in the pole vault.

Georges Garnier was born in the 6th arrondissement of Paris on 14 May 1878, as the son of a baker, and together with the Huteau brothers and Fernand Canelle, he was a member of the small group of middle school students from the Lycée Chaptal who, in 1893, founded an unofficial club called the Etoile Sportive Parisiennne, which played on the pitch at the Château de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne, and which was soon absorbed by Club Français, so called because it did not include any English players.