French claims Cricket originally started from them. Just to remind you, Brits and French are like two educated Mother-in-Laws. :hehe: fighting over a meal.
**Not content to have the better football team and to snatch the Six Nations rugby crown from England last season - the French are now claiming to have invented cricket. **
Retired vicars slumbering in deckchairs around village grounds will awaken with a jolt and splutter into their teas when they hear the suggestion that the noble game has a distinctly Gallic accent.
But the thwack of leather against willow may never sound the same again after the claim from former president of the French Cricket Federation, Didier Marchois.
M Marchois says he has unearthed documents that show cricket was being played across the channel as early as the 13th century.
Off-duty soldiers apparently whiled away the hours before meeting a sticky end on the fields of Agincourt at the hands of the English bowmen with a quick 20-overs bash.
Other documents uncovered by M Marchois reveal that King Louis XI was asked to spare the life of a player who had unsportingly killed an opponent during a match in Calais in 1478.
And cricket was reputedly the favourite sport of The Sun King Louis XIV.
M Marchois also claims that the first recorded modern match is found in the archives of the Paris Cricket Club, dating back to 1864.
“Cricket was born in the north of France and taken across the channel by English soldiers who picked it up from us during truce periods in the Hundred Years War,” Marchois told the Sunday Express, with a twinkle in his eye.
**Only the French would have the gall to try and steal the most quintessentially English of sports. **
It was invented centuries ago in Europe, and since then there have been many wars in that part of the world, everything has changed.
I don't know if you know this but USA also played cricket against English county teams in the 19th century.
LONDON: A former president of the French cricket federation has revived claims that his country invented a sport widely regarded as the embodiment of Englishness.
Didier Marchois, who plays for Chauny, northern France, told Britain’s Sunday Express newspaper that medieval documents referred to matches near the battlefields of Crecy and Agincourt during the Hundred Years War.
“They leave no room for doubt,” Marchois said. “Cricket was born in the north of France and taken across the Channel by English soldiers who picked it up from us during truce periods in the Hundred Years War.”
Other evidence cited by proponents of cricket’s French origins is a 13th century manuscript from St Omer near Calais which purports to show a batsman defending his wicket. However, making a definite claim for the sport’s origins is a tricky business as so many cultures have created games which involve hitting a ball with a stick, a skill that is at the heart of cricket.
Meanwhile turning to the present Marchois, who was proud of the fact that France now boasted 50 cricket clubs, said he had a simple explanation for England’s defeat by arch-rivals Australia in the first Test in Brisbane earlier this month.
“British kids are soccer crazy and it has undermined your keenness for cricket,” he maintained. But Graeme Wright, the former editor of Wisden, cricket’s bible, said English cricket lovers could take heart from Marchois’ comments.
well ,it could be true!
but so what, French are now trying to become affilate members of ICC..
but when they do, imagne worldcu in Paris they will surely make some cool cool stadiums
cricket came from rounders, which has its roots in stoolball which had its roots in la soule in france back in 1300s.
Robert Henderson’s book actually goes back to link sports all the way back to Egypt and their introdcution to europe via mulims in spain..not sure if cricket is one of teh sports with those sorts of links but hey someone probably much before 1300s had discovered that throwing something and hitting it with a stick can be a lot of fun. gulli danda prolly came from such roots as well.
The man who finally debunked the Doubleday myth was Robert W Henderson. He was Head Librarian at the New York Racket Club, but his main area of interest was baseball. He proved baseball was once the same game as rounders by showing two texts side by side, one in 1829 in England describing rounders (The Boy’s Own Book), and another a few years later in America describing baseball (The Book of Sports). The rules are exactly the same. He also showed the utter implausibility of the Cooperstown myth by showing the contradictions of the Graves story. His argument was so compelling that even the traditionalists begin to see the truth of it. By this time, a half-century after Ward, it is possible that America was starting to feel a bit more secure about itself, and could accept foreign influence in its national pastime.
His book, Baseball and Rounders, was published in 1939, the year the Hall of Fame opened in Cooperstown. It must have rained heavily on their parade. Henderson kept up his research and in 1947 published Bat, Ball and Bishop - A History of Ball Games. It is a sweeping genealogy of ball games, starting with ancient Egypt, where they were connected with religious ceremonies. They were picked up by the Muslims after they conquered that land, and then entered Europe through Moorish Spain. From there the games moved into France, and were particularly connected with church rites during the Easter season (hence the “Bishop” part of the book’s title). From there they moved into Britain. He describes the medieval French game of la soule, and the British game of stoolball, first mentioned in 1330, which sprang from la soule and which he says is the parent of both cricket and baseball. Like Ward, he quotes Joseph Strutt, but comes up with a different conclusion
they will surely make some cool cool stadiums
