Georges de Regibus
Encyclopedia
Georges de Regibus (14 August 1867–7 November 1927) was a Swiss
athlete and sports teacher credited with introducing association football
to Bulgaria
in 1894.
, a commune in the canton
of Vaud
, part of French-speaking Switzerland. His father, Pierre de Regibus, was a descendant of an Italian
family originally from Bologna
. In 1889, de Regibus moved to Yverdon-les-Bains
with his mother. In that city, he worked as a locksmith at the Jura–Simplon Railway
carriage repair works while his mother earned money by selling chestnuts. In Yverdon, de Regibus got to be involved in various sports, most notably gymnastics
, boxing
and association football, and he soon received a federal gymnastics instructor's diploma. An acquaintance of de Regibus who played for Grasshoppers remembered him as a "quality goalkeeper". De Regibus' physique made him a suitable sportsman: of middle height, he had a very wide chest and appeared strong and thickset.
Georges de Regibus arrived in the Principality of Bulgaria
in 1894. He came to that country along with nine other Swiss gymnastics teachers as part of a delegation of the Fédération suisse de gymnastique
. The Swiss teachers had been invited during Bulgarian Minister of Education Georgi Zhivkov's visit to Lausanne
in 1893 in order to familiarize Bulgarian people with formal physical education
and organized sports. Other notable Swiss among these sports teachers were Charles Champaud
, a teacher in Sofia
regarded as the first person to represent Bulgaria
at the Olympic Games
(at the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics
), and Louis-Emil Eyer
(1865–1919), a Bulgarophile who died as a Bulgarian Army soldier in World War I
.
De Regibus was appointed as a teacher by the Varna
High School for Boys on 13 May 1894. Having brought his personal leather football to Varna, he introduced football to his pupils of several different grades, which marked the first time that sport was practised in the country. This happened in the high school yard over a few days near the end of the 1893–94 school year, i.e. in late spring or early summer of 1894. De Regibus established football as a regular extracurricular activity
, which was met with enthusiastic support by the pupils.
The Swiss teacher would pick out groups of 10–12 strong runners from two school classes and organize a football game between them. In the memories of Economic Life magazine editor and pupil Nikola Konstantinov, the earliest matches were contested between the 6th and 7th grades of the high school. He recalled that the leader and captain of the 7th grade team was Vasil Kolarov
from Shumen
who went on to become one of Bulgaria's chief communist
politicians and Prime Minister of Bulgaria (1949–1950). While the first matches took place in the high school yard, later games were organized at various places in the fields around Varna, including an improvised pitch by the Black Sea
coast where the Sea Garden
was built a few years later. De Regibus was normally the referee of these school matches, though according to pupil and later professor Petar Petkov he would often join the game doubling as a player.
De Regibus remained in Bulgaria until 12 July 1896, when his two-year teacher's contract expired. Upon returning to Switzerland in 1896, he opened a café
in Treycovagnes
and then another one in Yverdon. After that, he spent nearly two decades as a sports teacher in Egypt
, though towards the end of World War I
(1914–1918) he returned to Switzerland once more and settled in Lausanne. Georges de Regibus died in that city in late 1927; he was survived by his wife Louise who perished in 1941. The ashes of the two were placed in a common urn in the Lausanne crematory
's chapel.
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
athlete and sports teacher credited with introducing association football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
to Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
in 1894.
Biography
De Regibus was born in ÉpalingesEpalinges
Epalinges is a municipality in the district of Lausanne in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is a suburb of the city of Lausanne.-Geography:...
, a commune in the canton
Cantons of Switzerland
The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the federal state of Switzerland. Each canton was a fully sovereign state with its own borders, army and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848...
of Vaud
Vaud
Vaud is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and is located in Romandy, the French-speaking southwestern part of the country. The capital is Lausanne. The name of the Canton in Switzerland's other languages are Vaud in Italian , Waadt in German , and Vad in Romansh.-History:Along the lakes,...
, part of French-speaking Switzerland. His father, Pierre de Regibus, was a descendant of an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
family originally from Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
. In 1889, de Regibus moved to Yverdon-les-Bains
Yverdon-les-Bains
Yverdon-les-Bains is a municipality in the district of Jura-Nord vaudois of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is the seat of the district...
with his mother. In that city, he worked as a locksmith at the Jura–Simplon Railway
Jura–Simplon Railway
The Jura–Simplon Railway , was a former Swiss rail company, formed in 1890 and absorbed into the Swiss Federal Railways in 1903.-History:...
carriage repair works while his mother earned money by selling chestnuts. In Yverdon, de Regibus got to be involved in various sports, most notably gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
, boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
and association football, and he soon received a federal gymnastics instructor's diploma. An acquaintance of de Regibus who played for Grasshoppers remembered him as a "quality goalkeeper". De Regibus' physique made him a suitable sportsman: of middle height, he had a very wide chest and appeared strong and thickset.
Georges de Regibus arrived in the Principality of Bulgaria
Principality of Bulgaria
The Principality of Bulgaria was a self-governing entity created as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The preliminary treaty of San Stefano between the Russian Empire and the Porte , on March 3, had originally proposed a significantly larger Bulgarian territory: its...
in 1894. He came to that country along with nine other Swiss gymnastics teachers as part of a delegation of the Fédération suisse de gymnastique
Fédération suisse de gymnastique
The Swiss Gymnastics Association is the governing body of gymnastics in Switzerland. Based in Aarau, it is a member of the Swiss Olympic Association....
. The Swiss teachers had been invited during Bulgarian Minister of Education Georgi Zhivkov's visit to Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
in 1893 in order to familiarize Bulgarian people with formal physical education
Physical education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
and organized sports. Other notable Swiss among these sports teachers were Charles Champaud
Charles Champaud
Charles Champaud , Bulgarianized Charles Shampov , was a Swiss gymnast. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens.Champaud competed in the parallel bars, vault, and pommel horse events...
, a teacher in Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
regarded as the first person to represent Bulgaria
Bulgaria at the Olympics
Bulgaria first participated at the Olympic Games at the inaugural 1896 Games, with a single gymnast. However, since Charles Champaud was a Swiss national living in Sofia, some sources credit his appearance to Switzerland instead....
at the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
(at the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics
1896 Summer Olympics
The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, was a multi-sport event celebrated in Athens, Greece, from April 6 to April 15, 1896. It was the first international Olympic Games held in the Modern era...
), and Louis-Emil Eyer
Louis-Emil Eyer
Louis-Emil Eyer was a Swiss-Bulgarian sports pedagogue and public figure regarded as the founder of the sports movement in Bulgaria....
(1865–1919), a Bulgarophile who died as a Bulgarian Army soldier in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
De Regibus was appointed as a teacher by the Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...
High School for Boys on 13 May 1894. Having brought his personal leather football to Varna, he introduced football to his pupils of several different grades, which marked the first time that sport was practised in the country. This happened in the high school yard over a few days near the end of the 1893–94 school year, i.e. in late spring or early summer of 1894. De Regibus established football as a regular extracurricular activity
Extracurricular activity
Extracurricular activities are activities performed by students that fall outside the realm of the normal curriculum of school or university education...
, which was met with enthusiastic support by the pupils.
The Swiss teacher would pick out groups of 10–12 strong runners from two school classes and organize a football game between them. In the memories of Economic Life magazine editor and pupil Nikola Konstantinov, the earliest matches were contested between the 6th and 7th grades of the high school. He recalled that the leader and captain of the 7th grade team was Vasil Kolarov
Vasil Kolarov
Vasil Petrov Kolarov was a Bulgarian communist political leader and leading functionary in the Communist International.-Early years:Kolarov was born in Shumen, Bulgaria on 16 July 1877, the son of a shoemaker...
from Shumen
Shumen
Shumen is the tenth-largest city in Bulgaria and capital of Shumen Province. In the period 1950–1965 it was called Kolarovgrad, after the name of the communist leader Vasil Kolarov...
who went on to become one of Bulgaria's chief communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
politicians and Prime Minister of Bulgaria (1949–1950). While the first matches took place in the high school yard, later games were organized at various places in the fields around Varna, including an improvised pitch by the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
coast where the Sea Garden
Sea Garden (Varna)
The Sea Garden is the Bulgarian port city of Varna's largest, oldest and best known public park, also said to be the largest landscaped park in the Balkans...
was built a few years later. De Regibus was normally the referee of these school matches, though according to pupil and later professor Petar Petkov he would often join the game doubling as a player.
De Regibus remained in Bulgaria until 12 July 1896, when his two-year teacher's contract expired. Upon returning to Switzerland in 1896, he opened a café
Café
A café , also spelled cafe, in most countries refers to an establishment which focuses on serving coffee, like an American coffeehouse. In the United States, it may refer to an informal restaurant, offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches...
in Treycovagnes
Treycovagnes
Treycovagnes is a municipality in the district of Jura-Nord Vaudois of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.-Geography:Treycovagnes has an area, , of . Of this area, or 82.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 2.4% is forested...
and then another one in Yverdon. After that, he spent nearly two decades as a sports teacher in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, though towards the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
(1914–1918) he returned to Switzerland once more and settled in Lausanne. Georges de Regibus died in that city in late 1927; he was survived by his wife Louise who perished in 1941. The ashes of the two were placed in a common urn in the Lausanne crematory
Crematory
A crematory is a machine in which cremation takes place. Crematories are usually found in funeral homes, cemeteries, or in stand-alone facilities. A facility which houses the actual cremator units is referred to as a crematorium.-History:Prior to the Industrial Revolution, any cremation which took...
's chapel.