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 Portrait of Charles Mathon in 1930 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Born | 1 December 1905 Oyonnax, Ain, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 9 June 1944 (aged 38) Druillat, France | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Playing information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rugby union | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Position | Halfback | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Rugby league | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Position | Halfback | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Charles Mathon, (Oyonnax, 1 December 1905 – assassinated during World War II in Druillat, 9 June 1944), was a rugby union and an international rugby league player in the 1920s and 1930s.
Whilst growing up in Oyonnax, he discovered rugby union and played for C.S. Oyonnax. Over the next ten years, he was the scrum half of this club, alongside Captain Georges Ofidan. He settled into their half-backs with the latter from the age of 17 and took an active part in the success of the club which he led to integrate the elite of the French Rugby Union Championship at the end of the 1920s. He tried a single season at U.S. Bressane before returning to C.S. Oyonnax and closed his chapter in rugby union in 1934. Often cited in the preselections, he never won an international cap for the France team.
Approached by Jean Galia in March 1934, who launched the rugby league code in France, Charles Mathon denounced the fake amateurism that raged in the world of rugby union and which he himself was confronted with. He then decided to join the inaugural tour of the French rugby league selection in England called "Les Pionniers" and took part in the first official meeting of the French team in April 1934. He joined the newly created club, the U.S. Lyon-Villeurbanne, for two seasons, of which he took the captaincy and with which he won the Coupe de France in 1935. He retired from sport in 1936.
During the World War II, he joined the Resistance and consolidated an active network. He was assassinated in June 1944 in troubling circumstances against a backdrop of quarrels between resistance groups. The town of Oyonnax named its rugby stadium in his memory, Stade Charles-Mathon, at the end of the war. Oyonnax Rugby still plays there today.