Monday, January 09, 2023
The Beautiful Sleeping Athlete, Part 1
On the 6th of September, 2021, with the Covid pandemic still hogging the headlines, a former French international passed away. In his time, he was a regular for Les Bleus, playing alongside a stellar cast which included Michel Platini, Dominique Rocheteau, Didier Six and Marius Trésor. Among his opponents during that time were such greats of the game as Eusébio, Mario Kempes, Gerd Muller and Oleg Blokhin.
He was also the first black player from France's West African colonies to wear the famous blue shirt with the rooster emblem. A trailblazer for the likes of Patrick Vieira, N'Golo Kanté, Ousmane Dembele and many more, in other words.
Yet little had been heard from him in the decades since his retirement from football. Outside of his home country, he was a forgotten figure.
And the reason for this is deeply sad. Due to a medical error with horrendous consequences, he had been in a coma for an extraordinary 39 years.
This is the little-known story of Jean-Pierre Adams.
Born in Senegal to a devout Catholic family, the young Jean-Pierre accompanied his grandmother on a pilgrimage to France and was left there to be educated in a convent school, later to be adopted by a local family. Although racial prejudice in France was never as overt as it was on the other side of the Channel, Adams still found the adjustment difficult. But he gained both respect and an outlet for self-expression through his talent for football.
Beginning his career in the amateur leagues as a striker, Adams quickly came to the notice of professional clubs, and was signed by Nîmes in 1970 after finishing his military service (in which, ironically, he found himself on the opposite side of the barricades to the rebellious soixante-huitards in Paris). It was the Nîmes coach Kader Firoud who converted him into a powerful midfield anchorman, a position from which he eventually moved into central defence, where he would remain for the rest of his career.
In the meantime, he had met and married a white woman five years his senior. Bernadette Adams originally found it difficult to convince her mother to consent to the marriage, but over the years Jean-Pierre's warm personality and devotion to Bernadette, which was amply reciprocated, won over the affection of his in-laws.
Adams' exploits at Nîmes brought him to the notice of the veteran national team coach Georges Boulogne, and in 1972 his international career began. By this time, his striking days were over, and he had settled into the role of enforcer.
What sort of player was Adams? In an era when French footballers were renowned more for technique than tenacity, Adams offered power, physicality and enthusiasm in spades. Strong in the air, indomitable in the tackle, a good reader of the game and a competent if unspectacular passer, he was a figure both reliable and inspiring. "He was a force of nature," recalled his international team-mate, Henri Michel. "Very strong physically, with lots of determination and willingness." The French sports journalist Jacques Vendroux compared him, somewhat whimsically, to his namesake Tony Adams, the Arsenal and England great. They both, said Vendroux, took on the task of sweeping up the scraps, leaving the others in the team free to express themselves.
Adams' first truly competitive international was to be a highlight of his career - more in Part 2.
