Jean COMBOT

Born in the Finistère region of Brittany, Jean Combot would spend his entire youth playing for his hometown team, Etoile Sportive du Kreisker in Saint-Pol-de-Léon. A powerful, but accurate player, he would mainly play in defence in his early days. A renowned athlete, he was also adept as a long jumper. In 1946, he joined his elder brother, Henri, at Stade Rennais, albeit he only made one solitary apperance as a professional in his first season at the club. The following season, he returned home to Kreisker, before making the round-trip back to Rennes in 1948, where he preferred to keep the status of an amateur, in order to no longer be transferable to another club. Hardly used in the early part of the 1948/1949 season, he finally earned his spurs in the Rennes starting line-up as a defender from the halfway point of the season onwards. For the following campaign, he also made a few apperances for the French Military team, for whom he wore the captain's armband. With a penchant for attacking, he was put to use in attack by the Red and Blacks for the start of the 1950/1951 season. Used as a centre-forward, he would prove to be a handy striker, scoring six goals in the first three league matches of the campaign in the First Division, including a hat-trick against AS Saint-Etienne. Alongside Grumellon, Combot formed a formidable partnership upfront in the beginning of the league season, and they became one of the best striking partnerships in France of the day. In total, Combot would go on to net 13 times in the first 15 league matches, but then sadly fell victim to a serious knee injury on 26th November, against Nancy. After a horrendous challenge by Nancy's René Pleimelding, he suffered from a dislocated femur and tibia, as well as ruptured cruciate and medial knee ligaments. He would never recover from that injury, in spite of undergoing four operations. He struggled to regain his physical capacities, only making one more appearance as a professional for Rennes, along with a handful of apperances with the Amateur side. He would eventually leave Rennes in 1953, signing for Toulouse, where he never made the breakthrough. He chose to hang up his boots in 1954 to dedicate himself to horticulture. In 1960, he returned to his first club once more, ES Kreisker, to become their Manager.