Personal information | |||
---|---|---|---|
Date of birth | [1] | 10 March 1948||
Place of birth | Dakar, French West Africa | ||
Height | 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)[2] | ||
Position(s) | Centre-back | ||
Youth career | |||
US Cepoy | |||
CD Bellegarde | |||
USM Montargis | |||
Senior career* | |||
Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
1967–1970 | Fontainebleau | ||
1970–1973 | Nîmes | 84 | (8) |
1973–1977 | Nice | 126 | (15) |
1977–1979 | Paris Saint-Germain | 41 | (1) |
1979–1980 | Mulhouse | 11 | (1) |
1980–1981 | Chalon | 23 | (1) |
Total | 285 | (26) | |
National team | |||
1972–1976 | France | 22 | (0) |
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only |
Jean-Pierre Adams (born 10 March 1948) is a French former professional footballer who played as a centre-back.
Since March 1982, he has been in a coma following an operation.[3][4]
Adams was born and raised in Dakar until the age of 10, when he left his native Senegal on a pilgrimage to Montargis in the Loiret department alongside his grandmother, who was a devout Catholic. When they arrived, she enlisted him at a local Catholic school, Saint-Louis de Montargis.[5] He was adopted by a French couple shortly after his arrival in the country.[6]
During his studies, Adams worked at a local rubber manufacturer and he started playing football at several local clubs in the Loiret area.[7][8]
Adams started playing with Fontainebleau in 1967 as a striker, with whom he won the Championnat de France amateur twice. In 1970, he signed a contract with Nîmes, going on to remain in Division 1 for the following nine seasons, also representing Nice and Paris Saint-Germain.[7]
In the 1971–72 campaign, Adams contributed four goals in all 38 games to help Nîmes to a best-ever second place,[9] also winning the Cup of the Alps.[10] He added a career-best nine for Nice in 1973–74, for a final fifth position.[9]
After one year in Division 2 with Mulhouse, Adams retired in 1981 at the age of 33, following a spell with amateurs Chalon.[7]
On 15 June 1972, Adams made his debut for the French national team in an unofficial exhibition game against an African XI selected by the Confederation of African Football.[7] His first competitive cap came on 13 October of that year, in a 1–0 home win over the Soviet Union for the 1974 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.[11]
Adams' last appearance occurred on 1 September 1976, in a friendly with Denmark.[7] During his tenure with Les Bleus, he formed a stopper partnership with Marius Trésor which was dubbed La garde noire (black guard).[12][2]
Adams and his wife Bernadette were married in April 1969 and had two sons, Laurent (born 1969) and Frédéric (1976). Following a ligament rupture injury, he was hospitalised for surgery on 17 March 1982 at the Édouard Herriot Hospital in Lyon. After an error made by his anaesthetist, he suffered a bronchospasm which starved his brain of oxygen and he slipped into a coma.[13][14][15]
In the mid 1990s, when a court of law adjudicated on the case, both the anaesthetist and trainee were given one-month suspended sentences and fines that translated to a $815 fine.[16] His wife continued to tend to his needs, refusing to consider euthanasia.[17]
Presented content of the Wikipedia article was extracted in 2021-04-07 based on https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=10747368