Michel N'Gom (born Abdourhamane N'Gom; 25 June 1959 – 12 August 1984) was a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a forward. Born in

French Senegal The history of Senegal is commonly divided into a number of periods, encompassing the prehistoric era, the precolonial period, colonialism, and the contemporary era. Paleolithic The earliest evidence of human life is found in the valley of the ...

, he represented France at youth international level. He died at the age of 25 due to a

traffic collision A traffic collision, also known as a motor vehicle collision, or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other moving or stationary obstruction, such as a tree, pole or building. Tr ...

Early life

Abdourhamane N'Gom was born on 25 June 1959 in

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Senegal, largest city of Senegal. The Departments of Senegal, department of Dakar has a population of 1,278,469, and the population of the Dakar metropolitan area was at 4.0 mill ...

. He moved to France at the age of four with his mother, leaving his father and brother behind. Then he started living with “Avó Bebé Rocha” who adopted him informally. He spent a large portion of his childhood in the Mazargues neighbourhood of

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

, where he did his schooling and played as a youth player for AS Mazargues.

Club career

Marseille

Having signed for the club in 1976 on a trainee contract, N'Gom made his first steps in the Division 1 with

in 1977. In his debut season, he recorded one goal in seven league matches. For the second season of his career, he was loaned to Division 2 side

Toulon Toulon (, , ; , , ) is a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera and the historical Provence, it is the prefecture of the Var (department), Var department. The Commune of Toulon h ...

, where he gathered more experience, making thirty appearances and scoring ten goals in all competitions. After his loan ended, he returned to Marseille, where he would play regularly for the next two seasons, scoring twenty-five more league goals in the process.

Paris Saint-Germain

In 1981, N'Gom signed for fellow Division 1 club

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain () or simply PSG, is a French professional Association football, football club based in Paris. They compete in Ligue 1, the French football league system, top d ...

(PSG). There, he would win the

Coupe de France The Coupe de France (), also known in English language, English as the French Cup or less commonly as the France Cup, is the premier Single-elimination tournament, knockout cup competition in French football organised by the French Football Fed ...

in the 1981–82 and 1982–83 seasons. Across three seasons at PSG, N'Gom made ninety appearances, scoring twenty-six goals. He notably finished as the club's top goal-scorer in both the league and in all competitions in the 1983–84 season. He signed for

Auxerre Auxerre ( , , Burgundian language (Oïl), Burgundian: ''Auchoirre'') is the capital (Prefectures in France, prefecture) of the Yonne Departments of France, department and the fourth-largest city in the Burgundy historical region southeast of Par ...

in July 1984.

International career

N'Gom was an under-21 and

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

international for France. He played one match at the

1982 UEFA European Under-21 Championship The 1982 UEFA European Under-21 Championship was the 3rd staging of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship. The qualifying stage spanned two years (1980–82) and had 26 entrants. West Germany competed in the competition for the first time. Engl ...

Death

N'Gom died on 12 August 1984 due to a

in the

suburb of Perrigny. He had only recently signed for the local club of Auxerre. The accident occurred at 1:45 PM on a Sunday, as N'Gom was driving on a straight road towards the entrance of Perrigny. He was driving back from Paris with a rented car, having taken advantage of several days of rest accorded by his new manager at Auxerre Guy Roux. Although the departmental road was without danger, he was surprised by a

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...

that appeared in the middle of the way. A collision was inevitable, and the car hit an

electricity pylon A transmission tower (also electricity pylon, hydro tower, or pylon) is a tall structure, usually a lattice tower made of steel that is used to support an overhead power line. In electrical grids, transmission towers carry high voltage, high-volt ...

, leaving N'Gom instantly dead. The scene of the accident was only a couple of hundred meters away from his home.

Reactions

The death of N'Gom brought about a reaction of great emotion in the world of football. PSG's president at the time Francis Borelli said, "It is awful, I do not know what to say. I have enormous grief. It is a tragedy and I cannot believe it, Michel was a very nice boy. To find such a horrible death at the age of twenty-five, it is terrible." All of Paris Saint-Germain's players were saddened by the news of N'Gom's passing. In 2010, Jean-Claude Lemoult spoke about when he heard the news; "I learned about his death while we were trying to do the souvenir photo of the France team after having won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. It was a shock, impossible to smile for the cliché in such circumstances."

Funeral

Several days after his death, his

funeral A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...

took place in Conches-sur-Gondoire. Players and staff of Paris Saint-Germain were present, and three Parisian players, Luis Fernandez, Dominique Rocheteau, and Boubacar Sarr, symbolically carried N'Gom's

coffin A coffin or casket is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, for burial, entombment or cremation. Coffins are sometimes referred to as caskets, particularly in American English. A distinction is commonly drawn between "coffins" a ...

. Borelli took the speaking role in honouring the memory of N'Gom.

Honours

Paris Saint-Germain *

: 1981–82, 1982–83

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:N'Gom, Michel 1959 births 1984 deaths Footballers from Dakar Senegalese men's footballers French men's footballers French sportspeople of Senegalese descent Senegalese emigrants to France Naturalized citizens of France Black French sportspeople Men's association football forwards Ligue 1 players Ligue 2 players Olympique de Marseille players SC Toulon players Paris Saint-Germain FC players AJ Auxerre players France men's youth international footballers France men's under-21 international footballers France men's amateur international footballers Road incident deaths in France 20th-century French sportsmen 20th-century Senegalese sportsmen