A model of sporting achievement Teamboueon’s most notable accomplishment was his participation in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico.
Born on the 6 December, 1939, Charles Teamboueon was well known for his agility with the ball at his feet and while he leaves his mark in Caledonian football history, he said it all began with his career as a teacher.
“I was the first Kanak from a catholic school to teach multi-raced students,” Teamboueon said during an interview in 2008.
In 1965 he was named director of La Conception, a school in the suburb of Mont-Dore near Noumea.
“It was there where I started to get closer to the world of football.”
As well as his role as school director, Teamboueon soon found himself in the role of player-coach of La Frégate de Saint-Louis where he experienced immediate success, winning the premier division in 1965, the second tier division at the time. In this same year he earned his first call-up to the New Caledonia national side, with which he scored four goals in his first match against German champions Stuttgart in a 5-1 victory.
“I was picked by Guy Elmour to play with the national side. That posed a few problems because at the time the national team was composed only of players from the first division and based in Noumea,” he said.
Guy Fouques, president of the Federation Calédonienne de Football during Teamboueon’s glory days said he was a model of instant success.
“He was somebody who was better than everyone else. He deserved it and represented New Caledonia well at every level,” Fouques said.
In 1966, Teamboueon followed the path to national selection, participating with Les Cagous in the final of the Pacific Games, where the side was defeated by Tahiti in the final.
That same year he decided to leave New Caledonia and head to France where he joined Gazélec d’Ajaccio, a club based on the island of Corsica. With this side he won the South-East League in 1967 and the French Amateur title in 1968 which helped the team earn promotion to the French second division for the 1968-69 season.
Following this success Teamboueon was selected to compete at the Olympic Games in Mexico with France’s national amateur side, making it to the quarter-finals where they were ousted by Japan.
Just one year later, Teamboueon returned to represent his country of birth at the Pacific Games in Papua New Guinea. This time New Caledonia got the better of Tahiti in the final to win the gold medal, with Teambouean scoring the equaliser.
Unfortunately Teambouean was forced to end his playing career in 1972 following two knee surgeries.
After 27 years spent working with the same company in France, Teambouean encountered several bureaucratic issues on his return to New Caledonia, finally returning for good in 2005 with his wife.
In February 2007 he returned to the world of Caledonian football, becoming coach of AS Mont-Dore alongside Claude Casimir. With the pair leading the way the side making it all the way to the final of the Coupe de Calédonie.
“What pushed me to reinvest myself in football was the desire to provide an example to the youth of the country so that they will push themselves to get involved in positions of responsibility in football and further afield,” he said.
For more on New Caledonia football go to www.fedcalfoot.com

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