Blast From The Past: On This Day 1973 – A Sky Blue Régis (Not ‘Big Cyrille’) Was Born (R.I.P. Both)

Régis Genaux

On this day (31st August) in 1973 future Sky Blue, Belgian attacking right back Régis Genaux was born in Charleroi. He started out as a youngster in 1981 with his home town club before moving to top Belgian outfit Standard Liege in 1988. Making his first team debut there two years later as a 17 year old, for the next six years Régis built up a great reputation and by the time he came to the UK had made over 150 appearances for Standard.

Régis in the Sky Blue

Sky Blue’s Scottish player manager Gordon Strachan (now a CCFPA member) brought the Belgian to Highfield Road in the summer of 1996. Sadly, Régis failed to make a big Sky Blue impact and played only four times for the first team before leaving to join Italian outfit Udinese only six months later in January 1997.

WGS in the Sky Blue

From 1997-2003 he made only just over 50 outings for the Italian club as a series of injuries restricted his appearances and he returned to Liege on loan for his final playing season in 2001-02. After hanging up his boots, aged only 29, Regis moved into coaching with a number of Belgian clubs including Louviéroise, Verviétois (2005) and Sérésie (2006),

Régis played 22 times for his country between 1992-2000.

Cyrille Regis RIP

Very sadly, Régis’ life was cut short from heart failure at the tragically early age of 35 and he passed away in Belgium on 8th November 2008.

For the record, our deeply missed former striker ‘Big Cyrille’ Regis also passed away nearly ten years later at a tragically early age (59) on 14th January 2018.

R.I.P. Both

Thanks to CCFPA’s Mike Young for sourcing the images