Thomas Castaignède (born 21 January 1975) is a

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

footballer from

Mont-de-Marsan Mont-de-Marsan (; Gascon dialect, Occitan: ''Lo Mont de Marçan'') is a communes of France, commune and capital of the Landes (department), Landes Departments of France, department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. Population Milit ...

. Born in

Aquitaine Aquitaine (, ; ; ; ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne (), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former Regions of France, administrative region. Since 1 January 2016 it has been part of the administ ...

, Castaignède played as a junior and senior for Stade Montois in various positions, initially as fly-half or centre, and latterly as fullback. He joined

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

to help them win French titles in three successive seasons, and lifted the inaugural

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robi ...

with the club. Castaignède then played for Castres Olympique before joining Saracens. Developing his career in preparation for his retirement, Castaignède became a rugby union columnist for

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

, a television pundit for Canal+ and occasionally

ITV Sport ITV Sport is the Broadcasting of sports events, sports department of ITV plc, which produces and presents sports programming for the ITV (TV network), ITV network and ITVX. The branding was originally introduced in 1985 as an umbrella title fo ...

, and started an association and occasional work with French banking group

Société Générale Société Générale S.A. (), colloquially known in English-speaking countries as SocGen (), is a French multinational universal bank and financial services company founded in 1864. It is registered in downtown Paris and headquartered nearby i ...

. On 10 May 2007, despite offers to return to France with various clubs, Castaignède announced his retirement from the sport after the

2007 Rugby World Cup The 2007 Rugby World Cup () was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition organised by the International Rugby Board. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by F ...

in September, choosing to pursue a career in banking in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

.Castaignède calls time on career
BBC Sport - 10 May 2007

References

External links

Profile at Saracens official siteERC profileList of caps, Part 1 (sporting-heroes.net)List of caps, Part 2 (sporting-heroes.net)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Castaignède, Thomas 1975 births Living people Sportspeople from Mont-de-Marsan Rugby union players from Landes (department) French rugby union players Rugby union fullbacks Stade Toulousain players Saracens F.C. players France international rugby union players Stade Montois Rugby players 1999 Rugby World Cup players French expatriate rugby union players in England