The Forbidden Game

The phenomenal rise of rugby league in pre-war France and its scandalous obliteration by the collaborationist Vichy government qualifies as one of the greatest stories never told. Corruption, brutality and shamateurism had plagued the world of orthodox rugby when rugby league made its first appearance across the Channel, bringing with it open professionalism and a new, dynamic sporting spectacle which delighted the public. Only six seasons later, le rugby frieze, thr troublesome upstart, was wiped out by a conspiracy which counts as one of the most extreme examples of one sport's hostility towards another. A victim of the shadowy rugby union figures who stalked the newly-opened corridors of power at Vichy, rugby league suffered a scandalous abuse of authority which has had repercussions up to the present day.

In this book, the full story of French rugby's tragedy is presented to a British audience for the first time. Now that an official government enquiry is being conducted into France's dark past under the Vichy regime, Mike Rylance's research, conducted over many years, is both a timely testament and a masterly account of one of sport's greatest injustices.