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News, Reviews & Opinion - Sean Fagan - RL1908.com

"We thought we knew our rugby, but France has given us 'champagne rugby'!" An Australian in French dressing room, SCG, 1951.

The latest offering from that prolific factory of rugby league books - London League Publications - is a real beauty: Champagne Rugby: The Golden Age of French rugby league.

This gem of rugby league history, originally published in 1961 in France, was written by Henri Garcia, rugby league correspondent for the L'Euipe sports newspaper.

Garcia covered all three of France's tours down under in the 1950s, and was arguably the best man to chronicle the team's most glorious era.

That Garcia wrote the book in 1961 makes it a definitive study. That it was written in French made it (wrongly) an obscure member of the rugby league literature collective.

Thanks to the pain-staking efforts of Roger Grime, Champagne Rugby is now re-published in English. No longer is there an excuse for anyone interested in rugby league history to not read this worthy and illuminating treatise.

Most of the book details Garcia's observations and accounts of the French teams in Australia. It therefore provides a most unique - and valuable - perspective and insight into rugby league in 1950s Australia.

The French, in comparison to the English-speaking rugby league nations, have a different take on how they perceive the game, its people, and events. For the most part, we rely on our own people to document and interpret our history - having Champagne Rugby provides us with a priceless alternative view.

Garcia and the French who share their opinions and recollections of the 1950s via Champagne Rugby may not be correct with some matters, but that doesn't matter. Their interpretation, at the very least, gives us something to ponder - is the way we interpret our history entirely true? Or is it, like many other aspects of our nation's debates, parochial?

Garcia is also a very colourful writer, and his work is an easy and revealing read. He paints wonderful word pictures of not just the action on the playing fields, but in the stands and away from the game itself, as the tourists travel the length and breadth of this vast continent.

The dizzy scale of the popularity of the French teams in Australia in the 1950s is really driven home in Champagne Rugby. Their audacious and spectacular form of playing rugby league swept through Australia like a breath of fresh air.

A fascinating book - and a must have for your collection if you are interested in the history of French - and Australian - rugby league.

Champagne Rugby: The Golden Age of French rugby league
Henri Garcia (translated into English by Roger Grime)
Foreword by Reg Gasnier
Published by London League Publications ISBN 9781903659342
Available in paperback: 142 pages
B&w photos throughout, plus statistics section
RRP £12.95