Pirate Pete wants to educate us Leaguies on the history of the Lions -good oh .
Meantime as he is a such historian and writer , and sport is one of his areas of critique , perhaps he can enlighten one and all of us downtrodden Leaguies( who never get to watch a game in Botswana or Baluchistan) as to the history of French Rugby league .He bragged about his time over there.
Might I suggest we look at WW2(the big one) late 30s early 40s as to the eventual useful combo between Vichy/Nazi backer (under Pertain the occupation leader in the South) and their successful attempt to ban RL from which French RL never fully recovered.League was killing it in growth late 30s.
To add further salt to his ego, it was in the South of France where the resistance to the Nazis was the strongest.
He mentioned it briefly in passing , like a brief shadow cast by a cloud and that's about it.
Players being paid in union al la France/Italy when the code was supposedly amateur, was treated as a minor issue.
Naturally to bring up such a distasteful subject would not go down well with the Wolvo/leather patch brigade , so I guess it will remain in the Fitzy too hard basket , because having males play in girls sports is more to his liking.