![Syd Gaunt [bottom right], Canadian rugby league pioneer, amid the burnt-out wreckage of Rochdale Hornets' stand in 1935. ](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/502784a984ae2d2eef45097c/1500723123453-3WHT824TXZA6DDNW8XXH/image-asset.jpeg)
Syd Gaunt [bottom right], Canadian rugby league pioneer, amid the burnt-out wreckage of Rochdale Hornets' stand in 1935.
The success of the Toronto Wolfpack threatens to be one of the most important developments in international rugby league for generations. But the game isn't a stranger to Canada - as I discuss in this talk for the League Culture podcast from late last year, it has been played on and off since the 1930s.
Stuart Morris at League Culture [if you don't subscribe, do it now] has also posted a couple of earlier interviews I did with him on the emergence of international rugby league in Yugoslavia and Italy after World War 2 and in North America, the Pacific and points elsewhere.
And if you can't get enough of a Hull accent, here's a link to an interview I did with Bruce Berglund of the indispensable New Books in Sport podcast about my latest book 'The Oval World' and the history of the rugby codes around the world.