Rugby Reloaded #98 - What Really Happened at Vichy, with Dr Melissa McMahon →

What really happened in Vichy? The new ‘Rugby Reloaded’ discusses new research on why French rugby league was banned in 1941 with philosopher and translator Dr Melissa McMahon (@batsyblog). Using original sources from the period, she analyses why league was singled out and how amateurism became weaponised as part of the Vichy government's attempts to return France to a reactionary past.

For more on the history of rugby in France, take a listen to earlier Rugby Reloaded episodes on Jean Galia, post-war French rugby league, and an interview with Mike Rylance, author of The Forbidden Game and The Struggle and The Daring.

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Rugby Reloaded #93 - Barette: French women's rugby in the 1920s with Lydia Furse →

This week’s ‘Rugby Reloaded’ talks to Lydia Furse about the history of Barette, a version of rugby that became popular with French women in the 1920s. Lydia is a PhD student at De Montfort University researching the history of women’s rugby union, in collaboration with the World Rugby Museum at Twickenham. Her research has uncovered the previously unrecorded history of Barette, and her paper on the subject at the 2018 International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport (ISHPES) conference won the 2018 Early Career Scholar Award. A shorter version of that paper can be found at www.scrumqueens.com.

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