With professional rugby celebrating its 18th birthday in 2013, it is easy to forget what rugby was like prior to professionalism. I want to remember and give a taste of what the game was like during the 80s and early 90s in France.

Not a general statement, just a candid account of how I saw it then, hence the bias and potential errors, so here we go.

For every rugby nation, it’s fair to say that the transition to professionalism has been drastic, sometimes violent, and perhaps no more so than for France. A nation which prides itself for its ‘terroir’, its very own values and traditions.

The French rugby that I now watch on television doesn’t have much in common with the rugby I grew up with in the 80s and 90s. No better nor worse, just completely different.

In the eighties, French rugby was very much a regional sport, south-west France being the epicentre. If you didn’t have the southern accent, live ‘in the north’, i.e. above Bordeaux-Grenoble, or East of Toulon (the Riviera), you’re out.

Don’t get me wrong, rugby clubs were present all over the country but no more so than in the south west part of it.

The ‘Championnat de France’ was a messy affair that no one really understood. Let me try to explain.

A first division with two groups, A and B, and 30-40 odd teams depending on the year, all spread in countless pools (‘1ere division’groupe A – poule 1, 2, 3…’ was the real top flight, the B group being the actual second division – yes, I know).

Waiting for the results of ‘your team’ was a tedious affair every Sunday night as it took ages to go through every single pool of the two groups.

Why this system? Amateur rugby in 80s’ France is very much ‘le sport des campagnes’ where villages play other small towns on Sunday afternoons.

No Marseille, Strasbourg, Lille, Paris, Lyon, Nantes etc, nope. Oyonnax, Albi, La Voulte, Lombez are the names we heard every Sunday.

Anyone for a domestic competition with Katherine, Dubbo, Orange or Mildura instead of Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane?

That’s what we had. We knew these villages/towns were in the south, had no more than a few thousand inhabitants for some but that’s about it.

Why have so many clubs at the highest level with the risk of watering down the quality then? The FFR wanted to keep everyone involved in rugby happy. Giving them the illusion they were all in the first division was the solution. Done.

Beziers, a Mediterranean town located between Montpellier and Perpignan, were the most feared of all: they were mean, brutal and loved a punch up. Beziers epitomized what was then French rugby – a southern, small town affair.

The audience? Mostly men, from the country, the south obviously.

Who played the game? No private school boy thing in France; farmers play alongside salesmen, blue collars, students, doctors (rarely) or unemployed.

It was not rare for rugby coaches to tour the farms surrounding villages looking for some hidden treasures: farmers’ sons.

On the radar were potential props, hookers, number eights or locks – “Is your son a brute who can wrestle a cow? Rugby is for him then.”

Something like that. Old school scouting all right.

Multicultural France doesn’t play rugby much though, preferring football. Round-ball code stars Platini, Fernandez, Tresor, Dahleb were all sons of immigrants, or came from our Islands, and people identify with them.

Football is multicultural France’s sport, rugby isn’t. Blanco and later on Benazzi are the first exceptions to the rule.

This would change, slowly, from the 90s onwards, France’s rugby becoming more and more ‘black-blanc-beur’ (‘black-white-arabic’) mimicking its football counterpart.

However, even in the 80s and 90s, it was not that rare to have players from Eastern Europe, especially in the forwards, playing semi-professional rugby in the lower second or third divisions.

They came from Romania or former eastern bloc nations, got paid a bit by the club (small salary plus the usual incentive per win) and worked part time for the council, security in clubs, that’s nightclubs, or doing whatever they could to earn a living.

We even had the odd South African, Welsh or Canadian traveler who comes to France to experience the culture and play the game of rugby to make ends meet.

So yes, well before Toulon, Toulouse or Clermont, French rugby always welcomed in its family everyone who liked the game, no matter what was their nationality. Just for the love of the fifteen-man sport.

But rugby in France would not be what it is now without the contribution of the guys from our islands. We love them.

The military service being compulsory until the mid-90s, young men from overseas had to come to the ‘metropole’ to do their national service.

In terms of rugby, this means that young men from New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna had the possibility to stay and play for local teams.

Grenoble would be the first top team in the late nineties to give some of them a chance at the highest level: Tolofua, Taofifenua or Vaitanaki were pioneers.

But the majority of them played in second or third divisions, were semi-pro and hammered their opponents. With a bit more discipline, I have no doubt many of them would have made it all the way to the top flights.

This is what’s finally happening now – Pacific Islands are French rugby.

Not much rugby is broadcast on French televsion in the 80s. France has only three channels, ‘la 2’, a public one, being the official rugby broadcaster.

No risk of overdosing though: the final of the championship was the only domestic game we can watch live at 8.30pm at the beginning of June.

The country ‘gets to Paris’ as we say, and played for the ‘Bouclier de Brennus’ in front of a packed Parc des Princes. Other than that, not much rugby on our small screens before Canal plus steps in, once the game became professional.

Not much rugby on TV? Well, not exactly.

‘Le tournoi des cinq nations’ is the rugby event of the year. Saturday afternoon, 3.00pm kick off, its cold, it often rains and we love it.

No more division north/south in the country, we all watch.

The Andy Irvine, Jonathan Davies and co. They all speak English, we don’t. We are different. Plus we had our own star. Jean-Pierre Rives. He is the captain, is fearless and has ‘gold hair’, so un-Gallic; he is France’s rugby angel.

Bloodstains on his white jersey would make a legend of him. Rives, Codorniou, Esteve, Sella, Garuet, Mesnel, Charvet, Dubroca, Ondarts, just a few names that stuck to my mind. They were our heroes.

Many of the forwards are farmers, some of the backs typically salesmen, others work for the councils. They all love their sport, train two or three times a week, play on Sunday, like the rest of the country. And enjoy ‘la 3eme mi-temps’. The third half.

After each game, whether you play in first division or in fourth série, both teams meet up in the club house of the hosts, drink, eat and sing together: various hams, patés, cheeses, cold meats, breads etc are washed down with red wine, beer, ricard and other alcohols.

A player who doesn’t turn up or stay is frowned upon; the third half is rugby as much as the match itself.

Brawls are de rigueur on the pitch, kick-off straight into touch, scrum, all-in brawl (‘générale’). That’s a classique. But after the game, no bitterness; we all have a few – too many – drinks together. That’s rugby.

What do we think of ‘the others’? In this era of the game, ‘the others’ speak English and we don’t like that, as we don’t understand them.

In the 80s and early 90s there no tests against Italy. We played Romania once a year if I remember well, had the odd tour of Argentina and that’s pretty much it. All our other opponents were ‘Anglos’. The neighbours.

We love Murrayfield, Twickenham, Cardiff’s Arms Park and Lansdowne Road. These are rugby temples, more so than our beloved Parc des Princes in our minds.

I don’t recall ‘hating’ one team more than the other one in the early 80s. Dooley, Ackford then Johnson will change all this: England becomes our enemy. The ‘crunch’ is born. Why’s that?

They play tough, they play dirty (in our minds), they are arrogant and patronizing when they win.

The first few words typically non anglophile French rugby players learn are the ‘good game’ pronounced by English after a victory.

Plus the smirk, the pat on the back. It hurts, we hate them.

The south. For as long as I remember, the best in the business in our minds are the south nations, the big three. And we accept that.

South Africa. The last test played, and lost, by the French against the Boks takes place in 1980, 37-15 in Pretoria.

The isolation of the country due to the Apartheid will help create a myth: they are big lads, play tough, some of them have French names, but we can’t play them, because of politics. Fair enough.

At the same time, in the early eighties, a tv series, ‘For the love of gold’ (‘For all the gold of the Transvaal’ in French), is broadcast in France, on Sunday arvos. Big hit.

We learn why these guys are so tough and why some of them, descendants of the Huguenots, have French names. A Du Plessis, Du Preez, Le Roux etc isn’t a ‘normal player’ for me, even to this day.

The next test will take place in 1992, in France. The Boks win but lose in Paris a week after. In my mind, playing the Boks is and will always be special, for all this.

New Zealand. We love the All Blacks. When did this ‘unconditional love’ start and why? No idea. It’s just like that, we are born with it.

As a kid, when you play rugby, you want to be JP Rives, Serge Blanco or an All Black. On the map, their country is so far we can’t even find it during geography classes. How cool!

Plus they wear black and perform the Haka. That’s it: what is more ‘rugby’, i.e. tough, in the mind of a kid, than wearing black and having a war dance before the match?

As a rugby nation who doesn’t mind a punch up every Sunday on rugby fields, we have no choice but to adopt the All Blacks as the rugby nation.

Waking up at 6am or 7am to watch a test at Eden Park on a Saturday morning is the ultimate treat – ‘Did you see the All Blacks?’

We don’t mind loosing against them. Even our players admit to be in awe when they face them. Professionalism and a few rugby world cups will change this though. Yet, New Zealand represents the ultimate rugby test, world rugby’s benchmark for every Frenchman.

Australia. It’s fair to say that the Wallabies do not have, in our minds, the charisma or exoticism of the All Blacks nor the ‘mystery’ and toughness often attributed to the Springboks.

As far as I can remember, I always thought the Wallabies were the ultimate professionals though.

A football allegory comes to mind: if the All Blacks are the Brazilians of rugby, the Wallabies are the Germans: they play to win, full stop.

That’s the way I saw the Wallabies during these two decades. Farr-Jones, Lynagh, Horan and later Gregan or Eales represent what the Wallabies are all about: winning.

Their goal kickers are metronomic, the passes are perfect, almost robotic, it’s well-rehearsed and win games.

They play well under pressure, never give up and are the smartest rugby nation on earth. Plus they sometimes have an exceptional player, an Ella or a Campese.

We don’t love them but we have the utmost respect for these guys. The Wallabies are a rugby machine in the 80s and 90s, a winning machine. They invented professionalism before it was approved.

No question rugby, French or not, has changed a lot in the last 18 years but it still has a lot to offer, provided the men in charge act wisely and respect its values.

More gym sessions, less ‘third half’ are inevitable. Doesn’t mean our sport should become a soulless affair with the sole goal to bring more and more profit.