By Hugh Schofield Vichy

If you've ever been to Vichy, you'll know how hard it is to spot the landmarks of the wartime era.

Understandably perhaps, there are no signs up saying: "Come and visit the home of France's disgrace. Gestapo headquarters - this way."

After the war rugby league was unbanned - but in the spirit of deliberate amnesia, no-one wanted to explore too closely what had happened

The centre of the town is in fact of extraordinary 19th Century elegance - the Emperor Napoleon III wanted Europe's royalty to make Vichy and its spa an annual fixture. So it's all shady promenades, bandstands, and a glassed-in sanatorium for the taking of the waters.

But if you want to see the hotel where Marshal Petain ran his collaborationist government - or where the various ministries and foreign embassies were - then you need a good guide.

The legacy of World War II has passed into history now - only people in their 70s or older will actually remember when their town was the seat of government - but I had come to Vichy to explore one curious footnote from that time.

Young upstart

Because it was in December 1941 - in his office overlooking the park - that Philippe Petain signed an order prepared for him by the ministry of sport... banning rugby league.

Part of the infamous banning decree

Why - you might ask - would a government troubled enough with haggling with the Nazi occupier, registering Jews, and promoting its catholic-nationalist revolution, bother suppressing a game enjoyed by tens of thousands of young men?

The story is a complicated one, and one which has repercussions down to this day.

In the 1930s French rugby league - or rugby a treize (rugby for 13) - was rugby union's upstart younger cousin.

It arrived in France as late as 1934 - half a century after the 15-man game - but in the five years before the start of World War II, it advanced so quickly as to pose a real challenge to the supremacy of rugby union.

Rugby union was in steep decline. The national team was banned from the Five Nations tournament because of violence on the pitch, and the number of clubs was falling every year.

Lobbying

Rugby league was taking up the slack, and as sports papers from the time show, there was a groundswell of enthusiasm for the game - culminating in 1939 when the national side went to St Helens and became the first French team - in any sport - to beat England on their home ground.

Vichy has its own team today

By the outbreak of war there were 225 league clubs in France - all set up in just five years.

Rugby league was a professional game - players signed annual contracts with their clubs and had control over their careers.

It was seen as a modern, innovative sport - and was closely associated with the left-wing Popular Front government that came to power in France in 1936.

This was already enough to damn it in the eyes of the Petain government, but what modern research has shown is that the decision to actually prohibit the sport was the result of lobbying from powerful figures within rugby union close to the Vichy regime.

This year a French government inquiry found that "influential officials in the French Rugby Federation endeavoured to eliminate the competitor, which they claimed was a deviant form of rugby union."

Blacklist

So the ban came in. Rugby league's assets were seized, grounds were taken over, players were invited to repent.

Right up until 10 years ago it was actually forbidden to call itself rugby at all

Those who didn't were blacklisted.

Of course all this would be just a fascinating historical anecdote were it not for the fact that - acording to many rugby league enthusiasts - the effects of the ban are still being felt today.

After the war rugby a treize was unbanned - but in the spirit of deliberate amnesia, no-one wanted to explore too closely what had happened.

The result was that the game never received full recognition and indeed right up until 10 years ago it was actually forbidden to call itself rugby at all. Officially it was the jeu a treize - the game for 13.

The sport never got its assets back, and it's still impossible for anyone studying to become a state sports instructor to take rugby league as their option.

Some clubs find it hard to get access to playing fields.

No compensation

And the state of the sport in general?

Marginalised.

Today 20,000 people play it, compared with the quarter of a million who play rugby union.

The national side is no longer seen as a serious international competitor, and an attempt to get a French club into the British-based superleague collapsed.

And so to today - when after years in which the sport's governing body preferred not to rock the boat - a new generation of supporters is emerging that wants the truth to be told.

They know financial compensation is unlikely.

But they want government help for the sport, and above all an official apology... for that signature 61 years ago, in a hotel overlooking the park.