RUGBY AND THE FOREIGN LEGION

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30934, 15 December 1965, Page 19

RUGBY AND THE FOREIGN LEGION

THE New Zealand Rugby Union is used to receiving strange requests but more than one eye-brow was raised recently when an officer of the French Foreign Legion asked for information on Rugby. The request came from Corporal Dominque Levanti, who te on the staff of "Kepi Blanc,” the official review of the Legion. His letter said. “At the present time we have two Rugby teams in the Legion, one in the Second Parachute Regiment and the other in' the First Tank Regiment” He asked the union to supply details of the game as played in New Zealand "so that our readers can get a good idea of the origin, deZealand. n

“Action photographs with the article would help so as to present Rugby as the best military sport. But more than that, we intend by means of our magazine to cultivate and attract the interest of more of our readers which indude the Legion particularly, the French Army in general and civilian readers all round the world.” Mr G. H. Geddes, secretary of the New Zealand Union was quite happy to oblige. Although the Foreign Legion was one of the more exotic applicants for information of on Rugby the union annually receives fetters front aH over the world.

It is the union’s policy to reply to every letter it receives no matter how trivial. Union members remember a wistful letter received from a boy in Paris “...I am too poor to buy a footbril....” Many of the union’s letters come from Wales. There is one regular Welsh correspondent, a schoolgirl, who carries a photograph of the All Blacks in her lunch case. There are French girls who want to correspond with AU BUeks, a Czech interested in the development of Rugby; a student teacher from Swinton writing a thesis on Rugby and New Zealand children working on projects, such as one nine-year-old from Brielutha who •o I*s knew aS>..»