Stade's pink strip to stir up a hornet's nest

Nostrils flared, hair tousled, a muscular young man sits provocatively astride a Parisian bar. Elsewhere, a brooding blond crouches on all fours, eyes turned pleadingly toward the camera, two giggling team-mates are surprised in the shower and a man with an oiled chest urgently draws attention to his penis.

Pictures from the Dieux du Stade 2007 calendar, featuring the French rugby team Stade Français, have been leaked onto the internet this week, with reactions ranging from the appalled to the excited.

The saucy sporting calendar is nothing new. Stade, the Manchester United of French rugby, have a history of this.

Drawing inspiration from, among others, the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the statues of Graeco-Roman antiquity and the naked buttocks of gay porn, their artfully shot calendar has been an annual fixture since 2001. The 2006 edition caused controversy in France with its explicit, and decidedly gay, poses.

Of course, it couldn't happen in Britain, where rugby is presided over by fellows who look like they might rip your head off if you asked them to smile like a nymph emerging from the waves and, yes, drop the towel now, honey.

French rugby has always been a bit more louche. During the 1980s, members of another Parisian team, Racing Club, formed a group called Le Show Bizz, occasionally playing matches wearing wigs and make-up and, rumour has it, women's underwear.

Centre Frank Mesnel later started the Eden Park fashion house, whose symbol is a pink bow-tie. More recently national team outhalf Frederic Michalak has appeared on the front cover of Attitude magazine.

All of which, fun though it sounds, is still a million miles away from the Dieux du Stade calendar. Is it a pitch for the pink pound? A challenge to the prevailing culture? Just a bit of fun? If it's any help, the club's official anthem is Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive.