Le Rugby celebrates the heroes of French Rugby - the players, the coaches, the eccentrics, the inspirations. First up is one of France's greatest players and coaches, Le Petit Caporal Jacques Fouroux.

Jacques Fouroux was one of French rugby's most inspirational and successful figures, both as player and coach. Captain of the 1977 Grand Slam XV from scrum-half, Fouroux won two more Grand Slams as coach, took his team to the inaugural Rugby World Cup final, and co-founded the French Barbarians invitation side.

Born in Auch in 1947, Fouroux's club career was unremarkable, starting his rugby life as a junior at his home town club before joining the senior ranks at Cognac and moving onto newly crowned French champions La Voulte in 1970, in a bid to break into the French team. Fouroux won his first cap against Ireland in Dublin in 1972, but he later said he should have won it four year earlier were it not for the La Voulte coach also being French coach and insisting on picking his club scrum-half for the national team.

He stayed at La Voulte until 1976, when he returned to Auch. By then he was French captain, at 5 foot 3 inches and 9 stone 3 ounces one of the smallest players in international rugby, but despite his small frame, his fiery spirit and arrogant leadership style earned him the nickname Le Petit Caporal - the Little Corporal - after that other vertically challenged French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Fouroux captained France in 21 of his 28 appearances, losing only to Wales in the 1976 Five Nations before leading France to their second Grand Slam in 1977. Fouroux captained the same XV in all four games, winning the championship without conceding a single try. He hung up his international boots shortly afterwards and retired altogether in 1980. A few months later, at the age of just 34, he was appointed French coach. In his first Five Nations, he coached Jean-Pierre Rives's side to the Grand Slam, won four more titles in 1983, 1986, 1988 and 1989, and in 1987 presided over another Grand Chelem.

In 10 years under him only twice did France finish lower than second in the Five Nations, but his term as coach and team manager ended in 1990. Fouroux had fought hard to host an international at his home-town club, Auch, only for France to lose 12-6 to Romania on the big day, forcing his resignation. He then turned to administration, but having been groomed to succeed French Federation President Albert Ferrasse by the big man himself, suddenly found himself out of favour and lost the election to Bernard Lapasset.

He returned to coaching in 1992 with Grenoble. Led by their massive pack, known as "les mammouths", Grenoble went all the way to the 1993 French Championship final, but despite dominating the game, lost 14-11 to Castres through a controversial try by All Black Gary Whetton. Fouroux claimed that the result was fixed by Federation officials and left the Alps for Paris, where he launched France Rugby League, a regional eight-team competition played during the summer months. FRL struggled to pull in the spectators and folded after two years, whereupon Fouroux returned to Auch as coach, before coming back to Paris to coach Racing Club.

After a few years managing lower league clubs such as Orleans in the Loire Valley, Fouroux was all set to become sporting director at Grenoble for 2005/06, but the club's demotion to Federale 1 forced him to change his plans and he spent a frustrating three months coaching L'Aquila in Italy before being sacked in November 2005. On returning to France, Toulon president Eric Champ asked his former international boss to help coach the club's struggling forwards. Fouroux accepted, but suffered a fatal heart attack just two days later in Auch at the age of 58.

In October 2007, on the day Auch returned to the top flight of French rugby, the club's Stade Patrice-Brocas was renamed Stade Jacques-Fouroux in his honour.