Barry Mutuel's unpredictable search engine looks for info on France's Fédérale 2 clubs, and gives him more than he bargained for...

Yes! We’re back with our obscure look at acronyms, and it’s bigger and better than ever.

Those of you that use the interweb to access information on your favourite French rugby team may have noticed two things. Firstly, that several teams prefer to go by their full names, names that for ease of appearance will be shown as an acronym. For example, to search for the Biarritz website you need only type in the BOPB acronym, namely Biarritz Olympique Pays Basque. Secondly, that your favourite team will share its acronym with plenty of other weird and wonderful bodies and groups. Let Barry Mutuel be your guide as he looks at the clubs in Fédérale 2. Jjust what could your search engine throw up instead?

Rugby Club Suresnes
What an eclectic mix to kick off this much anticipated third tranche of vaguely French rugby-related acronyms. To set us on our way we’ll call the reliable Reedsburg Cab Service, taking in the Rockford Christian School as we rush down the highway. We never want to have a run-in with the Regional Crime Squad, or with the Russian Chemometrics Society for more social reasons. Your guess is as good as our as to what the Revenue Cutter Service actually do on a Monday morning, while Racing Club Strasbourg provide an appropriately Gallic end this opening gambit.

Sports Athletiques Vierzonnais
Plenty of well paid rugby players drive a Sports Activity Vehicle. Although we're no marine biology experts, surely Submerged Aquatic Vegetation is just a posh name for reeds?  Another question to pose is whether Semi Annual Vegetation grows every six months or two years? Most computer users have fallen foul of a Symantec Anti-Virus at some time or another, while the Strike Attack Vector and Safe Airspace Volume mean more to NASA boffins than they do us simple, rugby folk.

Rugby Club Blois
Undoubtedly the most obscure group we’ve come across in this latest selection is the Robust Capin Beamformer. It’s got a hint of the Star Wars about it somehow. The IPL’s Royal Challengers Bangalore will need no introduction to fans of the bat and ball, while the Right Corner Back in American Football is as unglamorous a position as a loosehead prop. A Reinforced Concrete Box does what it says on the, erm, box, while the Rogers County Bank and the Reynoldsburg Community Band are two of America’s finest.

Rugby Club Arras
Is that the sound of distant stomach rumbling at the thought of joining the Research Chefs Association? The Royal Canadian Artillery and Radio Club Argentino sound plain dull when compared to the intriguingly sounding Recovering Couples Anonymous. No doubt Bill Oddie is a patron of a Rockfish Conservation Area somewhere, although I bet he doesn’t know what a Random Coefficient Autoregressive is (and neither do we). We round off this excellent selection with Roman Collar Amnesia, although we’ve forgotten exactly what it is.

Union Sportive Beaurepairoise
It’s quality rather quantity for this little lot. There’s no need for us to tell you that the United Southern Bank is the new name for the Umatilla State Bank. A Universal Serial Bus sounds quite vague, although not as much as a Unicode Subset Bitfield. And forget the Robust Capin Beanformer, the best entry so far is the fantastically named Upflow Sludge Bed.

Saint Savin Sportif
Not one for those with lithpth. The Sick Sinus Syndrome is certainly nothing to be sniffed at, and you'd be slightly rash to join the Shingles Support Society. The Simplified Spelling Society and Swiss Speleological Society do their bit for dictionary geeks and Speleologists in Zurich, Berne and beyond. The good people of Finland, Norway and Sweden are no doubt grateful to Scandinavian Sanitary Systems after they’ve had a dodgy salmon. The nearby all-powerful Soviet Secret Service has probably got a Supersonic Sea Skimmer in its armoury as it stealthily patrols the Baltic Sea.

Union Sportive Bellegarde Coupy
Our first four-letter entry, dominated by Uncle Sam and the U S of A. There’s the dull sounding United States Bowling Congress, the United Stated Bankruptcy Court and every man’s favourite body, the United States Breastfeeding Committee. Lest we forget the United States Barista Championship, although be honest, how many know of you know what Barista is? We round off proceedings with the collars-up, ruddy-cheeked Henrys and Henriettas of the University of Surrey Boat Club.

Chateauneuf Orange Rugby Club
We carry on with the four-letter theme, although the Canberra Off Road Cyclists are well ahead of their rivals. You’ll have to pedal a long way to find a more obscure, uninspiring trio than the Cooperative Online Resource Catalogue, the Computational Optimisation Resource Center and the Conventional Ordnance Release Computer.

Club Sportif Annonay
This is more like it. The land of the maple leaf is well represented by the Canadian Space Agency, the Canadian Skipping Association and the more ambiguous Canadian Sablefish Association. Those with an interest in water based activities in the Mediterranean and the West Indies can fill their boots with the Cyprus Shipping Association and the Caribbean Sailing Association. Divorced parents will be well aware of the Child Support Agency. The Clinical Sexology Associates must have some cracking stories to share, maybe when they next get together with Celebrity Speakers Associates. Some of the Conservative Students Association could well be members of the Confederate Stamp Alliance, as well as maybe knowing what a Ciphergram Solution Assistant does every day.

Sporting Club Royannais
The Swipe Card Reader is one of the modern world’s more astute inventions, as no doubt is the Selective Chopper Radiometer although why it has to be selective is one of life’s great unsolved mysteries. The Staffield Country Resort is one of our favourite retreats in Malaysia, which for the flow of this sentence is unfortunately not accessed by the South Central Railway. The Strip Chart Recorder is as vague as the Send Cows Rwanda appeal is intriguing.

Club Athletique Riberac
Christ sur un vélo, this selection from Fédérale 2 knocks our previous entries from the Top 14, Pro D2 and Fédérale 1 into un chapeau entassé. Little is known of the mysterious Central African Republic, a nation that can presumably be found in the centre of Africa. There’s something very old school about the Commonwealth Automobile Reinsurers, while the Canadian Airborne Regiment may well use a Combat Action Ribbon in their daily efforts to protect Winnipeg from the threat of aerial invasion.  We round off a nice bunch with the good people of the Committee Against Racism and the painfully sounding Congenital Articular Rigidity.

Rugby Club Gueretois
It’s definitely a case of quality not quantity here. The Revolutionary Communist Group spend most of their time these days reminiscing of the glory days of burning down the Reichstag, an action that could have been given over to the Roberts Creek Gangstas of British Columbia to perform. The Rotorua Caving Group may also been fans of local Super 15 outfit Waikato Chiefs, while the Radioactivity Concentration Guide is important, but a tough read.

Association Sportive Fleurantine Rugby
Once again we’re low on numbers but high on quality. Only hardy jungle explorers with khaki shorts would fancy a close encounter with an African Soft Furred Rat. The Age Specific Fertility Rate is surely an outdated measurement thanks to modern science allowing sixty-something grannies to knock one out. The mind absolutely boggles at what service Alternative Sex Fetish Robots perform, but it’s arguably the best alternative acronym we’ve stumbled across yet.

Group Sportif Figeacois
We continue with the pervy theme with the about-time-they-decided-one-way-or-another Gay Straight Forum. Saying that, those oiseaux who like a bit of both are ok with us! The Genoa Social Forum is probably treasured by Genoese, while the Girls Schmirls Foundation sounds like some stupid public school group. Gnomish Special Forces are one of the odder groups we’ve unearthed.

Boucau Tarnos Stade
Little do the good rugby folk of Boucau Tarnos realise that they share their acronym with such a diverse batch. A medical theme is developed with the British Thoracic Society, the British Transplantation Society and the British Toxicology Society. There’s also the British Toggenburg Society, but without the help of Google your guess is as good as ours as to what a Toggenburg is or does. Confusion abounds with the Burtser Trimmer Stacker as well. The Brooklyn Terror Squad should square up with Pascal Ondarts to see who comes out on top. The Bangalore Transport Service has its work cut out on the sub-continent’s chaotic roads.

Cercle Athletique Castelsarrasinois
There’s a fair chance the Canadian Airports Council and the Canadian Aviation Corps know each other well, although both may have fallen foul of the Clean Air Campaign at one time or another. The California Avocado Commission does what it says on the tin, while the Catholic Anglican Church should keep all you fans of religion bodies happy. The Central Arizona College is one the state’s finest, as is South Carolina’s Catawba Animal Clinic. Sticking with the animal theme, we end a lively bunch with the unheralded Cow Appreciation Campaign.

Entente Aramits Asasp
If you’re still with us you deserve a trip to the plush-sounding Everglade Agricultural Area. If you’re not we’ll call in the Elite American Assassins. Not that you’d know, mind. You’d need a fairly big tub of cream to treat a case of Extrinsic Allergic Alveolitis. The European Athletic Association, the European Anglers Alliance, the European Acoustics Association and European Aluminium Association all do their bit for runners, fishermen, sound buffs and fans of the most widely used non-ferrous metal everywhere and bring this particular chapter of acronym anarchy to an end.