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In this - the 11th in a series of articles on the B&I Lions - Rugby Rugby's oracle, Paul Dobson, tells us about the first team that was officially called 'The Lions'.

The 1924 team to tour South Africa, only the fifth team to tour the country in 33 years at a time when Tests for South Africans were rare, was the first team to be referred to as the Lions. They limped around South Africa and had a poor playing record but they established the name, first a nickname and now an official name.

It is a convenient nickname for a team sometimes called the British Isles Rugby Union Team or the British Isles and Irish Rugby Union Touring team. As it is it gets cumbersome when we get politically correct and call the team the British and Irish Lions. Lions is much easier to use, much easier to shout/chant at matches.

The teams from the four Home Unions did not have nicknames and still do not. They are England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales - and that's it. The tams from the Southern Hemisphere had nicknames - All Blacks, Springboks and Wallabies.

Here you had this composite side with a cumbersome name coming into the realm of the nickname. That they got one was inevitable.

The lions was a symbol associated with UK. It's on the royal standard, its on cricket emblems. Landseer's lions lie in Trafalgar Square. And so in 1924 the team had a tie and the tie had lions on it. South Africans started calling them the Lions, though it really became more commonly used in the 1950s and now is part of the official name.

Sadly the first Lions were also the weakest Lions. They played 21 matches, winning nine, drawing three and losing nine.

Amongst the nine lost were three of the four Tests. They had injuries galore and they ran into the great Bennie Olser who changed the way rugby was played with his inventive use of his boot - a genius.

To some he was an evil genius, destroying the running-passing game.

There were four Tests on the tour. South Africa won 7-3 in Durban and 17-0 in Johannesburg, the teams drew 3-all in Port Elizabeth and South Africa won 16-9 at Newlands.