Okay, I can hear my rugby-following friends say…..here he goes again! But I do have a strange relationship with our so-called national game, as do most of my family ( my brother, who has lived in England for years, is devoted to it however).
I recall at one of his excellent family gatherings a friend of his, a Kiwi, talking to a number of my immediate family and -, when he referred to the World Cup - being totally baffled by our consistently round-ball answers.
I grew up playing footie on the streets of an Aberystwyth council estate and carried on in Cambridge, where I eventually represented the City as a right-footed left-winger like Junior Hoilett of my beloved Bluebirds, long before such things were entertained. Actually, my Primary school teacher was canny and knew there was a vacancy in that position, so picked me there for the school. Aged 10 and 11, that was the high-point of my ‘career’.
From the ages of 11-18 I played both football and rugby for my Grammar school, starting as outside half then shifting to centre where, some games, I hardly saw the ball. We mostly played rugby against posh private schools and in our side were several boys from originally Welsh families ( 2 Morgan’s, 2 Jones’s and me).
On the coach home after one game, one of the Jones’s ( a huge second row forward) sexually propositioned me. I was frightened and disgusted and avoided him completely from then on.
Scrum and three-quarters were two separate worlds : scrum from middle-class backgrounds and the backs were football-loving lads with more working-class or rural backgrounds. I identified with them……more so after the Jones incident!
In the 6th form I played, but with increasing lack of enthusiasm.
On Sundays I was playing football for a local factory team made up of men and youths from neighbouring villages and I thrived on it. We often played on quagmires against teams including baldy, paunchy players ( I had hair then).
At Uni I only played football and my associations with rugby were tenuous. The rugby boys indulged in ludicrous drinking games and none shared my passions for poetry and politics.
I shared digs with two ‘rugger’ obsessed private schoolboys, who oozed a sense of arrogance and entitlement, even though both were from Cardiff.
On the other hand, most of my mates were football fans from the north of England.
At an inter-college Eisteddfod I was punched violently in the back by a rugby student for nothing other than my wayward dress sense.
Yet apparently my grand-dad ( originally from Cilfynydd) had been a really good rugby player……so it wasn’t as if it was a family thing. My parents weren’t interested in either sport.
Returning to Cymru at 18 to live with my gran in Barri , I soon started following Cardiff City.
Occasionally, when matches were postponed because of bad weather, I’d wander into the Arms Park to watch the rugby and was bemused at the lack of atmosphere, players slo-mo in a swamp and overall tedium.
I’ve since tried hard to identify with our national team, yet on the couple of occasions I’ve attended internationals things haven’t helped : it’s one thing being surrounded by pissed fans, but quite another being pissed on from the stand above like a downpour of acid rain!
Teaching in a Merthyr school added to this dislike, where male rugby-mad staff talked endlessly about all the crazy antics of match-days ( many illegal) , yet not so much about the nuances of the actual games.
This attitude was summed up once when the Bluebirds were playing the same day as Wales rugby team. On the train home I asked an inebriated couple the score and they didn’t know! This would be anathema to football fans, where the game takes precedence.
With our success in the Euros and that unique opportunity for fans from all over Cymru to get together for a tournament, I became more and more convinced that it was, in reality, the game for all the nation and rugby had become the property of the establishment.
Rugby’s stadium is absurdly named the Principality; yes, after a building society, but still signifying our lack of national pride. William Windsor is seen as representative of the team, at the same time as being President of the English FA!
The three feathers badge is inextricably associated with the British military and also English royalty. Any number of excuses can’t disguise its fawning nature compared to football’s dragon badge.
Above all, football fans have begun to organise themselves in recent years as a serious force for independence : highlighting its positivity rather than the tired old platitudes of ‘As long as we beat the English’ ( and didn’t the Stereophonics attend Carlo’s Buckers bash not long ago?).
For all its faults, the FAW has been fiercely independent, especially in rejecting Team GB during the London Olympics.
I am excited by Wales winning the Grand Slam , yet keep thinking about the negative responses towards our Yes Cymru stall in Merthyr from rugby fans, who seemed ‘daffs for the day’.
Rugby seems politically to represent an overwhelming nostalgia, while football is more of a dynamic force looking to the future.
I’d like rugby to change radically but cannot see the fans organising as football fans do. There is a strong history in football of fan power, from clubs being run by them like Swansea ( in the past), Newport and Wrecsam and the creativity of fanzines. It was, after all, our fans who changed the appalling rebrand at Cardiff City through many protests and not Chairman Tan’s mother!
Maybe…….just maybe…..with prominent socialist republicans like writer and artist Sion Tomos Owen involved in the media coverage there is hope……I’d like to think so.
DRAGONS ‘N’ DAFFS
Ee woz dressed as a dragon
an she wore daffodil ead-gear.
They wen’ t Cardiff
to watch-a big game ,
they got so rat-arsed
they didn know nothin,
but somebuddy tol em arfta
about-a Gran’ Slam.
They’d felt so lush
with Prince Wills in-a crowd ,
three feathers on theyer jerseys
like they wuz in-a army.
Tha stadium named arfta
theyer own buildin society.
They wen’ t bed in Wayuls,
but woke up in-a G.B.
I recall at one of his excellent family gatherings a friend of his, a Kiwi, talking to a number of my immediate family and -, when he referred to the World Cup - being totally baffled by our consistently round-ball answers.
I grew up playing footie on the streets of an Aberystwyth council estate and carried on in Cambridge, where I eventually represented the City as a right-footed left-winger like Junior Hoilett of my beloved Bluebirds, long before such things were entertained. Actually, my Primary school teacher was canny and knew there was a vacancy in that position, so picked me there for the school. Aged 10 and 11, that was the high-point of my ‘career’.
From the ages of 11-18 I played both football and rugby for my Grammar school, starting as outside half then shifting to centre where, some games, I hardly saw the ball. We mostly played rugby against posh private schools and in our side were several boys from originally Welsh families ( 2 Morgan’s, 2 Jones’s and me).
On the coach home after one game, one of the Jones’s ( a huge second row forward) sexually propositioned me. I was frightened and disgusted and avoided him completely from then on.
Scrum and three-quarters were two separate worlds : scrum from middle-class backgrounds and the backs were football-loving lads with more working-class or rural backgrounds. I identified with them……more so after the Jones incident!
In the 6th form I played, but with increasing lack of enthusiasm.
On Sundays I was playing football for a local factory team made up of men and youths from neighbouring villages and I thrived on it. We often played on quagmires against teams including baldy, paunchy players ( I had hair then).
At Uni I only played football and my associations with rugby were tenuous. The rugby boys indulged in ludicrous drinking games and none shared my passions for poetry and politics.
I shared digs with two ‘rugger’ obsessed private schoolboys, who oozed a sense of arrogance and entitlement, even though both were from Cardiff.
On the other hand, most of my mates were football fans from the north of England.
At an inter-college Eisteddfod I was punched violently in the back by a rugby student for nothing other than my wayward dress sense.
Yet apparently my grand-dad ( originally from Cilfynydd) had been a really good rugby player……so it wasn’t as if it was a family thing. My parents weren’t interested in either sport.
Returning to Cymru at 18 to live with my gran in Barri , I soon started following Cardiff City.
Occasionally, when matches were postponed because of bad weather, I’d wander into the Arms Park to watch the rugby and was bemused at the lack of atmosphere, players slo-mo in a swamp and overall tedium.
I’ve since tried hard to identify with our national team, yet on the couple of occasions I’ve attended internationals things haven’t helped : it’s one thing being surrounded by pissed fans, but quite another being pissed on from the stand above like a downpour of acid rain!
Teaching in a Merthyr school added to this dislike, where male rugby-mad staff talked endlessly about all the crazy antics of match-days ( many illegal) , yet not so much about the nuances of the actual games.
This attitude was summed up once when the Bluebirds were playing the same day as Wales rugby team. On the train home I asked an inebriated couple the score and they didn’t know! This would be anathema to football fans, where the game takes precedence.
With our success in the Euros and that unique opportunity for fans from all over Cymru to get together for a tournament, I became more and more convinced that it was, in reality, the game for all the nation and rugby had become the property of the establishment.
Rugby’s stadium is absurdly named the Principality; yes, after a building society, but still signifying our lack of national pride. William Windsor is seen as representative of the team, at the same time as being President of the English FA!
The three feathers badge is inextricably associated with the British military and also English royalty. Any number of excuses can’t disguise its fawning nature compared to football’s dragon badge.
Above all, football fans have begun to organise themselves in recent years as a serious force for independence : highlighting its positivity rather than the tired old platitudes of ‘As long as we beat the English’ ( and didn’t the Stereophonics attend Carlo’s Buckers bash not long ago?).
For all its faults, the FAW has been fiercely independent, especially in rejecting Team GB during the London Olympics.
I am excited by Wales winning the Grand Slam , yet keep thinking about the negative responses towards our Yes Cymru stall in Merthyr from rugby fans, who seemed ‘daffs for the day’.
Rugby seems politically to represent an overwhelming nostalgia, while football is more of a dynamic force looking to the future.
I’d like rugby to change radically but cannot see the fans organising as football fans do. There is a strong history in football of fan power, from clubs being run by them like Swansea ( in the past), Newport and Wrecsam and the creativity of fanzines. It was, after all, our fans who changed the appalling rebrand at Cardiff City through many protests and not Chairman Tan’s mother!
Maybe…….just maybe…..with prominent socialist republicans like writer and artist Sion Tomos Owen involved in the media coverage there is hope……I’d like to think so.
DRAGONS ‘N’ DAFFS
Ee woz dressed as a dragon
an she wore daffodil ead-gear.
They wen’ t Cardiff
to watch-a big game ,
they got so rat-arsed
they didn know nothin,
but somebuddy tol em arfta
about-a Gran’ Slam.
They’d felt so lush
with Prince Wills in-a crowd ,
three feathers on theyer jerseys
like they wuz in-a army.
Tha stadium named arfta
theyer own buildin society.
They wen’ t bed in Wayuls,
but woke up in-a G.B.
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