Yahoo Movies Five things the English can learn from the Welsh at the World Cup
As an ever optimistic Welshman, I haven’t entirely ruled out Wales’s chances of beating England tonight and progressing in the World Cup. However, should our 64-year dream be over inside a mere eight days, I have some advice for my English chums – at home and in Qatar – on how they can take a little of Wales with them into the knockout stages. Here’s what the English can learn from the Welsh at the World Cup.
Enjoy yourselves
It’s the World Cup! It’s supposed to be fun!* If I haven’t been entirely jealous about Wales not playing in a World Cup since 1958, then it’s because every four years the English make the experience look so bloody miserable.
The Welsh fans – the Red Wall/Y Wal Goch – as they did in Euro 2016, have swept through the tournament as one joyous, bubbling, close-harmony-singing wave of joy, drinking in every moment as they go. Compare Gareth Bale’s ear-to-ear beam at every press conference with Harry Kane’s weight-of-the-world frown. Will Southgate pick Foden? Who cares! Just enjoy being at the greatest football tournament there is.* Oh, and don’t boo the team.
(*All usual caveats about Qatar 2022 apply)
Be good tourists
Wales fans leave an impression wherever they go. Polite, courteous and good-humoured, they clean up after themselves, while generally endearing themselves to the locals (and they drink the place dry, to boot). Witness, for instance, the youth choir from the Vale of Clwyd singing Calon Lan on the Doha Metro – a moment so out of step with British football fandom it seems like a hallucination.
This is how to export your culture and values to an international stage, rather than, random example, dressing up as knights of the Crusade in a Muslim country. The tournament has also been helpful in letting the world know that Wales is not England. Next mission: teach ITV commentators that Wales isn’t actually a principality.
Connect with your culture
The Welsh FA has played a blinder, leaning into what the Y Wal Goch hold dear – bucket hats, mainly – while embracing an outward-looking but passionate nationalism. This can be best typified by Dafydd Iwan’s rousing rebel folk song Yma O Hyd (Still Here), which has become the unofficial anthem of Welsh football.
The Welsh language – once seen as something that divided people in Wales – is back in fashion too, with the FA going fully bilingual and several of the players conducting their press conferences in Cymraeg. The team will be known as Cymru from next year.
Have an anthem you can belt out
Speaking of anthems, when Wales played USA in their opening match, the whole world got to see the fans and players singing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, something which put the wind up USA fans on social media (“Now I understand why the English were never able to kill them off,” one quipped).
Quite simply, we may well be packing our bags for Cardiff Airport tonight, but Wales wins the anthem world cup. England? Even the fans seem a little embarrassed by the dire dirge that is God Save the King. It’s hardly something you can thump the chest to. Find an anthem, something that will make Twitter users in America slightly fearful. (And not Three Lions, for the love of God.)
Find your own Michael Sheen
The actor’s impromptu rallying speech to the Wales squad on Sky Max’s A League of Their Own has been viewed millions of times online and made international news ahead of the World Cup.
More than one of my English friends has claimed it “turned them Welsh”, such is Sheen’s ferocity: “They’ve always said we are too small, we are too slow, we are too weak, too full of fear. But yma o hyd you sons of Speed!”
Sheen understands Welshness and Welsh nationalism with every fibre of those lovely woollen jumpers he wears.
Can England find their Sheen? (And not Smithy from Gavin & Stacey, again for the love of God.)
