DOMINIC SANDBROOK: Own goal to claim Wales oppressed by England

DOMINIC SANDBROOK: Why it’s an own goal for nationalists to claim Wales has always been oppressed by the wicked English

The date was February 26, 1881, the place Alexandra Meadows, Blackburn — a name that’s gone down in Welsh sporting folklore.

For it was here, in driving snow, that Wales’s footballers recorded their first ever victory over their English neighbours, to the mingled horror and delight of 4,000 spectators.

Today, as the two nations prepare for their World Cup showdown in Qatar, the details of that match sound like something from ancient history. Both sides wore white shirts, though the Welsh added coloured ribbons to avoid confusion.

The only goal came when the English goalkeeper was ‘charged over’, allowing Wales’s Jackie Vaughan to boot the ball into an empty net.

And the referee? His name, believe it or not, was Segar Richard Bastard.

If you’d told those Victorian pioneers that, one day, football matches between England and Wales would be loaded with political meaning, they’d have laughed in your face. As a political force, Welsh nationalism was almost non-existent, and almost no one ever questioned the union of the two countries.

DOMINIC SANDBROOK: Today, as the two nations prepare for their World Cup showdown in Qatar, the details of that match sound like something from ancient history (Wales players salute fans after their match against Iran on November 25)

The picture today, however, could hardly be more different.

The Welsh team left for Qatar with the voice of the Left-wing nationalist Dafydd Iwan ringing in their ears, thanks to their fans’ adoption of his anti-establishment, anti-Margaret Thatcher protest song, Yma o Hyd (Still Here).

The obvious implication of that song is that, for generations, the English have tried to eradicate Wales and Welshness, only to be frustrated by the indomitable spirit of the local people.

It’s a message echoed by the Newport-born actor Michael Sheen, who recently gave a speech telling the Welsh players that the English had always dismissed them as ‘too small, too slow, too weak, too full of fear’.

Mr Sheen is no stranger to crowd-pleasing nationalistic gestures.

He’s already attacked Prince William for sending a pre-tournament message of support for England, despite the fact that our new Prince of Wales has been a keen England fan for years.

In 2017, the actor even handed back his OBE, claiming to have been shocked by his research on the ‘nature of the relationship between Wales and the British state’. But has the relationship really been as one-sided and exploitative as he claims? In a word: No.

My grandfather was a proud Welshman, who never missed an opportunity to lecture me about the outstanding qualities of the Pembroke-born Henry VII, first of the Tudors.

Like anybody with a drop of Welsh blood, I adore the story of King Arthur, the legendary hero who supposedly rallied the ancestors of the Welsh against invading Anglo-Saxons after the fall of the Roman Empire. And having spent most of my childhood summers in Wales, I love the colourful myths of the Mabinogion – a collection of medieval Welsh tales – and have devoured more than my fair share of the first-class Welsh tea loaf, Bara brith.

Michael Sheen, who recently gave a speech telling the Welsh players that the English had always dismissed them as ‘too small, too slow, too weak, too full of fear’

But even the most romantic Celt should be honest: the idea of saintly Welsh victims being oppressed for generations by wicked English overlords is utter, utter nonsense.

There is a tiny element of truth in it, of course. The very word Wales, deriving from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning ‘foreigners’ or ‘strangers’, comes from an age in which Germanic settlers won supremacy over the lowlands of southern and midland Britain, pushing the original inhabitants across the mountains to the west.

But there was little sense of a coherent ‘Wales’ until much later. Even in the Middle Ages, there was no united Welsh nation state, but a patchwork of feuding kingdoms.

All this came to an end in the 13th century, when the formidable Plantagenet king Edward I launched a full-scale conquest of the Welsh realms.

He named his eldest son Prince of Wales, and began a massive programme of building castles to stamp his authority upon the landscape.

Today, those castles are some of Wales’s most lucrative tourist attractions. We sometimes forget, though, that they were built as symbols of surveillance and control, at once watchtowers, prisons and military bases.

Yet as Swansea University’s Professor Martin Johnes points out in his excellent book Wales: England’s Colony?, the English never sought to eradicate the Welsh people or their language.

They could be patronising, even bullying; but they were certainly not genocidal, as some Welsh nationalists absurdly claim.

Over time, England and Wales became ever more closely intertwined. It’s very telling, for example, that the Tudors proudly played up their Welsh heritage, with Henry VII riding to battle at Bosworth beneath the Red Dragon standard — and in the heart of England.

Whatever the result tonight, we should remember that the relationship between England and Wales has long been one of the world’s most successful and harmonious partnerships. England team are pictured on November 25

Nationalists point to the mid-19th century as a particularly dark moment, insisting that the tyrannical English tried to stamp out Welsh in schools. The most infamous symbol of this, they claim, is that children were forced to wear a humiliating wooden sign, the Welsh Not, if they were caught speaking their native tongue. But as Professor Johnes points out, this is another canard.

The Welsh Not, he writes, was not widespread and was ‘never government policy’.

What’s more, the campaign to get Welsh children to speak English was largely driven by local councils, school boards and even parents themselves, because they thought speaking English would help their children to get on.

And was Wales an oppressed colony of the British Empire, as the nationalists claim? Hardly.

In fact, Welsh sailors, soldiers, businessmen and administrators cheerfully threw themselves into the imperial project, welcoming the opportunities for adventure and advancement.

Just think, for instance, of the wonderful film Zulu, celebrating the courage of the Welsh soldiers at Rorke’s Drift in 1879. The scene in which they defiantly sing Men Of Harlech may be an invention, but the essence of the story is absolutely right.

This is not to say, of course, that Wales has always been perfectly treated. The English have often been overbearing, condescending or plain dismissive – exemplified by the fact that Wales didn’t even have an official flag until 1959.

And I’ve long thought that the tragedy at Aberfan in 1966, when 116 children and 28 adults were killed as a colliery spoil tip collapsed, engulfing a primary school and surrounding houses, would be far better known had it happened in England.

In total, of Wales’s 26-strong World Cup squad, nine of the players started life in England. Pictured are Gareth Bale, Ben Davies, Aaron Ramsey and Chris Gunter during training

What the nationalists rarely mention, though, is that modern Wales would be unrecognisable were it not for its friendship with England. To give an obvious example, the Industrial Revolution would have been utterly unthinkable without the influx of so many families from England, who moved to the factories and pit villages of South Wales in the late 19th century.

The backgrounds of the Welsh national football team tell the story. The defender Ethan Ampadu was born in Exeter, the striker Kieffer Moore in Torquay.

In total, of Wales’s 26-strong World Cup squad, nine of the players started life in England. And given the age-old intermingling of the two nations, it’s a safe bet that almost every Welsh player will have a drop or two of English blood — just as many of the England players must have Welsh roots, too.

One of the unforeseen consequences of devolution, however, is that it has licensed, and perhaps even institutionalised, a brand of narrow, strident, exclusive nationalism.

Only a month ago, for example, the words ‘Leave English or Die’ were scrawled in large letters on the wall of a pub in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire.

An empty threat? Maybe. But don’t forget what happened in the late 1960s, when the paramilitary group Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru set off a series of bombs that killed two of their own members and left a ten-year-old boy seriously injured; or in the 1980s, when another group, Meibion Glyndwr (Sons of Glyndwr), firebombed more than 200 holiday cottages in protest at the so-called English invasion.

Of course, most sporting nationalism is simply good, clean fun. But if it runs unchecked, it can easily have political consequences – and sometimes violent and bloody ones.

Whatever the result tonight, we should remember that the relationship between England and Wales has long been one of the world’s most successful and harmonious partnerships.

We are more than friends. We are family. And on that note, may the best team win.

Dominic Sandbrook discusses the relationship between England and Wales with Professor Martin Johnes in the latest episode of his podcast, The Rest Is History

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