Beorn
07-07-2009, 11:52 AM
It's enough to leave you stumped... England versus Australia with the WELSH anthem!
It is a sporting ritual usually performed with patriotic chests puffed out, eyes moist and vocal cords stretched to the maximum.
But when the national anthem is played before England's cricketers take on the Australians tomorrow, don't expect any of our chaps to sing along.
Mainly because the words won't be in English.
For rather than playing God Save The Queen, the sport's blazered bigwigs have decided the ground will reverberate instead to the Welsh national anthem. :mad:
Land Of My Fathers will be sung before play starts in Cardiff in an attempt to get the mainly Welsh crowd behind the England team in the first Test match in the Ashes series.
It is part of a charm offensive aimed at the Welsh by cricketing chiefs who feared they would lose 'home advantage' by not staging the match in England - and might even have local supporters cheering Australia. :mad::rolleyes2:
Welsh soprano Katherine Jenkins, who regularly sings before the national rugby team plays at the nearby Millennium Stadium, has been brought in to perform the anthem. Australia will hear their traditional Advance Australia Fair.
Although the governing body is officially the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the team will not be singing - to prevent an embarrassing repeat of the spectacle of former Conservative Welsh Secretary John Redwood trying to mime the anthem at a public event in 1993.
None of the current squad was born and bred in Wales, and only batsman Alastair Cook - whose mother comes from Swansea - has any close Welsh ancestry.
Singing national anthems before play is a relatively new phenomenon in cricket. Jerusalem was played once in the 2005 Ashes series after it became a favourite with supporters.
The decision to play the Welsh anthem has angered traditionalists, who are already annoyed about the match being the first Ashes Test to be played outside England or Australia.
An ECB source said: 'The players are fine about the Welsh national anthem, although nobody knows the words to it and won't be singing. They feel it's just not cricket singing anthems generally, but they're happy to do anything that gets the crowd behind them and silence the Australian supporters.
'But they're angry about the first test being played in Cardiff and feel that they're losing the advantage. A lot of the players wanted it to be played at Lord's or the Oval.
'They feel that the decision to play in Cardiff could give the Aussies an advantage and spur them on during the series. Hopefully the Welsh will be pleased with the choice of anthem and really give them a lift.'
Cardiff was controversially chosen ahead of Manchester for the match. The Swalec Stadium underwent a £9.5million redevelopment that boosted capacity from 5,500 to 15,643 for the Test.
Anthems will not be played at the start of the other four Ashes fixtures this year at grounds in England.
Source (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197960/Its-leave-stumped--England-versus-Australia-WELSH-anthem.html)
Imagine if this had been the Welsh team being told they would be introduced by the English anthem?
I can bet the course of action would have gone like this:
1) The players would refuse to play.
2) The fans would refuse to attend/or protest in some manner.
3)The nation would be in uproar against such sacrilege and the match would be heavily criticised by both marginal and mainstream nationalist political parties.
What do the English do? "Yeah, we don't mind."
:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
If it's not bad enough having some kind of anti-English sentiment being covered by an embarrassing bowdown to Welsh tradition, then it's this semi-pseudo belief of an united British Union and that any bloody anthem would do. It's just those English after all.
If it was up to me, I would burn the houses down of all involved and boot them over the border to Wales and let them live with the Welsh.
Perhaps they may in time get to know the lyrics for 'Lands of my Fathers'?
It is a sporting ritual usually performed with patriotic chests puffed out, eyes moist and vocal cords stretched to the maximum.
But when the national anthem is played before England's cricketers take on the Australians tomorrow, don't expect any of our chaps to sing along.
Mainly because the words won't be in English.
For rather than playing God Save The Queen, the sport's blazered bigwigs have decided the ground will reverberate instead to the Welsh national anthem. :mad:
Land Of My Fathers will be sung before play starts in Cardiff in an attempt to get the mainly Welsh crowd behind the England team in the first Test match in the Ashes series.
It is part of a charm offensive aimed at the Welsh by cricketing chiefs who feared they would lose 'home advantage' by not staging the match in England - and might even have local supporters cheering Australia. :mad::rolleyes2:
Welsh soprano Katherine Jenkins, who regularly sings before the national rugby team plays at the nearby Millennium Stadium, has been brought in to perform the anthem. Australia will hear their traditional Advance Australia Fair.
Although the governing body is officially the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the team will not be singing - to prevent an embarrassing repeat of the spectacle of former Conservative Welsh Secretary John Redwood trying to mime the anthem at a public event in 1993.
None of the current squad was born and bred in Wales, and only batsman Alastair Cook - whose mother comes from Swansea - has any close Welsh ancestry.
Singing national anthems before play is a relatively new phenomenon in cricket. Jerusalem was played once in the 2005 Ashes series after it became a favourite with supporters.
The decision to play the Welsh anthem has angered traditionalists, who are already annoyed about the match being the first Ashes Test to be played outside England or Australia.
An ECB source said: 'The players are fine about the Welsh national anthem, although nobody knows the words to it and won't be singing. They feel it's just not cricket singing anthems generally, but they're happy to do anything that gets the crowd behind them and silence the Australian supporters.
'But they're angry about the first test being played in Cardiff and feel that they're losing the advantage. A lot of the players wanted it to be played at Lord's or the Oval.
'They feel that the decision to play in Cardiff could give the Aussies an advantage and spur them on during the series. Hopefully the Welsh will be pleased with the choice of anthem and really give them a lift.'
Cardiff was controversially chosen ahead of Manchester for the match. The Swalec Stadium underwent a £9.5million redevelopment that boosted capacity from 5,500 to 15,643 for the Test.
Anthems will not be played at the start of the other four Ashes fixtures this year at grounds in England.
Source (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197960/Its-leave-stumped--England-versus-Australia-WELSH-anthem.html)
Imagine if this had been the Welsh team being told they would be introduced by the English anthem?
I can bet the course of action would have gone like this:
1) The players would refuse to play.
2) The fans would refuse to attend/or protest in some manner.
3)The nation would be in uproar against such sacrilege and the match would be heavily criticised by both marginal and mainstream nationalist political parties.
What do the English do? "Yeah, we don't mind."
:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
If it's not bad enough having some kind of anti-English sentiment being covered by an embarrassing bowdown to Welsh tradition, then it's this semi-pseudo belief of an united British Union and that any bloody anthem would do. It's just those English after all.
If it was up to me, I would burn the houses down of all involved and boot them over the border to Wales and let them live with the Welsh.
Perhaps they may in time get to know the lyrics for 'Lands of my Fathers'?