Coming over here

by Rick Johansen

Given my ancestry, carting around vast swaths of Scandinavia and Germania (Norwegian and the Netherlands mainly), a speck of Welsh and all of 14% English DNA, you might be surprised to find me fretting about the qualification processes for various sports stars. If I was any good at sport and obviously much younger, I would qualify to play for England by birth and both Norway and the Netherlands by way of ancestry, but in the (very) hypothetical situation where the latter offered me the chance to play for them, I would respectfully decline. Despite my Norwegian surname and all that foreign blood, I am British, more specifically England. The only international team I want to win is England and while I certainly embrace my heritage, especially the Dutch bit, I don’t feel any emotion when the Dutch or Norwegian sporting teams are in action. Frankly, I don’t understand how people get a kick out of playing for a country that isn’t theirs.

I first became aware of overseas players playing for England when watching cricket. The England cricket teams when I was growing up included numerous overseas players. For example, Tony Greig (who I loved, by the way), Robin and Chris Smith, Allan Lamb, Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott were out-and-out South Africans who legitimately qualified to play for a country that was obvious not theirs. In the 1970s, when South African cricket was in the wilderness due to apartheid, becoming English was the only pathway available for South Africans to play test cricket. I cannot possibly comment about their motives – perhaps they all had a burning ambition to play for another country? – but, like a mini Nigel Farage, I didn’t like the idea of them doing so.

I have no issue with sportspeople who came to England as a young child, or English born sportspeople who were born abroad because of their parents’ work or whatever, but choosing one’s nationality? Hmm, I have a problem with that. None more so than the South African runner Zola Budd who, being denied international sporting opportunities, became British due to her … ahem … ancestry. Indeed, the migrant-loving Daily Mail campaigned extensively to allow her to represent the UK. Cricket still allows players who aren’t English to represent England, but rugby union is something else.

Cards on the table time. I am not the world’s biggest RU fan. I have been to a handful of games featuring Bristol Bears, Gloucester and once, two years ago, Wales v England and have always been somewhat less than enthused by what was on view. When it’s England playing, I do feel pangs of patriotism, although if I have a better offer, like last night, like going to the pub and then having something to eat, I’ll always choose that in preference to watching a game. Weirdly though, I’ve become somewhat over-preoccupied with the nationality issue.

Watching some of the autumn internationals, last autumn oddly enough, I became aware, because someone said so on social media, that Scotland had more players in their team who weren’t Scottish than actually were. The great winger Duhan Van der Merwe is from South Africa and qualified on residential grounds, a laughable three years. Prop Pierre Schoeman is – surprise, surprise! – South African and even their currently injured captain Sione Tuipulotu is an Australian, qualifying for Scotland because his great grandfather once drank some single malt whisky (I may have made up the last bit, but it’s not far out). Add to the mix some Englishmen with Scots ancestry and you have a multinational national rugby union team.

In itself, this might not be an issue but later this year the British and Irish Lions will tour Australia, probably the ultimate honour for British and Irish rugby union players. It is virtually certain that a high number of the players won’t really be British or Irish.

I didn’t bother to watch Ireland’s inevitable demolition of England yesterday, but I was aware that three of Ireland’s big stars are Kiwis. Bundee Aki, Jamison Gibson-Park and James Lowe, who will surely tour with the Lions, along with the likes of Duhan Van der Merwe and Sione Tuipulotu. Perhaps it doesn’t matter and I should get over myself as barriers of nationality are broken down? These players have, after all, committed once and for all to their adopted countries. Shouldn’t I adopt them, too? Yeah, probably.

In terms of nationality in society, I don’t much care where anyone comes from. We’re all human beings in the end. Yet, when it comes to sport, and representing your country in sport, I can’t help thinking that you should normally know what and who you are. I’m English, born of Scandinavian and Germanic stock, with a morsel of Welsh thrown in, but I feel 100% English. My heritage, my ancestry, matters but if I am picked for the next Dutch football team alongside Virgil van Dijk, Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo, I’ll turn down the chance. And if Norway come knocking, I’ll turn them down, too, not least because I have never been there and have no interest in so going.

Don’t think it’s just rugby union’s liberal qualification processes that puzzle me. I feel much the same way about all sports, not least in the choice of coaches. I wasn’t happy with the appointment of Thomas Tuchel has head coach of the England football team because, well, he’s German and surely the England national football team, which includes the best footballers in the land, should be coached by … an Englishman. I will still be shouting like a lunatic when the team attempts to qualify for the next world cup, mind.

You see, even lily-livered, dripping wet liberals have a breaking point and mine is if you play sport for a country, it should rightfully be the country that most accurately reflects where you come from and isn’t an opportunity to perform at elite level under a flag of convenience.

I hope to feel the same way in the next few years as my team, England, start selecting newly qualified South Africans, Kiwis and Aussies, as well as some highly talented young Welsh players. Whether I shall be as consistent with my criticism as I am with other countries picking players who are not from their country is another matter.

You may also like

Leave a Comment