The nicest man in the world messages me this week, offering two tickets, gratis, for the Wales v England Six Nations game in Cardiff. Would I like to go? I am slightly overwhelmed. One of the biggest sporting events in Britain, rich in history and tradition. And I am being offered what is one of those opportunities that rarely comes along. Of course I would like to go. Thank you so much. And so it was that on Saturday 23rd February 2023, my youngest son and I boarded the 13.43 from Bristol Parkway to Cardiff. This is how it went.
I am not the world’s greatest Rugby Union fan. League is my preference, although I will occasional attend a Bristol Bears game in the dark side (Ashton Gate) and I’ll watch the Six Nations games on telly, mainly when England are playing. But as soon as I got the call, I was quite excited about this game. Despite my Norwegian surname and 50% Dutch bloodline, I’m English and I’ll want England to win at anything. I have heard a lot about international rugby and how there is no segregation of supporters as there is with football. But surely when it came to this game, there would be an unpleasant and perhaps even sinister undertone. Soon, we would find out.
Cardiff was, of course, rocking when we pulled in. The pubs and clubs were absolutely rammed but we had a cunning plan. Walking past the greaseburger stalls and the unofficial merchandise tat – there really were half and half scarves: why? – our destination was Revolution which is, according to the blurb, an “individually styled chain bar with a global menu of comfort-food classics and nightly happy hours.” Hmm. It looked more like a generic bar to me, but we had been given a tip-off. There’s an upstairs bit which is used by Welsh Rugby Union members. Arriving, we saw massive security guards checking membership cards, which of course we didn’t possess. We had been told to ignore the front entrance, walk through the bar and at the back there’s a little known flight of stairs leading to the upstairs bit. We found it and employed the look of people who were supposed to be there and soon found ourselves among the great and the good, including Dan Lydiate, who of course I didn’t recognise and, somewhat improbably, Katie Garry, a winger for Salford Red Devils women’s Rugby League team. I should add that we engaged in conversation after I stood on her foot.
Kind folk had recommended we arrive early at the Principality Stadium to take in the atmosphere and the pre-match singing but instead we decided to enjoy a gradually emptying bar. We were among a tiny group of English fans, hardly surprising since we weren’t even supposed to be there, but there was absolutely no hostility. On the contrary, it could not have been friendlier.
On a mildish late winter day, we then walked to the stadium, planning to arrive about 15 minutes before kick off. Although the queues were long and wide, we got in easily enough and soon we were high up, behind and above the posts in the South Stand. The view from there and in my experience everywhere else in the stadium is magnificent. The stairwells are a little tired but if I was to build a sports stadium I would design it exactly like this one.
The national anthems are in stark contrast to each other. England’s was first and what a dirge it is and always will be. But I got up and sung my heart out, possibly to show the England players that there were a good few of us present. The Welsh anthem is different gravy, sung at full volume with genuine passion by players and fans. It knocked God Save The King out of the park, almost literally. I was also pleased to see both sets of fans join a period of applause for the Welsh great Charlie Faulkner who died recently and a period of silence to show solidarity with Ukraine. Sheer class. This was not going as I expected and neither was the game.
As a non-expert, I expected Wales to win. They’re supposed to be further down the road in preparing for the World Cup but it didn’t look like it. We didn’t think it was a particularly good game, with lots of kicking and poor ball-handling, but to my surprise England won and fully deserved to. Now some thoughts about the stadium and the Welsh fans.
The stadium is great, the manners of some supporters less so. When we went to see Take That a few years ago, many of the mens toilets became ladies toilets for the day. Today, it was the opposite. I visited one of them – you could tell it was usually a ladies’ toilet because there were no urinals but that didn’t concern many of the men who were pissing in the sinks. That’s all the sinks. I remain traumatised by the sight of a line of adult men fully exposed, relieving themselves where really they shouldn’t have been. Normally, I am a stickler for washing my hands after a bathroom break. This time, I waited until the next visit. Good luck to the stadium cleaners after this one.
The Welsh fans were generally different class. Once the game got going, the passion from the terraces began to ebb, only rising when Wales made an increasingly rare foray into English territory. They were unceasingly friendly and chatty, despite the unfolding scoreline. Which reminds me. At 10-8 to Wales, I made my fateful bathroom visit. When I returned to my seat the score was 10-15 but it didn’t occur to me that England may have scored in my absence. I had somehow concluded that Wales had extended their lead. It must have been a good five minutes when it occurred to me that we were actually leading. I can only attribute this sad state of affairs to my dwindling faculties. It certainly won’t have been the abysmal 4% Amstel lager.
As it became clear that England were going to win, there began a quiet and steady exodus from the stadium. No booing or bad-mouthing, just subdued disappointment. Their players had tried their hardest, done their best. On another day, with a bit of luck, the result might have been different. Always the backstop for any fan. I had come prepared for bad-mouthing and a little edge, but there was neither. By the time we emerged into the cool evening air, I almost felt sorry for them. To be fair, judging from the thousands queueing to get in Cardiff’s myriad or bars and pubs, they didn’t seem to be feeling sorry for themselves. We had to walk seemingly miles to get a drink. A hardy bunch, these Welsh fans.
Outside Cardiff Central, the Soviet style gates were up to separate the queues to various platforms. I understand the need for organisation but I don’t enjoy the totalitarian style of queuing and being dictated to my bouncers, rail staff and coppers. It’s probably just me. But here the fans were different: they were English.
Not all England fans are middle class accent-free wankers, but here I was surrounded by them. Some took great pride in clambering over fences to dodge the queues, clattering into other folk, including women and children, without hint of an apology. On the packed train home, a group of extremely posh men were regaling two female Japanese women with stories of how great the Conservative party was and how we could not afford a Labour government. And then, at Bristol Parkway, a group of very loud men were engaging in casual homophobia with ‘gay’ this and ‘gay’ that in a display of tasteless macho.
It’s entirely possible that my inbuilt working class chips I have on each shoulder mean I am more inclined to hear middle class snobbery and bigotry and the less I am inclined to hear the same thing from the ‘lower orders’, but in that moment I felt far closer to the massed ranks of Welsh folk, even if some of them were pissing in the sink.
As I walked home from Bristol Parkway station, my elderly knees creaking almost out loud, I knew this had been a special day. I had been to my first and probably last Six Nations game and the experience was everything I might have hoped for and more. Wales in general and Cardiff in particular had done themselves proud. The Welsh were great to us and I suppose it’s never too late to grow up and accept that they’re a great bunch of people.
Lechyd da!
