Barcelona“It’s a pride to be the first person to speak Welsh at a World Cup” said Ben Davies with his head held high. He said it in Welsh, of course. He said it proudly. For the first time since 1958, Wales is playing in a World Cup. The first time he had done so, he reached the quarter-finals against Brazil, who defeated them with a goal from a 17-year-old named Pelé. Now, they have made their debut with a draw against the United States (1-1) and are confident of continuing to grow against Iran. That 1958, before the Welshmen’s matches had sounded the God save the queen. Now ha no, now the sound Old Country of My Fathers (The old land of my parents), the Welsh-language anthem that began to be played before Welsh national team matches in the 1970s. This anthem, written by the poet Evan James with music by his son James in 1856, was already sung in a stadium in 1905, when the New Zealand rugby team visited Cardiff, where they played their traditional so, the Maori dance. Teddy Morgan, one of the Welsh players, would have started singing this anthem, encouraging the spectators to join him, so as not to be intimidated by the rivals.
But the official anthem was still the British one. Everything was still happening in London. Until the last decades. The football team, made up of a group of footballers born, many of them, in England, but children of Welsh people, has become one of the great ambassadors of the Welsh Government’s campaign to look after and promote a of its great treasures: the Welsh language. After decades of seeing fewer and fewer people speaking this language, from 2011 to 2021 the number of people who master it has risen from 19% to 30%. Thanks to having media in Welsh, to having more and more schools, more awareness and the revival of Welsh nationalism. And thanks to having famous people, like Ben Davies, become one of the ambassadors of a language he cares for and loves. Davies, who plays for Tottenham Hotspur, has taken part in various Welsh Government campaigns to promote the use of the language among young people. And he was in charge of using this language in Qatar, in a press conference. “We are very proud of who we are, of our roots, of our language,” said a man who, in north London, where he plays, tries to speak Welsh with his teammate Joe Rodon, who doesn’t ‘just dominated. “If you’re Welsh, you have to speak it,” he told him in a video that went viral on the networks, as Rodon, his partner in the center of defense, struggled to follow him. Welsh is not an easy language.
The importance of schools
Davies went to one of the Welsh-language schools founded in the 1970s, in this case Ysgol Gymraeg Ystalyfera Bro Dur in Port Talbot, where these days pupils watch the match during school hours on a giant screen. With Welsh narration, of course. Unlike Davies, other players such as Rodon admit that it has been thanks to the national football team that they have come closer to a language that “my grandparents spoke, but not my parents”. The weight of English and the lack of policies to defend it meant that this language of Celtic origin was losing people who speak it from the end of the 19th century. In addition, the Welsh were forced to emigrate, many of them to Argentina, where about 20,000 people speak it. As mines closed and unemployment grew, the country became empty. And now, children of those emigrants play with the national team and get closer to the Welsh language, as the Federation promotes its use.
In fact, to celebrate the return to a World Cup after 64 years, the Welsh Football Association has decided to use an old protest anthem as its official song, Still here. This song, which means ‘we’re still here’, was written in 1981 by singer-songwriter Dafydd Iwan, who had a very good relationship with Gwynfor Evans, the leader of the nationalist Plaid Cymru party. The song recalls how the language has survived since the days of the Roman Empire, despite English kings, despite laws and poverty. A hymn of resistance that was sung at the demonstrations of the 80s in favor of being able to allocate more resources to the defense of the language where the creation of the Welsh National Assembly was demanded, which would be established in 1999. Iwan to be invited to sing the song live at Cardiff Stadium with the spectators and players at the big party to celebrate qualifying for the World Cup. Players who didn’t know the lyrics learned it. Others, like Gareth Bale, already knew her. In fact, in the promotional video made by the Welsh Federation, they have used images from the past showing protesters assaulted by the police fighting in the streets to protect their language. From 1963, in fact, many Welsh people were imprisoned when, in order to defend their language, they started a campaign of linguistic disobedience which consisted of speaking only in Welsh when they were summoned to court or police stations. Since all public administration was in English, they decided to defend their identity.
And now it is Davies who is responsible for making it sound in the dressing room of the national team. In fact, the Tottenham defender, trained at Swansea, remembers how his parents left to work in Denmark when he was three years old. And despite living far from home, his parents, who speak English to each other, bought him books in Welsh because they wanted him to know this language well. “There is a generation that does not know the language of our land. We lost it as the villages and fields were emptied, as we had to look for work in the big cities, many times in England. But we have understood that this language it is a treasure. And our children speak it. Players like Davies are a good example of that. To see a professional player, who lacks nothing while playing in the English Premier League, defending the Welsh language tells us Well done to the Welsh. We’re still here. And we’ll stay here,” says journalist Jonny Owen. Songs like Still here or the anthem they will also play before the last game of the last group stage… against the English.
