English rugby commentators: not qualified
Boo! Hiss!
HANDS up if you’ve ever wished for a sarcasm font? Lord knows, we have here at WalesHome.org.
Email, instant messaging and anything else we write electronically rob our words of inference and intent. Yesterday’s Good Morning Wales provided a classic case in point. Here my effort goes: “The well known English rugby expert … Austin Healey…” Can you hear all the dismissive venom? Hard to put over.
For those that didn’t hear the show, The Leicester Lip had been asked for his sixpence on who might win the Six Nations. France first, England second, and poor old Wales fourth. Where two of them finished last season. Not unreasonable, some might say. The way GMW treated it, it wasn’t hard to imagine the report being scrunched up and thrown in the corner, with a “What does he know?”
Yes, what does Austin know? A half century of England caps and a regular voice on Auntie’s match commentary. Jack all. And what would the English know? After all, they only invented the game, their tin miners imported it to South Wales when they arrived here to dig the coal seams, and they remain the most successful side in Northern hemisphere rugby, even though they don’t have the largest number of playing participators in one country, contrary to the popular myth. That distinction goes to South Africa. England doesn’t even have the most above the equator. France has more.
But we’ve arrived at the time of the year when none of that matters. We don’t let facts get in the way of a good prejudice. It’s not sledging, because sledging is funny. The Aussies don’t make remarks because of some historical slight or other. Aussies wouldn’t have been insulted if Ben Cohen had said “Stirling Who?”, if Will Greenwood had cupped his ear to their crowd after scoring. All part of the cut and the thrust of the game, old boy, old mate.
Justifications, then. First is that England are a bunch of effete snobs that carry a look on their face as if they’ve stepped in something every time they cross the Bridge. Doesn’t really fit in with the reality when you look at ogres like Phil Vickery. And even though the match is at Twickenham, isn’t it likely that England might be approaching tomorrow’s match with some considerable trepidation, considering they’ve lost four out of the last five fixtures?
What is supremely ironic about this prejudice that dare not speak its name is that it nearly always comes from the lips of comfortable middle class types that have done nothing but benefit from England, particularly from its university system. Pobl y Pontcanna. The kind that are terrified by the thought of going to a City (or Swans) game. They didn’t even feel the cold breath of Thatcherism, for God’s sake, and here they are, justifying their comments by harking back to the “old enemy” (England’s old enemy is France), the rape of the fair country and episodes 200 years past.
Their families might have been English back then, and here’s where it get’s complicated. The border is less a line on the map and more an intangible, nebulous concept that becomes harder to discern as centuries of cross migration go by. So why the Hell does it get dragged into a rugby game?
Let’s stick with the jokes instead. Let’s have your best ones on the England rugby team below. Send them in and we’ll print them, as they used to say.
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As a matter of interest did you ever try getting on article along these lines published when you worked for the Western Mail?
Now that’s a good joke…
English Rugby player: “Doctor, doctor, every morning when I get up and look in the mirror – I feel like throwing up. What’s wrong with me?”
Doctor: “I don’t know, but your eyesight is perfect.”
..apologies to one and all.
Heaven save us from 80 patriots and the ‘big game’ rugby waffle. It’s all down hill once they sing the anthems. I tend to put the kettle on, read the paper and look up if anything exciting happens.
Rugby… meh… 100,000 instant Welshmen, all mouthing the anthem with incompetence that John Redwood would find amusing, scowling at the “enemy”, then getting up the next day with a hangover and white-vanning it to their jobs in Bristol. Spare us.
If you want to be a patriotic Welshman, vote Yes in the referendum. Wearing a rugby jersey with some German Prince’s feathers on it doesn’t quite cut it.
(I’m from the Valleys, but we don’t all live for Rugby, despite what the telly and Max Boyce says)
Gentlemen, I’m disappointed. I expected to find myself crucified on the Gwyn Nichols gates at this juncture, and you’re all bloody agreeing with me.
Let’s have some more jokes … better than Williams’ woeful effort.
Alright ed. How about this one:
Q: What do you call an Englishman holding a bottle of champagne after a Six Nations game?
A: Waiter.
There’s also this classic:
The England team’s training session was delayed on Wednesday for nearly two hours at Twickenham.
One of the players, while on his way back to the dressing room happened to look down and notice a suspicious looking, unknown white powdery substance at the end of the field. They immediately suspended practice while the Police were called in to investigate.
After a complete field analysis, the Police determined that the white substance, unknown to the players, was the try line.
Practice was resumed when the officials decided that it was unlikely that the team would encounter the substance again.
Snow White goes off shopping and leaves the dwarves at home in the cottage. Upon her return she sees the cottage ravaged by fire. Unsure as to whether any of the dwarves have escaped, she soon hears through the smoke and fire, “England will win the Grand Slam”. “Thank God”, she says, “at least Dopey’s still alive”
Lifeguards at Bondi Beach have had a new protection against shark attacks. they have been issued with “England for the World Cup” T shirts. Not even the sharks will swallow that.