MORNING SERIAL
FOLLOWING the lead of England and Scotland, and in tune with the general culture of national symbolism that was emerging, the Welsh middle classes formed national associations to govern rugby and football.
Many of the other symbols of this re-created Welsh nationhood were limited in their appeal but sport had a wider reach than Nonconformity, the Welsh language, the Liberal Party or any of the national institutions that it created.
More than that, sport was exciting and laden with its own symbolism. Its teams were named after places, and standing in a large crowd made people feel part of something bigger.
Thus rugby in the south and football in the north gave communities that were becoming increasingly diverse through the effects of industrialisation and migration, an accessible and successful banner under which to unite.
Clubs and the national sides both enabled immigrants to declare new loyalties, without having to conform to any religious or linguistic idea about what those identities meant.
The fact that sport united workers and the middle classes, and was perhaps a distraction from political tensions or even the pub, also helped its popularity amongst the leaders of the new Wales.
Rugby’s adoption into the mainstream of Welsh culture can be traced by the changing attitude of David Lloyd George.
In 1895, he wrote to his wife that the industrial valleys of Monmouthshire were less responsive to his radical politics because their inhabitants were ‘sunk into a morbid footballism’.
In 1908, he saw his first match and exclaimed ‘It’s a most extraordinary game … and I must say I think it’s more exciting than politics’.
Whether he meant it or not, that he said so publicly suggested that sport was now firmly entrenched in the cultural landscape of Wales.
> Wales: England’s Colony? by Martin Johnes is published by Parthian in the Modern Wales series www.parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES TOMORROW