This morning, I was pronouncing that Erol Bulut was very much a four at the back man and would not be changing to a three any time soon. It was a bit rich me pontificating like that about a manager I’d never heard of three months ago and I’m eating humble pie tonight as our manager proved me completely wrong by picking a side playing 3-5-2 some twelve hours later!
Not only that, but he picked a team which you looked at and thought “where’s the defenders?”. Here’s the team Bulut selected;-
Rúnarsson, Ng, Romeo, Rinomhota, Sawyers, Adams, Wintle, Colwill, Tanner, Etete, Grant.
Getting a workable 3-5-2 out of that lot would have tested most supporters I would think, but not only did Erol Bulut manage it, he also produced one of the best Cardiff City Cup performances of the past decade as they returned from St Andrews with a 3-1 win over a Birmingham side which has taken ten points from their first four league games as well as winning at Cheltenham in the First Round – they had not been behind in a game all season..
City were “stylish” and bright, took the game to their opponents and were well worth their win, in fact it could have been a bigger victory.
I should say here that the above description is based entirely on the commentary on the club website I listened to. All I’ve seen of the game are very brief highlights because it seems that unless your team is selected for coverage by Sky, you’re not going to be able to watch League Cup games live these days unless you’re at the ground.
Radio coverage is very limited as well- Radio Wales has not covered our first two games in this season’s League Cup (all you could listen to tonight was the Newport v Brentford tie), so at a time when the phrase “wall to wall football”has never been more appropriate, it seems the League Cup is the exception which proves the rule.
Therefore, I’m forming my views on tonight’s game based on what I heard from two club employees on the Cardiff City website and I think it’s fair to say that you’re talking about very biased reporting generally if you have to rely on club websites..
From what I’ve heard, our lot are better than most when it comes to possible bias (although one of the two tonight was not backward in coming forward when it came to showing his Cardiff allegiance!). The point is really that there has to be a possibility at least that City we’re nowhere near as good as they sounded tonight – it also needs to be recorded that Birmingham made six changes from their team that beat Plymouth last weekend.
However, the match stats tended to back up what the commentators were saying. For a start, City had seventy one per cent possession (when do we ever have over seventy per cent possession and it was above eighty per cent at one time), we had thirteen goal attempts to nine with a six three lead in on target efforts, nine corners to three and a frustrated Birmingham side committed seventeen fouls to our six.
Let’s not forget that if it was a much changed Birmingham side that was even more true of us with only Perry Ng surviving from Saturday’s starting line up against Sheffield Wednesday.
We all know what tends to happen when we make ten changes for Cup games – we get embarrassed. Not this time though in a match which certainly sounded as if it was played with more urgency and intensity than supporters are used to seeing from us in early round Cup ties.
Bulut was very pleased after the game saying that no one in his side had a poor game and that they had played without centrebacks.
Our manager is right there, Ng has experience of playing,,and playing well, in a back three, but, him apart, there was no one else who could say it was his natural position. Alongside Ng was Mahlon Romeo, no surprise really when you look at what was available in that starting line up and, intriguingly, Ebou Adams who was in the middle of the three.
One name stood out in the Birmingham team, Lukas Jutkiewicz. He may be at the veteran stage now, but I had visions of him making mincemeat out of our back three in the air in particular, but it never happened, quite the opposite in fact.
With Tanner and Grant as a pair of very attack minded wing backs and a midfield three of Rinomhota, Wintle and Sawyers, with Colwill pushed forward to support Etete, plus a subs bench containing plenty of youngsters, it was certainly a bold looking selection and this was reflected in the start the team made.
City had already almost opened Birmingham up when they took the lead in just three minutes with a lovely goal as the ball was switched from right to left by Wintle who fed Grant. The West Brom loanee apparently made his marker Marcel Oakley’s life a misery all night and here he went past him on the outside before picking out Colwill who finished beautifully as he let the ball run across him before beating ex City keeper Neil Etheridge from about twelve yards out.
One thing Championship sides have not expected to experience in recent years is to be chasing around trying to get the ball off a Cardiff City team, but that’s certainly what it sounded like tonight.
All Birmingham had to offer in reply was a free kick by Leandro Bacuna’s brother, Juninho that brought a great save by the debut making Alex Rúnarsson.
City, notably, Kion Etete, had chances to put us two up and my worry at half time was that we’d not cashed in on what sounded like our clear superiority,
Birmingham had enjoyed their best spell of the first half in its closing minutes and made a change at half time amid expectations that we’d face some fierce pressure in the early minutes after the break, but instead it was City who were again forcing the issue.
It sounded like Colwill, Tanner and Grant were all having very good games while Etete was effective even if his finishing could be criticised, but equally there were plenty of times where it felt like the quality, game experience and real cutting edge wasn’t quite there for City as final balls were not quite precise enough to really open up the home defence..
Adams had attracted plaudits for his performance in his unfamiliar position and he could definitely be described as the winner in his dual with Jutkiewicz when he won possession with the striker claiming he’d been fouled. The angry Jutkiewicz then flew in with a challenge on Romeo who happened to be the first City man who had the ball when he got up and, by all accounts, was fully deserving of the red card which followed. Birmingham manager John Eustace thought differently and called the decision harsh, but, having now seen the incident, I can only say that I’m sure Mr Eustace would have been complaining if a City player had made such a tackle and had not been sent off..
City then came up with another classy goal as Tanner picked out Colwill with a cross that was back flicked into Wintle’s path by the Welsh international (who was described as a “man possessed” by the Wales Online reporter at the match and the captain on the night guided his twenty yard shot into the corner of Etheridge’s net.
Sub Scott Hogan got the home team back into the game within two minutes as he nutmegged Rúnarsson as the striker got the wrong side of Adams, but City were safe when in the fourth of seven additional minutes, Etete scored from six yards from a cross by another sub Keiron Evans.
Evans had replaced Grant on the hour, while Ike Ugbo was brought on for the last few minutes for the impressive Tanner.
Besides that, Mark McGuinness was part of a double substitution for the last twenty minutes or so when he replaced Ng, but it was the other player brought on who epitomised City’s enterprising approach – Cian Ashford had got a token three minutes off the bench in the First Round tie with Colchester, but here he was trusted enough by his manager to come on just a couple of minutes after Birmingham had scored to replace Wintle – I don’t expect the talented Ashford to be involved on Saturday at Ipswich, but, all of a sudden, Erol Bulut has selection issues of the best type and you have to think that there should be some sort of reward for a few of those involved tonight when it comes to Championship football on Saturday.
Paul, compadre…
Thanks for your report. Like you, I never saw the game, but as the wise man famously said…’you get better pictures on the radio’.
To level with you, last night I followed my usual practice of watching Sky Sports News when that is I find their game of choice sufficiently underwhelming as yesterday’s Salford v Leeds match. I had no dog in the fight in that, since I usually want both of them to lose. And watching the football panel on Sky Sports News for the whole 3 hours is a curiously rewarding experience: you get none of the longueurs of a conventional 90 minute game, and you get to see every goal as they go in. What’s not to like in that? And one gets to see City in their most handsome strip for many a year….
Now, here I would like to make a lame joke and call them Cardiff City’s Mauve and Mauve Army… aka the M&M’s (gee, the pedant in me always wants to put the apostrophe after the ess).
But studying the colour wheel, I came to realise that the strip is not mauve at all but its next door neighbour in both the colour spectrum, and indeed the dictionary…
viz… maroon. Looks like the kit supplier to Heart of Midlothian have come up with a cheeky more stylish upgrade for a Welsh rival. Gee, I would settle for it even over our somewhat predictable blue and Vincent could go the whole hog and change our name to Heart of Glamorgan. Gee… I cannot but smile at the paroxysms of rage erupting down at The Liberty… which as you know, I will never call that piece of real estate located in SA1 2FA anything else, since I admire that stadium name so much.
[Readers will say, ‘surely you jest Dai… Vincent changing colours, isn’t that where we came in?’] And yes, I suppose I am bruising the inside of my cheek… but hey, my opinion always coincided with that of the late Dannie Abse… he reckoned that though he would have preferred Vincent not to have changed from blue, he would be happy watching City play in pink if the team could only play like the 1959-60 promotion team. I only ever had one proper conversation with the man, and we both bonded over our shared admiration for the very great Danny Malloy.
But gee folks, think of the advantages of the adopting the all maroon strip… foremost might be that we are not making the mistake that Vincent made in kitting out his boys to be mirror images of his favourite English team… and it was always the ‘red and black’ combination that was my principal objection to the colour change… since I will go to my grave an unrepentant ABMU* man.
And another strong reason will be that we won’t have to share our nickname with another EPL club’s supporters who also were unaware that this variety of North American thrush was not indigenous to Britain.
Mind you, I have always loved Barrow ever since I went there to sell wine in 1974. It is a most quirky place… both on the eye with its giant submarine construction buildings dwarfing the cheek-by-jowl, humble terraces of 2up/2down houses…
… and it is quirky on the ear too. It is a newish town… only springing up in the mid 19th century, and its curious location at the end of the Furness Peninsula, has meant that nobody ‘passes through’ exactly. Think of a giant Gilfach Goch. And it has thus developed unique characteristics… not least its dialect and accent… known as Barrovian. It is quite unlike other Cumbrian accents… and (to my ear, at least) occasionally weirdly redolent of the cadences of Teessiders on the opposite side of England.
I urge MAYAns to go to Barrow before they die. Much cheaper and better than having to sleep in chaotic airports like in Europe this week.
And like me you can visit their superb maritime museum, and have your picture taken standing next to the fabulous statue of Crazy Horse… Emlyn Hughes was one of their most famous sons. His dad had ‘gone North’ from South Wales to earn his fortune playing rugby league for Barrow.
But enough on the most underrated town in Britain…oh, and it has a fabulous beach to boot.
Back to the colours…
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1b/37/ec/1b37ec6dd26e4368cf9db7558ea46a4f.gif
*Anyone But Man United.
TTFN,
Dai.
PS… I will – with Paul’s blessing – post the first part of my women’s World Cup letter in an hour.
Well, I have had my dinner and decided to send the first TWO letters I sent that were ostensibly on the women’s football, but with me, all bets go out the window, because my email address is not daigress.com for nothing..!!
So here goes…
I wrote this to my whole mailing list, just after the Women’s final was over… I include it for fellow MAYAns on the offchance they might be interested. If you are not, worry not, nothing is lost.
I here paste it immediately below… incidentally, I should add that my mailing list includes folks in 28 countries, so if you want to be added, please write to me at my email address of daigress@hotmail.com telling me your name and where you live.
DW.
~~~~~~~~~~
Folks… the first part of this letter is on today’s football match, but the much more important second part is on the huge popularity of The Matildas… and please play the YouTube link below … it will touch your soul…
In also sending this to folks in Oz, I want them to remember that although I am from OLD South Wales rather than New South Wales, I have long had a love affair with Australia… and have driven many hundreds of miles there on previous visits.
And as for my using ‘we’ when talking about the England team, I remain totally unapologetic… since I was always an opponent of Welsh devolution, and at times like these, my Britishness always outweighs my Welshness.
Okay… preamble over. Down to business.
Well, the Women’s World Cup is over, and it has been a triumph, from start to finish.
And it is clear to me that Gianni Infantino has been so thrilled by the venues, that if Aus/NZ ever put themselves forward as candidates for a future Men’s World Cup, they will be given an instant green light… assuming their governments come up with the necessary moolah and freebies that FIFA board members see as ‘de riguer’ of course.
Enough has been said about the football played, in a myriad columns on the sports pages.
My dear wife congratulated me on tipping Spain from before the start of the tournament…
I tell her I had not forgotten the Euros quarter final game at the Amex in Brighton last year when Spain outplayed England, but lost in extra time.
I will never forget their right winger giving our Rachel Daly a torrid time… constantly turning her inside out… until Daly had to be substituted…
Absolute justice today. As if shameless Boris offering knighthoods to all sorts of Tory cronies wasn’t bad enough, but now those fellow bounders, Starmer and Davey, utterly unworthy of their own knighthoods, have the brass neck to call for honours for an England Women’s team who were played off the park by a far more skilful Spanish team in the Final in Sydney.
In the words of the late John Junor, ‘pass the sick bag, Alice’.
And in Salma Paralluelo we have a women’s version of the key event of the 1958 World Cup… for that was famous for the emergence of the teenage Pelé who was to become the world’s greatest player in the next decade… and so in this 2023 World Cup, we have seen the arrival of the girl who will be the world’s greatest in the next ten years… viz…Salma Paralluelo…
I said to my wife, I now wish that three weeks ago I had put a tenner on Spain at 6/1… but her response was, you’d have probably lost it… ‘there were too many possible variables at work way back then’… i.e. a team could get outrageously lucky against Spain this year… as England were against them last summer*…
Indeed, the fact I had my first bet in about 20 years on the semi final double of both Sam Kerr and Alessia Russo to score, was only because SKY BET offered an over-generous 18/1… and I felt that was too good to refuse.
But I still only won £54… as I only ventured with a £3 stake.
Before signing off, I want to say something about The Matildas. How much nicer their nickname is than that of our English lot… for surely a lioness is a dreadful animal, often killing on a whim.
I would have identified with them more if they had been called something more pleasant and peaceful like [thinks]… The Bluebirds…(joke, as it is the nickname of my favourite men’s football club )…
Like I say, I jest of course… but it is a curiously apt joke, given England’s bizarre choice of all-blue to replace their white shirts and navy blue shorts.
Does anyone know why the change? I get it that Spain won the toss necessary if team-strips coincide… and here they coincided in the colour of shorts… and FIFA will not allow teams to have coinciding colours of shirts and shorts… and indeed socks.
And England’s sudden woke awareness of menstrual bleeds made them in the past three months switch to navy shorts… so they presumably said no to FIFA on returning to their Real Madrid of all white for the final.
Yet, white shorts pose no problem to the USA team**… who one assumes are all pre menopausal…!!
What’s going on with the world, eh?
But anyway, back to The Matildas. I note that in 1976, Malcolm Fraser – the then new Aussie PM – stated that he wanted Banjo Paterson’s wonderful ‘Waltzing Matilda’ to be the new official national anthem. Alas, he was unsuccessful and another old song became the new official anthem in its place… viz… ‘Advance Australia Fair’.
As anthems go, there is nothing wrong with it… but here’s the thing, it – like all other national anthems – rather sticks out its chest and boasts how wonderful the country is…
But Aussies never realised that in ‘Waltzing Matilda’, they had a unique anthem… one totally devoid of braggadocio. And ‘Matilda’ had been played and sung before all sorts of informal events since the 1930s (as an especially Australian anthem, in a way that ‘God Save The King/Queen’ could never be).
Indeed when two Aussie POWs were brutally publicly executed by their Japanese captors in WW2, their comrades (forced to witness the barbarity) sang ‘Waltzing Matilda’ so as to ensure that the last sounds those two brave men heard was not some crazed Japanese sadistic shouts, but rather a warm song of the homeland…. relating the vicissitudes of a tramp as he travelled the Bush with his swag on the end of a long stick, carried on his shoulder. As an anthem it was pure genius.
So I was hoping that the one additional thing to come out of this fantastically well organised 2023 World Cup, would be that with the newfound popularity of the name Matilda, we can get Aussies to sign on to a petition to adopt it as their anthem. Not that there is anything wrong with the current one, it is just that the words of Banjo Paterson coupled with that fine tune from Christina Macpherson… makes for a charming, quirky – and yes most moving – anthem, sung by a confident people like Australians: folk who are not poseurs and do not need to brag about themselves.
There are lots of versions online, but the one that moves me the most by a country mile, is an open air performance by André Rieu and his orchestra in front of a packed Federation Square in Melbourne.
Now, confession time. I confess that the André Rieu phenomenon has largely left me cold… oh for sure, I can see he is immensely professional and is a master at presentation, but I guess it is his almost cult like devoted followers, that alienate me somewhat. (I swear these are all the children of similar cult members in the last quarter of the 20th century… those of The James Last Orchestra… Mr Last was a German whereas Mr Rieu is a native of The Netherlands).
But what marks this version out from other Rieu performances is his choice of vocalist. He is joined here by glorious soprano Mirusia Louwerse… an Aussie of Dutch parentage.
She is 24 years old here in 2009, and this magnificent rendition will touch your heart… especially when the massed audience join in on the final chorus. And gee I always smile when I see her 1-2-3 finger movement to match the lyric.
C’mon Australia… get the best anthem in the world back… please…!!
https://youtu.be/6uUHM8mFKsk?si=a21BJmT3zcqoi00b
*England were not due any luck today… they’d used it all up against Nigeria!
**Who I note also want nowt to do with ‘taking the knee’… even though it is a practice that has its recent origins in the USA…
~~~~~~~~~~
And a day later, I followed up by sending them this…
Friends,
Apparently whilst some of you were moved by that fabulous rendition of the bush ballad from Mirusia Louwerse, I have had three people ask “but why ‘Matilda’?”
Oh, that was remiss of me, not to fully explain. Whilst I said that the song is about a tramp carrying his belongings on his shoulders (either on the end of a pole or in a primitive rucksack), I should have added that ‘Matilda’ is the name he gives to his belongings (his swag)… and the very act of walking over uneven ground – when one is swaying one way then the other – is seen as being akin to dancing (waltzing).
I hope this explains things.
For my non-Aussie readers, here is a glossary of words used in the song…
swagman
a man who travelled the country looking for work. The swagman’s “swag” was a bed roll that bundled his belongings.
billabong
an oxbow lake (a cut-off river bend) found alongside a meandering river
coolibah tree
a kind of eucalyptus tree which grows near billabongs
jumbuck
a sheep
billy
a can for boiling water, usually 1–1.5 litres (2–3 pints)
tucker bag
a bag for carrying food
troopers
policemen
squatter
Australian squatters started as early farmers who raised livestock on land which they did not have the legal title to use; in many cases they later gained legal use of the land even though they did not have full possession, and became wealthy thanks to these large land holdings. The squatter’s claim to the land may be as unfounded as is the swagman’s claim to the jumbuck.
[End of glossary]
I hope this fully explains things.
How I would love this song to be restored to anthem status. Not least because it was always the desire of my late brother, Clive Woosnam.
He died five years ago this summer, having spent over half a century in Oz. He left Britain in 1964 as a ‘£10 Pom’ and ended up honoured by Australia… given the OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) for ‘services to culture and education’.
He was the driving force behind The Dylan Thomas Society of Australia, and was a key member of the Sydney Welsh Choir… singing bass and delivering monologues… (oh and I should not forget to mention his organising their several world tours).
Well, Clive loved ‘Waltzing Matilda’ even more than me… were that possible. He too believed that Aussies did not realise what a jewel they had in that unofficial anthem… it was unique in being the only national anthem I know that wasn’t ‘strutting its stuff’ so-to-speak, by saying either how great their country’s history is, or how great is their culture/language.
And Aussies, being amongst the most self-confident people I know, were the perfect nation to be able to be represented by an anthem totally free from braggadocio. So why not make the change now, with The Matildas capturing the love of their nation?
Just make me Dictator of Australia, and it would be my first decree that I would issue.
C’mon Mirusia, lift my heart once more. Listening to this makes me so proud to have known Australians, and almost wish I could be one…
https://youtu.be/6uUHM8mFKsk?si=a21BJmT3zcqoi00b
TTFN,
Dai.
Thanks Dai. The first thing to say is that I’ve now watched the whole of Tuesday’s game and I’m still in a mild state of shock as to how well we played! I’ve lived the last decade or so of my life thinking that it had been ordained by the powers that be that Cardiff City should never have words like “flair”, “panache” and “stylish” used to describe their play, yet here was a team with no centrebacks and with ten changes from Saturday playing in a manner which justified all of them!
Regarding our maroon kit, I think it’s one of our better change strips of recent years (I liked last year’s grey and black one mind). You don’t need to be told that I wouldn’t go as far as you with regard to making it our first choice kit and your proposed change of name, but, if they were to break the habit of what must be about half a lifetime now and decide to retain their away strip for 24/25, I wouldn’t be complaining – don’t like the recently revealed sky blue third kit though.
As for Barrow, never been there and I don’t think I ever will, but their return to the EFL is one of the genuine good news stories in football in recent years – I thought that, like Bradford Park Avenue and Workington from my youth, they were lost to the Football League for ever, but, like Accrington Stanley, they’ve come back and it strikes me that they are making a better job of surviving as one of the ninety two than they were able to do towards the end first time around when the term “perennial strugglers” could have been invented with them in mind.
Don’t know if you’ve watched this short video, but I found it a fascinating watch for a couple of reasons, first that they are, effectively, based in Manchester and, second, how passionate the fans are (or are claimed to be) as I thought it was a club that was always struggling against apathy from the locals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKaF6PyDN70&ab_channel=LeagueOf72
Obliged to you as ever Paul. And especially for that little 9 minute doc on Barrow AFC.
Golly, I had no idea that the team was essentially based in Salford. That is amazing in itself, but even more amazing is the fact that I had not heard about it… given that I have listened to Talksport several hours every day for the last 23 years.
Remember the years Newport County were playing home games in Moreton-in-Marsh?… Gosh, the sheer oddity of it was well publicised outside of South Wales. But I have not heard a murmur re the Barrow team travelling 100 miles to every home game… 25% further than The County used to travel when playing in Gloucestershire.
Re my musing on anthems… it occurs to me that I did not send the promised piece that refers to our own anthem… I will try and find it, and send later today.
TTFN,
Dai.
As promised here is the 3rd part on the anthems… it is composed of a letter I wrote to a local councillor friend who had raised my blood pressure slightly by calling the England team anthem ‘a dirge’. I copied it in to an Aussie living in Melbourne who had written to me to thank me for Mirusia Louwerse’s singing of ‘WM’ and had added that for the first time in his life she made that great song really move him.
But before I paste it, I want to paste a link to the statue to ‘Crazy Horse’, showing him just launching himself on one of his trademark sliding tackles. Isn’t it brilliant?
I came out of the Barrow Wetherspoon… and there it was 100 yards away on the other side of the road.
https://images.app.goo.gl/DHfNVJHnsBmmjwCs9
Methinks the sculptor was influenced by this masterpiece outside Stoke’s stadium, of another footballing icon, also immortalised in motion… unveiled in 2001… 7 years before the Barrow one.
https://images.app.goo.gl/bZBWTZPyAWh9kyHx5
Right preamble over… here is my letter…
~~~~~~~~~~
?I write this to a dear chum,Tim Mickleburgh, (a chap who is on the side of the angels and is a local Grimsby councillor friend), in response to his letter where he calls the England team’s anthem ‘a dirge’.
Tim…
No no no… I just won’t have it that “the UK anthem is a dirge”. I love you like a brother, but I have to say that this is just you using language lazily, and ignoring my many mentions over the last 14 years of the great Jessye Norman being absolutely nonpareil in her singing of it… so much so that the Royal Party here – in the clip below – seem stunned… as though they are hearing for the first time what previously must have seemed oral and aural chewing gum… people singing it without feeling, just going through the motions… and not even knowing the words… (listen to the way our football team always used to sing at the end of the third and last lines ‘God save our Queen’)… instead of THE Queen. (And you don’t need me to tell you why that is important… there are lots of royal families in the world, and we Brits figured that ours was Top Queen, so-to-speak. So singing ‘our’ in the place of ‘the’ just won’t cut it with me… for it was a given – from the third word in the opening line – that she was ‘our’ Queen, but we wanted to say she was THE Queen of Queens)
In the incredible clip below, The Queen was celebrating her 60th birthday here at The Royal Opera House… this clip Tim should stir you to your core… even though like me, you are no royalist.* Tim, it makes me almost lose my cool when I see fellow Brits using a most magnificent language like our English language so damned loosely… ‘dirge’… my arse!! Look up the definition of the word. We have a Rolls-Royce of a language, that we persist in driving in second gear. ‘Dirge’? In the immortal words of Eliza Doolittle… ‘not bloody likely’…!!
But hey… we live in the age of buffoonery… people just accept any old nonsense they are told regarding the choice of words. Because well known British journalists often call it a dirge (Dominic Lawson being the latest), is no reason you should. You are brighter than them. One chap who should know better recently wrote to me to ‘tick me off’ for using the word ‘soccer’ when I should have said ‘football’. I told him …Just don’t be telling me that the etymology of the word ‘soccer’ lies in The United States of America… because then I fear I might have a stroke…
… for as UK kids in the 1950s we would always talk about ‘playing soccer’. Indeed, I remember buying the first edition of ‘World Soccer’ magazine circa 1960… and that was a British publication, not remotely American.. my third cousin, the late Phil Woosnam, was then not even thinking of setting forth Stateside – nor was football writer Clive Toye – both emigrating several years later to transform soccer in the US.
Regarding the use of the word “soccer”, Toye noted that English people called the game “soccer” interchangeably with “football” until well into the second half of the 20th century. Toye said “A quirk of British culture is the permanent need to familiarise names by shortening them. … They took the third, fourth and fifth letters of Association and called it SOCcer.”
But back to the anthem…
Incidentally, I do think re the UK anthem that it a good idea to sing more than one verse… the problem with it currently is that it is over almost before it begins…
Now… turn your volume up full… and let the late Jessye Norman – the greatest diva of her era – take that anthem that you call a ‘dirge’ and watch her insist you wear a dunce’s cap for a full week.
Incidentally, watch the whole audience follow the time-honoured tradition of turning to face the Royal Box while standing for the anthem. That is – strangely – a huge ‘high’ for me to see… I say ‘strangely’, because I am a socialist and normally find ‘genuflection’ just a word in the dictionary, and thus quite beyond me…!!
Boy oh boy… this is always a ‘banker’ in my choice of my Twenty Desert Island YouTube clips…no… make that a banker choice in just FIVE Youtube clips to ‘save from the waves’…!!
https://youtu.be/5jXc-gXfQ5Y?si=2-UlmF7Z7OlCeNWT
No, Tim… ‘God Save the King’ is a great anthem if, that is, you like braggadocio. (I don’t.) And the melody is truly a stunner… don’t take my word for it… take it from someone who knew a lot more about music than me… a German fellow by the name of Ludwig van Beethoven…!! Just feast your ears on what he thought of this fine melody… it so inspired him that he composed no fewer than SEVEN variations on the melody… ten minutes of magic here… watch it all the ten minutes as it gets better and better… really heady stuff, is this…
https://youtu.be/OXR-IJzK_Ng?si=CByRs7Qia1TFgtPl
I will sign off now… but before I do, let me add that my Welsh national anthem, whilst having a heck of a melody, also fails the ‘is it boastful?’ test.
(That is why ‘Waltzing Matilda’ was unique.)
My wife and I both love the Welsh language and we defend to the death the right of one Welshman to speak Welsh to another. I personally adore the great Bryn Terfel singing our anthem in Welsh… it is like he wrote every word with his blood in his inkwells.
But it is not my favourite version. Let me explain…
Just as South Africa’s anthem is quite properly in the three of their official languages, I have always wanted ours in our two… say a verse in English, a chorus in Welsh, and a repeat the alternative way. But my fellow countrymen feel that to ask for it, is somehow showing them up as non-patriots. And it is sad that they feel that way.
And so here is my favourite version of my Welsh anthem, and it is sung in English… which let me remind you, is one of the two official languages of Wales… yet The Welsh Language Society always ensure that we Welsh (99.9% of the time) only hear it in Welsh… which 80% of the people do not speak… and thus those monoglots sing it – after having learned an approximation of the words phonetically – usually with no idea what the words mean.
It is sung here by the peerless, great socialist American singer Paul Robeson… a man who was loved by Welsh coalminers like my late dad… and who loved them in return… (again, volume up full, please)…
https://youtu.be/ziJoep1cDlY?si=q2nAy63l5oiDkZiC
All the best. Remember to never call something a dirge, when it only needs singing with brio… and a bit of what Welsh speakers call…’calon’.
DW…
Paul…
Hallelujah! Jack the Rippoff left our club today. How the heck did Morison ever think he would be good enough? If only we could get rid of our version of Winston Bogarde… viz… Vontae Daley-Campbell…!! Then our cup truly would runneth over with joy.
DW.
I’ve no “in the know” info on this Dai, but I reckon our Winston Bogarde will go out on loan somewhere today.
Gents – hopefully Sawyers also.
Thanks Paul, for indulging me. I will take my foot off the gas now and go low key for a while. I do not want to be thought to be using up other MAYAns’ oxygen… not that I ever could, of course.
Good news today that we have got Jonathan Panzo on loan… hopefully the feeling that Steve Cooper is still a bit sore at the fact that a large number of Swans fans were not fully appreciative of his great efforts at The Liberty, might have tipped the balance, as I feel it may have done with Josh Bowler too.
Mind you, I do hope that Mark McGuinness remains first choice centre back… as long as he stops passing the ball back to his keeper…!!
And finally, you have put a smile on my face with the suggestion that our ‘Winston’ may be off on loan by 11pm tonight. And yes BJA, you are right… would it not be great if Sawyers could join him?
Right… off to the barber’s to have what is left of my hair radically reduced to a stubble.
TTFN,
Dai.