Wales

Tribal risk.

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Satdee Night’s alright for something. But first we have the afternooon, where we watch mighty Clarby Road FC take on Wdig (Goodwick, to you lot) in the Pembrokeshire Senior Cup. Eleven hundred people there – yes, you read that right – to see the strong favourites from the North roll over the Welsh-speaking farmers from the Preselis. Only dieu, dieu, that’s not what happened.

I have to declare an interest: my daughter’s fella was playing centre-back, for Clarbeston. He was plainly playing hurt (so maybe heroically) but that didn’t stop him volleying in the first goal, during an early foray into the six yard box, at a corner. ‘Oof’, said the crowd – in two languages at least. Whilst I wondered how best to make my claim for an assist.

There were kids with drums, and families and yes, a few dogs. A nine year-old hardman challenged me as I wandered behind the goal, through the Clarby Massive: “Clarbee or Goodwick?” Edgy. Thank gawd I was able to provide a prompt-enough lifesaving retort, reinforced with a cheesy-but-comradely raising of the fist, confirming tenuous loyalty to the Farmer-zone. Then the more I cruised around the ground, the more I liked the overdue conversations with colleagues in footie and cricket and the fabulous ridicu-tribalism. Old blokes; young girls; badges and blazers and that sideways shuffling that so often signals nerves. Lots of folks in on this – so yeh – nervous.

The venerable Fraser Watson – top fella and local/national journo – has written of The Meaning of this stuff (in fact, of this particular event) so unusually I’ll swerve most of that. Despite my social-occasioning it was clear that not just players and ‘staff’ at the clubs were bristling with intensity: most of the extant universe was. Mr Walton, formerly of Solva AFC – so without hands in the fire of this thing but understanding of it – was by contrast able to waft abart and enjoy; which he did.

Bridge Meadow is Pembrokeshire’s Bernabeu, minus the cosmic city views and some of the other guff. Just a hint or two of rolling undulations about the pitch, which is/was better than most recreational jobs – as it should be, what with Haverfordwest being a fixture in the largely semi-pro Ardal League. Netting, behind both goals. A closed stand, where seats are either damaged or unsafe. Stewards and two seven foot nine blokes doing security around the ground and at the clubhouse door. Hot dogs. But mainly people, catching up; stirring, or not. Circling – or ovalling? – I saw everybody I’ve ever met, at least four times

Clarby went and won it – a hearty, competitive game with plenty spice – by three goals to two. They deserved it, meaning Goodwick should and will be disappointed, for not expressing their widely-recognised quality. (Head-up football *at a premium*, as they say). As so often, nerves and physicality and lack of composure blunted the allegedly better side’s capacity to express. Clarbeston Road found the grit and (just about) the discipline to not only see it through, but walk away with that hugely gratifying sense – that luxury in the feels – that it was their lot that played more of the football.

Meanwhile, my gurl’s fella’s sister was at fly-half for Wales, in the Six Nations. Her mum confirmed to us, on one of our many sunny perambulations, that they too had won: finally. Their single victory of another campaign that had felt closer to concerning than encouraging.

But one of the seminal Sports Moment’s of the weekend (for your scribe, obvs) landed about twenty-four hours after this, when I caught up with brief highlights via BBC iplayer. These included Ioan Cunningham – the Wales coach – openly blubbing at the final whistle. Relief and emotion and powerful, powerful angst: shed, I hope, in a moment that really should have been private. Wales – even this Wales – probably should have beaten Italy, at home, and they did. He/they still felt the ignominy of the wooden spoon. There was obviously some Big Unseen Stuff in play for the fella and I felt for the guy.

Muggins had been one of many keyboard warriors that (without, from memory, naming him) suggested ‘bad coaching’ over several years had been at least partly responsible for Wales women’s rugby remaining so far behind. (I was, in fairness, also remembering previous incumbents but the sharpness of my attack felt unwise – maybe be even unfair or ignorant – in the face of Cunningham’s outpouring of grief/joy/relief).

Wales Women are understandably uncompetitive with England. Fair enough. But my beef and my point was that they should be organised and prepared enough to compete with Scotland and Ireland – especially given that the players’ commitment does not appear to be at issue. Speaking as a fan, like a fan, as I do, I had hoped to call out that perceived under-achievement.

Mostly I think this modus-wotsits is legit: I guess I’m trusting that anyone daft enough to read me gets that this is not journalism; it has more freedom and more risk than that; for better, for worse.

Special.

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Go elsewhere for the 5 Moments of Greatest Garethness or the 5 Whitchurch Women Who Withered, Unwanted. For the goss and the factoids, go elsewhere. We’re gonna talk about poetry. Bale the Blistering Wingman of Doom; Bale the Arch-archer of Dead-Ball Wizardry. Gareth the Flier and Gossamer Druid.

He raced in to our lives and lifted the sport and the bloody, blood-red country. More direct, more threatening and winningly more committed to the cause than Giggs, Bale really did seem to ooze Welshness; it was inseparable from his outsize talent, bleeding across a series of developing Red Armies until a Qatar seemed inevitable. And he did it all crocked.

Isolate a few goals – haring down the wing for Tottenham/clubbing obscenely overhead, for Real – and you may have the sense of the generationally-spectacular talent: but there will always be a tension in the wider world around the Bale Enigma thing. By its nature it’s probably unresolvable but that won’t stop the lads on TalkBollocksFM blathering, between farts…

  • How crocked was he, for how long?
  • When did he know he would have to ‘manage his way’ through?
  • (Or) was he just one of those blokes with a lowish pain-threshold?

Not sure many Wales fans were asking or will ask these questions but…

  • Why did the Real die-hards hate him – did he really spend most of his life on the golf course?
  • Was he really such an Ex-Pat Air-head that he failed, over all that time, to join in?

Minor fascinations for some. Much of the evidence for his relationships with colleagues points to a good, funny, humble bloke. So an admittedly weird mix of convivial laddishness and excommunication. It’s feasible Bale was both chirpy and ‘quiet’. Certainly he was a low-octane captain for his country, sure enough or quiet enough to single out his moments of import or intervention *at interval*. Meaning he neither blazed nor bawled: he was a god of stealth and inspiration.

Wales has felt blessed to carry him and Bale, wonderfully, has deeply understood and reciprocated. He’s poured what he had back into the surge towards legitimacy. For aeons, the national side simply had no players, or so few that even the crackle and hwyl of their honesty and pride would not, could not get them to the tournaments that mattered. Not quite. Then Bale and Ramsey found themselves amongst a matrix of goodish, competitive individuals. Yes they still had to punch above but the squad could hold their own… and wait for one of those moments.

Gareth Bale provided and kept on doing it. ‘Til the good folks of Abertillery and Aberaeron could finally stop talking about ’58.

If we say little about Qatar it’s because Wales plainly underperformed. The skipper himself was peripheral; unable to string things together, never mind electrify the campaign in the way he and His Country had hoped. But Gareth Bale had already passed into legend – in that sense his work was done. He was bard-like, he was totemic, he was a real Prince of the People already.

Some of us said (and wrote), immediately after the tournament exit that the lad from Whitchurch Comp should call it a day – that it was right and that he deserved to stop. Enough of that nursing.

Feels good that he’s listened. He’s been special.

Bennett. (All of us loved it).

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In a ver-ry weird world one of the candidates for Mad Truisms of the Week is the fact that Phil Bennnett won 29 Welsh caps. This, at a time when folks are being bundled onto planes to Rwanda as a kind of inflammatory gesture against the assumed decencies of the universe, strikes me as mildly shocking… and yet not, I suppose, a surprise. The world is poignant and mad.

For the god of Felinfoel and Llanelli and Wales and the Lions to have done his magical, Orphean thing so few times seems ridiculous. (Eight Lions caps, including the New Zealand tour, which he captained. Twenty Baabaas appearances). How is that possible? How, given those ridicu-numbers can his legacy be so blazingly resonant and his place in the firmament so fabulously ennobling for the Welsh? The bloke played almost 60 fewer games in the jersey than Shane Williams, and 121 less than Alun Wyn Jones!

The world is poignant and mad… and now they they play waaaay more games. But on the plus side, there are times when it’s slam-dunkingly and wonderfully obvious that YOU CAN’T BLOODY QUANTIFY EVERYTHING. The numbers don’t always matter. Sometimes there is a kind of grace that really does transcend. This stuff is in play, with Bennett.

The man was and is loved for his decency. (Go see: the Twitterverse and beyond full of his loveliness and humility – how he was, with people). But it’s the talent, the god-given genius that’s imprinted upon us. Moments where that step took us all somewhere thrilling, new, unknowable. Tries for Wales and the Lions and if not tries then flurries of instinctive, unrehearsable brilliance that marked Phil Bennett out as a star. In a team (arguably an era) festooned with rugby icons, he was The Playmaker, The Heart-stopper, The Artist. People almost stopped talking about Barry John.

Us coaches now are quite strongly advised to avoid or at least take extreme care around this word talent. I get that: too often a way to underestimate the centrality of discipline(s) and practice. And it may be that there is merit in demystifying, taking a cool look at processes, strategy, performance, in sport and beyond. But let’s not deny the joy and the inspiration, people. Phil Bennett jinking is a metaphor for every moment of liberation and yes, generosity that humans have ever had. It’s the instant that says ‘I believe. I can make this happen. I will defy. Now’.

If the step into literal and metaphorical space works, it’s then what coaches now tend to call ‘good execution’ – a cooler or more contemporary way of saying (more or less), that the talent was expressed – successfully.

Rugby and the world was different, back then: it was simpler and this may have made it more possible for Bennett to flick into Unconscious Genius Mode. (And yes, I would probably argue that mostly, those steps are triggered so late, or so instinctively by the micro-movements or changes of pace and space around him, that this ultimate expression of ‘playing what’s in front of you’ is beyond, or maybe wonderfully pre- strategic. Whether I’m right or wrong, or lazy with my terminology, the dummies are truly sensational: they symbolise optimism and for many they symbolise a nation).

It seems wise to note that for all this flamboyancy, Phil Bennett was captain of both Lions and Wales. That in itself may capture the heft of his accomplishment. He could not be, then, just a flickerer and a dilettante. He had to lead, to contribute, to inspire. He did.

Many will be familiar with the rallying he gave his comrades, for the England game of 1977. We can’t know if the following is word-for-word – I suspect some ‘language’ has been edited-out – but it’s a classic of the genre:

Look what these bastards have done to Wales. They have taken our coal, our water, our steel. They buy our houses and live in them for a fortnight every year. What have they given to us? Absolutely nothing. We were exploited, raped, controlled and punished by the English – and that’s what you’re playing this afternoon.

The lad from Felinfoel, close to Llanelli, the club that swallowed-up but also launched him, could rage when he needed to. The characteristic ‘feeling’ was there, alright. England and the English were/are the enemy. The fire burns bright against that.

*A wee indulgence on this, if I may. I am an English-born bloke who has spent virtually all his adult life in Wales. This is my home; my kids grew up to speak Welsh as well as Grimbarian. I struggle – i.e. I’m broiling and embarrassed – around most of those abstracted notions around poshness/English money/Torydom/privilege. Specifically, being a half-decent footballer I was rather self-consciously proud to be captain of a village club where everybody except me was born within three miles of the pitch. I had, however, like most of The Lads, not a cat in hell’s chance of buying a home in that ‘location’. Friends, given the obscene levels of second-home-ownership here – that and yaknow, history – you English get off pretty lightly*.

Phil Bennett was by all accounts a fabulous man. My father – Macclesfield, Sale RFC, England through-and-through, ’purist’ – adored him and may have passed on some appreciation of the fly-half’s transcendent gifts. I’m grateful for that, and for the part Bennett played in our Welsh/Brit/worldwide/communal understanding of what it is to be free to ‘have a go’.

I/we watched, transfixed, as he paused then let rip: many of us I think came to love both the Lions and the Barbarians because of Phil Bennett. Because of the link he made between sport, risk and (dare I say it?) altruism.

He played sixteen seasons, apparently, for Llanelli: respect. But for the dancing, the sheer, irrepressible shimmy-and-burst… more. We can only hold up our hands in gratitude.
Thankyou, Phil. We – and I do mean all of us – absolutely loved it.

Warming up, with the Bharat Army.

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Have seen India live – i.e. their cricket team(!) – a few times, now. Always fun. Yesterday no different, in that respect.

So happened that five minutes after I chose my seat in the Cathedral Road Stand (under the Media Centre, behind the bowlers arm), The Most Charismatic & Photogenic Indian Superfan came and sat down next to me.

Meaning if you saw some weirdly incongruous, tanned but unmistakably white bloke on the telly or on ‘insta’, next to the man with The Face & The Conch… well that was me. Sorry. If I photobombed any or all of the zillion selfies that the magnificently generous Bharat Army icon endured, I apologise. I sought nothing – was merely there in the first place.

My day then, was all about that happy coincidence. Rolling with the flags and the Bharat Army vibe. Reflecting now – and at the risk of patronising folks I simply don’t know – it was great. I expect it will be one of the highlights of my summer. Funny people, utterly charming people, Proper Cricket People. A refreshing, uplifting experience in the context of a currently depressing racial-political context. Thank you, guys.

Here’s how the *actual match* seemed…

 

Indian Superfan. Drawn to me, in an uncanny, unspoken non-ritual. Or maybe just wants, like me, to sit straight behind the bowler’s arm. Either way, he makes me look painfully pallid in every respect, what with his strikingly extravagant face-art. But inside… we are one. 😉

Cardiff. Coolish and both bright and cloudy. There’s a rain delay, after about four balls. More folks joining us, under the Media Centre, opposite the river. Including two ver-ry cool-looking guys who are (it turns out) Bharat Army hierarchy. I wonder about interviewing them but frankly bottle it.

The ball, meanwhile seems barely to be deviating despite that early cloud, rain. Some green in the pitch – and one goes through low – but no bowlers’ paradise, here. That how this World Cup’s gonna be? That how the white ball is? Just mainly hit through it: things may be difficult to time just now but reckon once you’re in…

Kohli, in soon enough, is fortunate very early on – edges through slips. Rohit, opposite, is similar in terms of relative discomfort.

A slow start, then and it’s one of those conflicting occasions where it’s hard to put your finger in what it is that’s so difficult but evidently, this is not easy for the batsmen. There is barely a timed aggressive shot in first ten overs.

Kohli gets through, having offered more than one ‘chance’ via the vacant first slip corridor: he looks almost human, today. He is bowled on 47.

13.30 and a Dhoni six over midwicket. Crowd full-throated, now. (Incidentally, had first thought the Indian mums/grans/daughters quota noticeably bigger than for the England equivalent…but maybe not).

But – sitting amongst them – there is that lovely, enthusiastic, engaged, 3-generations thing going on with the Indian support. Plus the most delightfully polite exchange of “excuse mes” as people trundle apologetically across your line of view or nudge past your beleaguered knees. Great fans.

176 for 4 after 32 (at the second drinks break). Rahul – like Kohli hardly fluent, earlier – has found a way to 68 not out.

200-up in the 36th. 37th & Dhoni explodes. Impudent swipe behind square for four, violent clonk over mid-on for six. Crowd loving it; he is plainly the Other God.

94 metre club-sweep from Dhoni immediately follows the milestone. He & Rahul looking comfortable, now, finally. Score could go VERY BIG, you sense, if they want it.

Mid-afternoon and somehow reassurring and appropriate to see Dhoni batting in a cap. Still moving pretty well, but *does look* like the clubbiest kind of god – also reassuringly.

Rahul goes to 88 with another edge – flailing somewhat, outside off. No slip, no catch.

Spin bowling for Bangladesh feels mixed – neither penetrative nor restrictive, particularly. On another day, they’re going at 20 an over. However their left-arm quick is admirably ardent, in the 41st. Sharp, committed.

Rahul bowled somewhat behind his legs, for 108. Good rather than majestic, today; appreciation and excitement, as this brings in Hardik Pandya.

Okaaay, it’s kindof a friendly but Bangladesh fielding has been ordinary. Dhoni profits from some dilatory stuff at mid-off; moves to 79 in the 45th. Hundred very much there if he wants it.

A brilliant fielder (unlike Liton, by the looks) might have him at long on, moments later. Tough chance lips out.

Some prolonged erm, drama as Hardik is cleared on review, after it became clear the ball pitched outside leg.

After 48 overs, Ind have 327 for 6, with Dhoni facing on 99. Boom. Straight drive, for six, into the river!

Dhoni, sumptuous in those later overs, is eventually bowled for 113. Jadeja fills his boots (as it were) by contributing a swift 11 as India finish on 359 for 7. Think Bangladesh have used 9 bowlers.

All things considered? India good, plainly, but 400 good? 400 to-win-against-somebody-really-tasty good? Not sure about that. Two centurions here but still 350 felt a touch lite. Could be the whole warm-up scenario but #CWC19 will likely demand early and sustained dynamism, if not outright violence.

India start their defence of the total with two slips, to Shami. Bumrah – whom I’ve come to watch – bowls the second over, wheeling and lashing.

Liton and Soumya cope. It would figure that batting conditions might be a tad more favourable, what with bright skies and a drying breeze now, and this is generally confirmed, during the first phase of the reply.

However, in his second over, Bumrah bowls an absolute peach – fiery, bouncy but not that short – which zips through where that second slip had been. 31 for 0 after 4.

There’s something richly appealing about an action as distinctive as Bumrah’s. That stalking; that skipping; the exaggerated uncurling. It’s not beautiful – quite – but it’s really him… and it’s quick. I really like that he doesn’t look like he’s ever been significantly tampered with by some coach.

At the other end, Shami is also putting it in, with little reward. 36 for 0 after 7. In the field the intensity and quality does feel a notch higher than an hour or two ago.

Whistles, in the sunshine. Real shiny whistles, Indian whistles, cajoling rather than cat-calling. Non-stop virtually; telling the lads that we’re with them. Children, mainly. Somewhere between charming… and harmless.

Eventually, Bumrah’s sheer energy and persistence pays off. Soumaya caught behind of something that *just lifts* again. 49 for 1.

Wow. He follows that up with a magnificent, druggy, slower-ball(?) yorker that irresistibly rushes the base of the stumps. Fabulous. Shakib must defend the hat-trick ball. Wide of off.

After 13, Bangladesh are at 62 for 2, with the game poised, progressing but by no means aflame. Goodish crowd, with the heavily-outnumbered Bangladeshis now vocal – and sunshine.

At the Powerade Hydration Break 🤷🏻‍♂️ (15 overs) , we have moved on to 74 for 2.

In bright, late-afternoon sunshine, Dhoni is keeping in sub-Steve McQueen shades and no cap. 100-up, for 2, in the 20th. Lukewarm: we wait. And wait.

150 for 2 off 27, with Jadeja on from the River End. Looking easy for the batsmen, who are beginning to lift the tempo and the Bangladeshi contingent. Still low-key but a friendly-competitive finish seems entirely feasible.

Jadeja reaching high with that left hand of his, then bowling flightless, sharpish and full. Chahal offering something rounder and loopier at the other end. Keeping the lid on this, currently.

Good, long chat with Rakesh from the Bharat Army. They’re now quite a mob – a business, in fact, with more than 11,000 fans booked through them for the upcoming Cricket World Cup. Bright, capable bloke; tells me they have staff in several countries dealing with travel, tickets, merchandise etc. Wish them well – feel under-qualified to *actually join* but…

At 191 for 5, off 36, it feels like India’s greater variety and quality of spin bowling may be telling. Though maybe not by much. Until Kuldeep Yadav’s left-arm leggies suddenly take over.

(At this point – another two-in-two – the Bharat Army hoiked up a giant banner, occluding the *actual playing surface* for some minutes. So an announcement: normal service will be resumed when the flag is lowered)…

When I emerge, it’s 216 for 8. (Did hear another roar). And a steward is insisting on the Army rolling up the banner. He is polite rather than officious, roundly, comically booed… but obeyed. We move on, in more sunshine, with the game surely now won.

I note that as so often, it is leg-spin that has gripped and turned the drama, here – batsmen having rarely been genuinely troubled by the seamers, save for a moment or three of real quality from Bumrah. Bangladesh need 130 from the last five overs… and here come the quicks to see them off.

They don’t, in fact. Chahal has Shaif slicing tamely to gully  – 262 for 9 – then Jadeja will bowl the last.

There have been three two-in-two’s in the innings, which maybe characterises the rather bitty nature of the Bangladeshi batting, today. Could be that this is how #CWC19 may be, for them – occasional glory, general disappointment?

No further score is added before a scrambled & reviewed runout brings the match to a close. Words for today? Good-natured, ‘sunny’, affable, enjoyable. Very cricketty -in a warm-up kindofaway.