Support our Nation today - please donate here
Sport

Daily Mail fears England’s ‘depressing’ national anthem will put them at a disadvantage against Wales

28 Nov 2022 3 minute read
Wales captain Gareth Bale (left) and team-mates line up for the national anthem during the FIFA World Cup Group B match at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, Al-Rayyan, Qatar. Picture by Martin Rickett / PA Wire

A Daily Mail journalist has said that he fears that England’s “dull” and “depressing” national anthem will put them at a disadvantage against Wales when they play tomorrow.

Wales and England will face off in World Cup Group B with both teams hoping to clinch a place in the last 16 at 7pm.

But writing in the Daily Mail, Dominic Lawson said that the Welsh are guaranteed a “devastating victory” in one regard – the battle of the anthems.

He called on England to consider adopting a different anthem such as Jerusalem or Land Of Hope And Glory instead, now that the Queen had passed away.

“We already know one outcome of the World Cup match tomorrow between England and Wales,” he said.

“When the players line up before kick-off at 7pm GMT, the Welsh football team (and their supporters in Qatar’s Ahmad bin Ali stadium) will achieve a devastating victory against their English rivals… in the battle of the national anthems.”

He said that the “point is that our cousins across the Bristol Channel have an absolute stonker of a melody for their anthem”.

“When this was being thundered out before the start of Wales’s first match in Qatar against the U.S., it made a global impact.”

‘Winners’

Dominic Lawson added that one of the problems with England’s present anthem was that its words were so “uninspiring”.

“You don’t have to be a republican to regret the fact that what we call the National Anthem does not celebrate the nation at all, but whoever happens to be the monarch — unlike Land Of My Fathers, which celebrates Wales, its landscape, and its language,” he said.

“While the late Queen was alive, the British National Anthem at least evoked the fervent wish on the part of most of her people that she remained healthy and on the throne. But it simply doesn’t have that feeling now, after a gap of 70 years, that it is once again God Save The King.

“In fact, even when his mother was alive, the anthem was not popular.”

Dominic Lawson added: “But there is a serious point, when it comes to the anthems we sing at great national sporting events. Shouldn’t the English, like many other nations, have one which sends tingles up the spines, not just of our own people, but of all those listening or watching, across the globe?

“Meanwhile, tomorrow evening, we English will watch the Welsh team and supporters thunder out ‘Gwlad! Gwlad!’ and know they are the winners, whatever the result of the match.”


Support our Nation today

For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
16 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
George Atkinson
George Atkinson
1 year ago

Even the dirges he wants to replace them with are imperialistic ear damage written by entitled poshboys in Eton. Every single English anthem is about their superiority complex and sucking off their class system.

Cathy Jones
Cathy Jones
1 year ago

Which song? The one about asking good to save a monarch (proven not to work) with a xenophobic sentiment or the one about only having three lions instead of one awesome dragon partly written by a racist*? *David Baddiel a man who spent a lot of time in blackface mocking a black footballer and that’s not good, David Baddiel is a racist, which is mad.. what with him having gotten a book and a television programme about racism and the hierarchy of racism. This hierarchy of racism has black and brown people somewhere at the top where, according to David… Read more »

Gwyn GWLAD
Gwyn GWLAD
1 year ago
Reply to  Cathy Jones

No wonder Baddiel is into songs his mother is Welsh!

Dewi Davies
Dewi Davies
1 year ago
Reply to  Gwyn GWLAD

Father is Welsh.Mother is German and born in America. Makes him as English as me(god forbid).

WilliamsG
WilliamsG
1 year ago

It says a lot that when comparing it to the Welsh National Anthem he calls it the English National Anthem, then reverts to type by calling it the British National Anthem – which it definitely is not

Riki
Riki
1 year ago
Reply to  WilliamsG

Yeah, the irony is that the world thinks the English anthem is the British one, when in fact the British anthem is the one the world will call Welsh.

Adrian Howell
1 year ago
Reply to  Riki

Yes ridiculous,what did the English sing at the commonwealth games,I think Jerusalem, did you know at the commonwealth games before they never once showed a medal ceremony for an English gold medalist,maybe it was embarrassment.look at 1966 1970 World cups union Jack’s all over the crowds,even the English chant in 66,red,white and blue world Cup willy,do you also know that about 100 years ago if a welsh child was heard speaking welsh in a welsh school,they put a wooden collar around their necks,oh the English have a nice history towards the welsh.

Riki
Riki
1 year ago
Reply to  Adrian Howell

Yes I did know, it’s called the Welsh Not. State sponsored Punishment for Taking part in one’s culture. That’s called cultural Genocide in some circles. Well, it depends on who it’s being done to.

Doctor Trousers
1 year ago

Well, maybe when England decides it’s time to become a proper grownup modern country, stops holding its neighbours hostage, and allows it’s own identity to flourish, rather than one built on supplication to the ruling class and misplaced pride in the mass murder and pillaging of a dead empire, it can have it’s own new national anthem that isn’t a tedious, racist, bootlicking dirge.
Jerusalem would be a great choice. William Blake is a fine example of the most admirable qualities in English culture, a working class artist, writer and composer, free thinker, autodidact and political and religious iconoclast.

Mawkernewek
1 year ago

We have to wonder what awful things the next few years will bring, now that God has saved the Queen from them.

James Lewis
James Lewis
1 year ago

He makes some interesting points. When will the people of England finally get off their backsides and reclaim their nationhood with a stirring anthem for our times and the establishment of an English Parliament?

Steve A Duggan
Steve A Duggan
1 year ago

The great thing about the World Cup is that it has shown us – Cymru – to the world. That we have a distinctive culture,language, flag and anthem. That the British Isles is more than just London and England. We are here and we want to be seen and recognised.

Fi yn unig
Fi yn unig
1 year ago

Well said that man. In the Daily Fail of all things. Who’d ‘ave thought it?

paul ware
paul ware
1 year ago

The Daily Liar shouldn’t be too worried. The Ignorant Shower that represents the English Nation will probably boo our Anthem anyway.

Adrian Howell
1 year ago

The English haven’t got a national anthem,they’ve never had one,land of hope and glory is far better.

Restless shade of the assassinated Tywysog Lloegr
Restless shade of the assassinated Tywysog Lloegr
1 year ago

Nice they got their bizarre excuses in early

Our Supporters

All information provided to Nation.Cymru will be handled sensitively and within the boundaries of the Data Protection Act 2018.