Why the Welsh are turning their backs on rugby

In the space of a few days last month, two games were held a mile apart in Cardiff. The first was the concluding episode of the Six Nations tournament, the second a crucial World Cup football qualifier. Beyond jubilation and disappointment, the occasions exposed the gulf between the two most popular sports in Wales: the former highlighting the crisis of datedness that has engulfed rugby, the latter demonstrating why football has gone on to reflect a more confident, vibrant and relevant Welsh identity. The age-old debate of what is Wales’ national sport has never been so easy to settle.

Gareth Bale’s talismanic triumph over Austria was a stark contrast to the lethargic response of the Welsh XV to the Italians, who overcame the embarrassing hubris that had seeped into a Wales team too busy basking in the glory of milestone caps for Alun Wyn Jones and Dan Biggar. 

Was this a sign that rugby is no longer the apogee of Welsh sport? True, the martyred Welsh rugby team of the 1970s – including Gareth Edwards, Barry John & Gerald Davies – ran and passed with elegance, tackled with might and scored sensationally. Bale and his teammates can do all three and to a bigger audience. 

But Welsh football, which has none of these past glories to bask in, has been bubbling in the national consciousness since the team reached the semi-final of the European Championships six years ago.

The Red Wall, as Welsh football fans are known, is electric and proud. Long vilified by snobbish rugby supporters, these bucket-hat wearing, blue-sky thinking, fiercely patriotic crowds easily drown out the national anthem in the Cardiff City Stadium. The Football Association of Wales (FAW) is a remarkably popular institution with a good governance framework, and proactively promotes the Welsh language in its communications. For the critical game against Austria, for instance, the ever popular nationalist folk singer Dafydd Iwan riled up the crowd with his ballad Yma o Hyd, which celebrates the staying power of the Welsh from Roman times onwards. It was followed by a national anthem with no musical accompaniment. And then the score. 2-1 to Wales.

Without institutions, a parliament and even a capital city, rugby was for over a century a useful vehicle for harbouring national sentiment in Wales – particularly resentment against England. Those eighty-minute nationalists are still here today, harking back to the good ol’ days of the Seventies when there were decent industrial jobs, rugby players that had the feet of Maradona and body of Hercules, and the barbs of Max Boyce. But this nostalgia now feels out of step with the relatively self-confident and competitive public attitude that has been fostered after devolution, the bursting pride in the language and growth in socio-economic prosperity in many parts of the country.

Unlike the FAW, the Welsh Rugby Union is better versed in chairing committees than attracting crowds. The exorbitant ticket pricing alone puts fans off (there were 10,000 unsold seats for the Six Nations game against France, no surprise for £100 a pop) Combine ticket prices with the state of the game in Wales, with the four regions in south Wales consistently underperforming in the United Rugby Championship, as well as the poor results from the Under 20s and top tier Six Nations, and it’s no shock that former fly-half Jonathan Davies has called for for 'vision, direction and strong leadership from the WRU.'

The former first minister Carwyn Jones is not totally wrong when he says it 'doesn’t matter' which is our national sport. Sport – rugby, football and the rest – is particularly important for Welsh nationhood. Benedict Anderson’s famous maxim that the 'community' of the nation was 'more real as a team of eleven named people' is a succinct analysis for a country that for a long time wrestled with its sense of identity: whether that be the role of the language, its relationship with larger neighbours or its future. But increasingly, it's football, not rugby, that is the driving force of Welsh national pride.