Cymru Rydd by Mao
When
our town of Merthyr Tydfil hosted a march in support of Welsh independence on
September 8 this year, more than five thousand people turned up to champion the
movement. So when Merthyr Town posted their support of the event on social
media, many welcomed seeing a Welsh working class institution advocating the idea
of Wales being free from the shackles of Westminster rule.
Prominent
stars from Welsh sport gave also showed their solidarity to the cause, including
former Welsh international and widely considered to be one of the finest
goalkeepers of his era, Neville Southall, who told the gathered crowd at
Penderyn Square to loud cheers: “Wales is the greatest country in the world,
but it’s no good having a dragon if the dragon cannot roar”.
However,
The Martyr’s support was shortlived, their fear of alienating a minority of
British nationalist supporters saw them delete their post and retract all solidarity
just four days later as they issued a statement distancing themselves from the event,
saying their support was an “oversight
and is the view of individuals in our fan base” as they “do not believe in
promoting political messages through football”, even rather incredulously stating
that “the players were unaware of the message behind the t-shirt’s” and that
“the club would like to apologise for any offence caused and assure our fans of
the club’s neutral stance in this situation.”
Of course, the club’s stance on the impartially
of politics in sport is greatly erroneous and totally nonsensical because sport has
always been political. It’s very common to see football teams and clubs support
a manner of initiatives or causes, including the wearing of the poppy. Indeed,
some of sports most iconic moments stem from political charged moments like
when Jesse Owens made a mockery of Hitler’s claims of Germany’s racial pureness
and supremacy at the 1936 Munich Olympics or when Nelson Mandela presented the
rugby world cup to Francois Pienaar following South Africa’s post-Apartheid
triumph as the ‘rainbow nation’.
Then
we come to the derisory idea that Merthyr and politics can somehow be
distinguishable, but as our rich and proud history has shown us the two are so
intertwined in the very fabrics of the towns existence the two cannot, or
should not, be separated. Merthyr is a cauldron of politics, struggle and
ingenuity, not some leafy backwater in a hamlet where nothing much has ever
happened.
It’s
a town where our forefathers first marched under a flag made red from calf’s
blood as a symbol of all workers during the historic Merthyr Rising of 1831, a
symbol that became adopted as the international flag of the working classes,
where rioters destroyed all townspeople debts and held the town for four whole
days. A workers revolution was in the air, but swiftly the British state sent
in the army, who butchered the protestors just a stone throw from our football
ground where not even a plaque rests to commemorate them.
Our
townspeople “contemptible” demands during the riots that were seen as so unjust
by our British masters? They were demanding “caws a bara” – bread and cheese.
The
town of Merthyr is a place that has endured extreme poverty and toil. A town
that pioneered the invention of the train that modernised the world. A town
that gave rise to social and workers movements such the birth of Chartism,
trade unionism, the Labour movement and influenced the development of socialism
around the world. A town became the iron capital of the world and the beating
heart of the world’s first industrial nation - Wales.
It
would be unthinkable if Merthyr Town Football Club allowed Salisbury or
Wimborne Town to run our finances, decide our transfers or pick our match day
eleven. It’s so obvious that autonomy over your owns affairs should be a given
it barely feels like it’s even worth mentioning. If Merthyr voted for Brexit on
the basis of the basis of the UK being bossed around by Brussels, it’s only
logical we can now apply the same scrutiny towards the “United” Kingdom we’ve
found ourselves forced in to.
Our
stadium at Penydarren Park sits on the site of a Roman fortress, I wonder how
delighted Emperors of Rome have been to see how the once fierce defenders of
their land have become so willfully subservient to their colonisers, as some
Welsh are to Westminster?
Wales
was once a wealthy nation that created vast fortunes for industrialists and
landowners, even making the 3rd Marquess of Bute the
richest man in the world, but the grand buildings, streets and
cities we see so often throughout Britain partly built on these Welsh fortunes are
not to be found in our streets or towns or valleys because we were never equal
in our “Union”. There’s no coincidence
that once we were no longer seen as worth exploiting, the infrastructure and civic
buildings once put in place to extract our wealth like our railways or canals
or civic buildings were either ripped out or neglected and allowed to fall into
disrepair. Our townspeople have always been viewed as dispensable to the
British state, it’s why we’ve been carelessly discarded onto the spoil tip,
like the one at Aberfan, with no care or consideration for the consequences. It’s
an all too common Welsh story and it’s okay to want better for our country - I
just wish our football club wanted it too.
Mao
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