Op-Ed: Team GB is an affront to Wales’ most loyal fans

Op-Ed: Team GB is an affront to Wales’ most loyal fans

by Tim Hartley

The Red Dragon still breathes fire.

New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium is hardly the place you would expect to see a political protest, least of all at a soccer match. But thanks to the commitment and cunning of a few loyal supporters that’s just what happened when Wales played Mexico in the New York heat at the end of May 2012. This was a friendly international match, Chris Coleman’s first as manager and 2012 if you remember, was the year of the London Olympics.

Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, the UKs Home Nations, compete as independent football teams while their athletes come together as Team GB every four years for the Olympics. However, as the Games were being held in London the English FA had the bright idea of fielding a men’s team in the name of Great Britain, and that for the first time since 1960. This may not seem a big deal to the armchair supporter but to thousands of Welsh, Scots and Northern Irish fans this was a form of betrayal.

You see, we pride ourselves on our support for our national team. The Football Association of Wales was established in 1876. The team’s had its ups and mostly downs over the years but our support is ferocious and a hard core of us follow the team wherever they play. Your football club is an intrinsic part of the community you live in.

It chooses many of the people you socialise with and its fortunes form the basis of the conversations you have and too often dictate your mood. A football club binds us together more so than standing at the school gates or talking to colleagues at the water cooler. It’s a passion. And above your club comes your national team. For small countries like Scotland and Wales your affinity with your national team is an even bigger part of your identity. We have our own languages and traditions. I really can’t see such a backlash to Team GB coming from the dominant culture of big brother England.

My family holidays are never booked without consulting the international fixture calendar. ‘Where are we off this year,’ my wife would ask. ‘Er, Armenia or Azerbaijan for the Euro qualifier and I think there’s a friendly in Iceland sometime later.’ We have watched our team all over Europe and beyond. Belarus anyone? Liechtenstein? The China Cup? Yes, we’ve done them all. So betraying our devotion to 11 red shirts in the name of some footballing Union that has never existed was as a real slap in the face.

Back in New Jersey, Geraint, one of our physically as well as emotionally biggest fans, had wrapped a hand painted banner around himself and smuggled it into the ground. During the anthems my son and I helped him unfurl it. ‘No Team GB’ was the simple but defiant message. Craig Bellamy, the Wales captain, and a member of Team GB that summer, ran across the pitch towards us. Very animated, he gestured at us to take the flag down and from my lip reading he wasn’t too pleased at our message. But some things Craig are non-negotiable and my, our, football team is one such thing.

Team GB for the London Olympics was supposed to be a one-off. ‘Calm down,’ we were told, ‘ it won’t happen again.’ Craig and his pals crashed out in the quarter finals of the Olympics, there was no such team in Rio and that you might have thought was that. But this week I felt like Bill Murray in the film Groundhog Day where the hapless weatherman relives the same day, every day.

Football’s world governing body FIFA announced that it had received written confirmation from the four home nations, yes those same home nations who for more than a hundred years have each been fielding their won independent football teams, that they were happy to field a women’s Team GB for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Talk about turkeys voting for Christmas.

So what are the objections to this one off (well, once every four years actually) coming together of the best men and women players in the United Kingdom? Well quite a lot actually. Firstly, Team GB will not be entered at all unless the English women’s team finish in the top three of next summer’s FIFA World Cup. Where does that leave the Scottish women’s team who have also qualified for the finals in France? If they win the cup and England fail then no Team GB. That seems a tad unfair. And who will select Team GB? Who will the manager be? It will all be run under the auspices of the English FA. And realistically apart from Jess Fishlock and Sophie Ingle no other Welsh women could hope to get a look in. Team GB? Team England with a token Welsh or Scottish woman thrown in more like.

However, the arguments over the practicalities of an Olympic team are a side issue, a distraction. There are plenty within the footballing family who resent the fact that the UK has four teams entered into international competitions, four votes within UEFA and FIFA and that the Home Nations are custodians of the game’s rules. They argue that a single team and a single association would offer more opportunities and greater influence to other, smaller nations. The fears of the Wales fans is that if a single British women’s team is good enough for the Olympics, then why not a single men’s team too? And if an united team is good enough for the Olympics then why not for the World Cup and the European Championships? Farewell the four Home Nations. We are playing with fire here.

What about the players though? Don’t they deserve to play at the highest level? In case you forgot, the FIFA World Cup IS the highest level. And if two professional players miss out on a month long festival in Tokyo to save the international integrity of a team I have supported all my life, then so be it. When anyone is called up to play for their country they say they are humbled and that this is the highest honour in the game. Let’s not dilute that honour by being part of a makeshift team which has no emotional appeal to the true football tribes of Britain. The argument over Team GB again raises the big unspoken question – who is professional football for? For the benefit of a handful of players and agents and sponsors? For the aggrandisement of officials and their patron? Or for us the supporters who part with our money and share our passion to be part of a team we can truly call our own?

At the end of August this year I joined a packed house at Newport’s Rodney Parade stadium to see the Welsh women take on England. At stake was a place in the world cup finals. This was to be ‘the biggest day in Welsh women’s football.’ History was in the making. Just get behind the girls they said. It was a great evening out. Young girls got to see their role models in action and we sang our hearts out for the nation. Wales went down by three goals to nil as we said au revoir to our French dream. But hey, we’d given it a go. So what should I now do with all that passion? Pack it away along with the Red Dragon flag, unfurl the Union Jack and move my allegiances to Team GB? Not on your life!

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Writer and broadcaster Tim Hartley is based in Cardiff, Wales. He is  Vice Chair of Supporters Direct and a founding trustee of the Wales supporters charity Gôl! He is writing here in a personal capacity.

Follow him on twitter: @timhhartley or on FB: facebook.com/AuthorTimHartley