As many of you will know I’m involved in a long-term sports research project entitled
The Unwelcome Sports Commentator. My work considers relationships between sport, media and national identity.
I’ve always been fascinated how regions and countries often identify with particular sports. A less well-known example of a passionate sports culture can be found in parts of rural Switzerland where Swiss wrestling competitions are staged in a sport known as Schwingen.
My photos below feature a Swiss wrestling event, its prize of a cow, and also a Swiss chocolate bar wrapper which depicts the design of a traditional Schwingen wrestling shirt.
In respect of sports and their regional associations I thought that you might like to see more of the photographs I’ve taken and diary notes I’ve made over the past year about two sports which have stepped outside of their traditional homelands.
The sports I present are Rugby Union and American Football, both of which have ‘hit the road’ in an attempt to ‘sell’ themselves to new audiences.
My diary entries and pictures are entitled “An American Try” a reference to staging rugby in the US and NFL in the UK.
Diary entry – 2 June 2018. Wales v South Africa
It’s matchday for the Wales national rugby team and from midmorning pockets of red shirts start to camp around the doorways of city centre bars. As the day unfolds more and more of the fans who have settled for the ‘great indoors’ start to venture back into the daylight. Here they find themselves supping their beverages in a drizzle as grey as the local squirrels, a drizzle which seems confident in its ability to steal the light if not the occasion from the day.
The pre-match drinking rituals weren’t however being acted out in the centre of Cardiff, rather they were located on the streets of Washington DC, and the growing pockets of red shirts on display were more likely to belong to fans of the local ice hockey than to Welsh rugby supporters.
In fact, it was the red shirted fans of the Washington Capitals hockey team who were in the vast majority.
It could be argued that the Caps supporters were on a much higher state of alert than the rugby fans from Wales and South Africa. Indeed, the DC team was competing against the Vegas Golden Knights in a series of matches for the coveted Stanley Cup – victory in which would be the Caps first such trophy success in their 44 year history.
It was now mid-afternoon and the gentle drizzle and rugby fans were being stalked by panther black clouds, which had a menacing grumble. In this part of the world lightning storms can be a threat to a match even taking place. Having travelled 3,538 miles from Cardiff an anecdote of “the game that never was”, was a tale I didn’t want to tell.
Meanwhile on the other side of town…
While Caps fans remained in the DC downtown area anticipating their evening game, Welsh and South African supporters along with curious and rugby hardened Americans took the Metro through futuristic underground railway stations to The Robert F Kennedy Stadium.
Despite being an impressive and iconic sports venue, nowadays the aging concrete structure known locally as RFK desperately requires some tender loving care or at least a paint company sponsorship.
My own vantage point for the game was going to be the stadium press box. On route to my seat I walked past an RFK billboard proclaiming “Politics Isn’t The Only Game in Town”. This attempted promotion of RFK felt like a last roll of the dice as it was sporting politics and changing technology that had seen RFK sidestepped as a major player in DC.
On seeing the billboard, I recalled one of my previous visits to RFK in 1994. Back then the stadium staged Washington DC’s opening ceremony for the FIFA World Cup Finals. It was a time when America continued to plant a new non-native sports crop at the then home of the Washington Redskins NFL side.
19 June 1994 Mexico v Norway. Attendance 53,395
24 years later here was my room with a view
Wales v South Africa was a different type of promotion, but in a stadium that had once been home to sell out Redskins games (1961/1996) and had embraced the DC United soccer side (1996/2017), Rugby Union and the 21,357 visitors felt like a passing footnote at this tired sports landmark.
2 June 2018. Wales 22 South Africa 20
The thunderstorm passed without it being remembered as a game breaker. The game passed into the history books as a Welsh win. The UK press offered a smorgasbord (Smörgåsbord as my Swedish friends would write!) of opinions ranging from “a money-spinning PR stunt which devalued international rugby” to a “thrilling victory”. Also due to it being a youthful and inexperienced team the press reported that rewards from the match would be felt by the national team in years to come. For me it was worth the journey just to have heard the Welsh national anthem sung in DC.
After the singing in the rain it was back to the sunnier side of town where a red wall of Caps fans had continued to grow for game 4 of the Stanley Cup.
Later that night The Washington Caps beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-1 at the Capital One Arena causing Washington to feel a bit more like Cardiff on matchday!
An Atlantic Crossing
My next exposure to ‘An American Try’ was an attempt to airlift an NFL game from its own backyard and drop it into London’s Wembley Stadium whilst maintaining as much of the league’s credibility as possible.
Diary entry – 14 October 2018. Seattle Seahawks v Oakland Raiders
The official crowd for the Seahawks/Raiders match was given as being a few cheer girls or boys short of 85,000. And it was the fans which in many ways emphasised that we were neither in Oakland nor Seattle or indeed at any other stateside NFL venue. The representation of European accents and languages along with supporters (or at least the shirt owners) of every NFL team took away the sense of there being an overwhelming home support reinforcing either of the teams’ territory.
Following this near 5,000 mile ‘cut and paste’ exercise, I guess it was the Seattle fans or at least their owners who saw this football exercise in the most positive light as their team jogged past a flatfooted Oakland outfit.
14 October 2018. Seahawks 27 Raiders 3
It wasn’t long before the NFL had packed its bags, said good bye and taken its circus back to familiar US soil. After which I went back to watching American Football in its natural TV habitat while supporting rugby union and soccer on home turf.
More than A Welsh try: A Wales Grand Slam!
In early 2019 a Welsh rugby 6 Nations Grand Slam was delivered. During the tournament I attended games home and away.
Diary entry – 23 February 2019. Wales v England If the NFL match in London had lacked the raw edge of a partisan home crowd the Wales v England rugby international in Cardiff didn’t!! There were many highlights for the locals but for me the Josh Adams try was like watching a crazed salmon attempting to get a rugby ball under control whilst swimming backwards upstream before successfully getting everything right and scoring.
If the ball needed any extra help to cross the line as Adams stretched for his touchdown then I along with thousands of Welsh fans in that corner of the stadium seemed to suck the ball in our direction.
23 February 2019. Wales 21 England 13
Diary entry – 9 March 2019. Scotland v Wales
Although the Scottish trip featured many familiar faces the inclusion of a bagpipe lesson (thanks to Andy, Alex and Andrew) was a surprise to my Swiss Brother in law Erich and his wife Mani who had taken the long road to Scotland by way of several trains from Winterthur (a town just outside Zurich) to Edinburgh!
9 March 2019. Scotland 11 Wales 18
The low road back to Wales and football as we know it
My footy thirst was quenched with a League of Wales match (Cardiff Mets v Carmarthen Town), international games in Wrexham (v Trinidad & Tobago) and Cardiff (v Slovakia) along with taking Rhys to see his first Cardiff City match (v Crystal Palace) where he continued a family tradition of supporting the Cardiff Bluebirds in the Land of His Fathers!
Diary entry – 3 August 2019
A Swiss Try on the Lake of Thun
The small Swiss waterside town of Spiez on the Lake of Thun had come across my radar as it was the location of a beach rugby tournament.
I arranged to interview Lorenz Zellweger, the president of Thun RFC, in an attempt to understand a little more about the development of rugby in German speaking Switzerland.
Building a rugby tradition on more than just sand
Lorenz told me that consideration might be given to establishing a distinctive Swiss style of rugby although he said that rugby development in Switzerland could be compared to promoting Hornussen (a Swiss sport) in Wales.
During my time in Spiez a few of the people I spoke with had travelled to watch the Wales national team at their mountain training camp in the Swiss Alps. It was pleasing to hear how approachable the team and management had been. This relaxed and friendly style is something I had also experienced when Wales had visited Washington DC in the summer of 2018.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these diary notes which I’ve made over the past year or so. Sporting cultures can be extremely powerful for individuals and communities and I look forward to providing you with more of my observations in the future.