IT’S my fault. I know I shouldn’t go on social media and say anything about the IFA or the Northern Ireland team because the only thing that ever comes of it is confrontation and chaos. But I do. And I did.
I’ve fallen into the habit whenever Northern Ireland are playing live on TV of listening out for the sexing up of 'God Save the Queen'. Sorry, 'King'. (It takes a while to transition to the male gender when it’s been GSTQ your whole life.) For those of you not familiar with the psychodrama surrounding the team, let me issue a brief explainer. Those of you familiar with the matter can put the kettle on or go on your phones for a minute or two.
The Northern Ireland team has stubbornly maintained God Save the King (Queen, as was) long after the other Celtic nations kicked it to their unpainted kerbs. The Welsh soccer team first ditched GSTQ and stood to attention to 'Hen Wlad Fy Nhadhau' as far back as March 1977 in a 3-0 win over Czechoslovakia at the Racecourse Ground, Wrexham. It was an act of patriotic dissension that upset the English FA so much that they refused to play the anthem at a Home Nations clash with Wales at Wembley three months later – they insisted to the Welsh FA that GSTQ would be played to represent both teams. But as the English players broke away after the anthem and the band trooped off the pitch, the team stayed where they were and, led by captain Terry Yorath, belted out Hen Wlad Fy Nhadhau at the top of their lungs while a few Englishmen in suits unsuccessfully tried to move them along. And that, as they say in the Valleys, was that.
The Scots football team were rather late to the party thrown by the Welsh. They first used the rousing 'Flower of Scotland' as their anthem in 1993, but it wasn’t used exclusively until 1997. The Scots had long been unhappy with GSTQ, though, having flirted with ‘Scots Wha Hae’ and ‘Scotland the Brave’ before settling on the current tribute to William Wallace/Mel Gibson.
Here in the garden shed of the United Kingdom, not only has the IFA fiercely fended off any attempts to ditch GSTK as the Northern Ireland anthem, they’ve managed to avoid talking about it. It’s not hard to see why. While an international match at Windsor Park no longer has the feel of Sandy Row at teatime on the Twelfth, it remains overwhelmingly populated by those who adhere to the reformed faith and those who treasure the link with Britain; or, rather, given that Wales and Scotland have left the GSTK club, the link with England. That being the case, and while I have no empirical data to give weight to my thesis, I’m pretty sure that 90 per cent of the Windsor faithful would be robustly opposed to ditching GSTK; perhaps a few points under that figure, perhaps a few points over, but whatever the percentage, you can bet your Adidas Predators it’s a huge one.
It’s a long time since the Northern Ireland squad and dug-out mirrored the religious, social and political make-up of the fans watching them. And it’s a long time since so few of the players and staff gave GSTK their personal imprimatur by singing along to it. If you can steal a few minutes from your busy day, take a look at the anthem as it was last sung – at Windsor ahead of the 1-0 win over Luxembourg on Monday. It’s on BBC catch-up. Very few of the players are singing along and those who are joining in are doing so with the enthusiasm I reserve for putting away the Christmas tree. And when the camera pans to the bench – same story, except with an added ingredient: The manager doesn’t sing along.
Across the world of international sport, anthems are increasingly being used as motivational tools. Players are not only encouraged to sing along, they’re expected to grasp each other’s shirts until the fabric threatens to rip. They’re expected to blink tears out of their eyes. They’re expected to look to the heavens as they sing in an invocation of a patriotic spirit so intense and so profound as to electrify the synaptic message to the flesh and bone to such an extent as to add another metre to their sprint, another 20 kilos to their hitting power, 20 more centimetres to their jump.
At Windsor, meanwhile, as the musical tribute to King Charles is played over the Tannoy, most of the team lining out have faces like koala bears on Valium, the remaining minority are moving their lips with such colossal indifference that it’s possible they’re counting the seconds till the music stops. Don’t take my word for it. Go ahead and do what I told you to – check it out on catch-up for yourself.
Windsor’s not called Windsor any more. It’s called the Clearer Twist National Stadium. But if those paying good money to watch international games there think the confusion and indifference enveloping the anthem don’t have an effect on the team, they may as well rename it the Clearly Pissed National Stadium.
Which brings me to the meta-subject which prompted me to broach the subject again online as the anthems played ahead of that Slovakia game. It’s not enough that young fellas who were brought up playing hurling and Gaelic football are expected to accept a tribute to the English royal family as their anthem. It’s not enough that a kid who grew up on the other side of the motorway from Windsor is expected to grin and bear the fact that his friends and family have to watch him stand to attention to an anthem his community rejects. The Clearer Twist Stauncherati insist that they not only stand to attention to GSTK, but that they listen as the gap between verses is filled with a lusty cry of ‘No surrender!’
LOUD AND CLEAR: BBCNI's live coverage of Northern Ireland matches features GSTK being no-surrendered
It’s this bit that always compels me to comment. Without this needless, cynical, bitter add-on I might think it best to let the hare sit. I might think it better that I leave alone young players who never grew up with a mural of the queen at the corner of their street and who doubtless already get their fair share of friendly stick when they head home across or back up the motorway. And when I do comment, the Clearer Twist faithful invariably know why: i) I support the Ra; ii) I’m at the mix; iii) The Soldier’s Song is worse; iv) Shelbourne fans are Sinn Féin; v) I hate everything about this Pravince.
At least three of these things are nonsense. But what’s patently not nonsense is that the IFA have a decision to make – and they need to make it soon. There’s clearly a lack of empathy at the IFA for the bind that young Catholic players find themselves in, otherwise the No-Surrendering of the anthem would have been addressed by an appeal in the programme or over the Tannoy. But it’s simply accepted as part of the match-day experience and the truth is that things have now moved on too far for the ending of that sectarian mini-tradition to make any difference. Quite simply, GSTK has to go. And it will. Whether that’s next year, the year after, or the year after that is not clear; it may even be that the point is rendered moot by a border poll. But in a sporting world which, for better or worse, reflects the growing importance of small ‘n’ nationalism and patriotism in forging team spirit, the existence of an anthem which divides rather than unites is simply not sustainable.
The Northern Ireland football team is never going to have an anthem which makes grown men cry or makes them crash through walls for their country, but surely it’s not too much to expect that it has an anthem which doesn't remind the players of what used to separate them. And which still occasionally does.
