There used to be a greasy spoon next to the City Arms that sold international rugby match programmes.
On match days I’d gaze longingly at those programmes in the window. Two bands of red and one the colour of Wales’ opponents, matte finish, sans serif font, flat icons representing both nations.
I’d gradually wear down the old man with my begging before picking up a stash of match-day merch.
A few yards up the side street (Quay Street) next door to the Model Inn, was the best sports shop in Wales (with apologies to Fussell Sports, John Frost Square, Newport, which comes a close second).
A quick Google search throws up nothing now. No names. No trace of that shop.
But that slice of retail heaven was there. To descend to the lower ground floor was to enter a sporting nirvana.
I’d stand, staring at the ’80s French rugby shirt: Adidas trefoil, three stripes.
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There was a hypnotic and powerful love at work. It was a spell. I knew if I touched that shirt, I’d walk out looking like a young Frank Mesnel.
This was 1988. France in town for a Grand Slam decider.
So much football in that team. Blanco. Lafond. Sella. Lescaboura- the doyen of drop-goal kicking.
Wales too, full of innate skill. Mark Ring at centre. Jonathan Davies at 10.
They say believe your eyes. I still can’t imagine a rugby footballer with more natural ability, pace and vision than Jiffy.
I didn’t have a ticket that day. I had to make do with gawping at those match programmes in the caff window.
Not since the late ’70s had Wales reached the heights of a final weekend decider.
I thought of that day last Sunday, lamenting the thousands of empty seats as France dismantled Wales.
Do they know those days are golden?
On BBC 5 Live’s pre-Six Nations guide, Gareth Rhys Owen recalled: “Turning up in Cardiff on a Six Nations Friday with a spare pair of pants in my pocket, knowing you wouldn’t be home until Sunday.
“When I moved to Cardiff in my mid-twenties, I’d wake to find twenty West Walians crashed out on my living-room floor, of whom I knew two.”
That memory holds true for me. I met one of my closest friends, Vic, waking under the stairs at my student digs on Cathays Terrace.
He’d travelled down from Aberaeron to drink three times his body weight.
A friendship built for life, thanks to the Six Nations.
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Friendship built for the Quay Street “victory mile”. Golden nights in the City Arms, Model Inn, Floyds, Goat Major, Rummer Tavern, Dempseys, always Dempseys for a late-night snifter, knowing one is too many, a hundred not enough.
I loved that part of town. The late night breeze off the Taf, giving a waft of rugby-writing greatness from the Western Mail at nearby Thomson House.
Those decent days and nights.
Pathetic Acts For A Worthless Cause
When addressing a developing existential global crisis last week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said, “Nostalgia is not a strategy.”
Well, Mark, what else do we have?
You might be able to move on from the rupture of an alliance with your immediate neighbour and the world’s strongest global power, but have you seen the state of Welsh rugby lately?
If we must live in the now, and not hark back, let’s start and end with respected journo Simon Thomas on X:
“Welsh rugby is getting more media coverage than at almost any time in my career, unfortunately because of the turmoil on and off the field. It’s a grim tale.”
It’s all getting too much, even for the gnarly old hacks.
A Guardian editorial put it: “Rugby is losing its place in the cultural mainstream in Wales. Welsh rugby in its pomp, the 1960s and ’70s in particular, was a vivid representation of a way of life.”
After months of off-field turmoil, proposed reductions of regions, diminishing financial resources, a player base accused of not being fit for purpose…the rhetoric from pundits and experts might just be shifting.
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At first this was a narrative around governance (and lack of), then finance (and lack of).
Now it’s shifting to culture and community.
Sam Warburton on the BBC: “I’ve gone back and forth. Are we better off trying to keep our heads above water with four teams and having more of a growth strategy and a pathway system that in five or six years’ time can fill four competitive teams? Could we keep four teams?”
Back to Jiffy, this time in the comm box: “It (the WRU proposal to cut one region) might be the best thing financially, but is it the best thing for the rugby?”
Alun Wyn Jones: “The biggest pathway is already there. It is schools.”
And an unlikely intervention from former Wales second rower Andy Moore on Substack: “Grassroots in Wales is the system. Welsh rugby isn’t broken. It’s ignoring the people who built it. Grassroots isn’t the problem. It’s the answer.”
There’s a lovely quote from much-missed Welsh author Jan Morris:
“I don’t have his (Twm Morris- her son) instinct for Welshness. With him it is more basic; it comes out of the soil. For me it is more of an idea.”
Yes, we need new ideas for Wales. For Welsh rugby.
But disconnect clubs and supporters from local identity and community roots, and there’s nothing.
And maybe the media set and pundits are finally coming around to this.
Keep the faith.
Wales by 5 points on Saturday. And see you in the City Arms for a celebratory snifter.
Andrew Weeks is a lecturer in the school of journalism, media and culture at Cardiff University. You can read his regular columns here.
