I soon realised that I had made a mistake and that the whole business of not being punched in the face was going to be challenging, to say the least. It was cold and windy – but then again, what do you expect Cardiff to be on the 31st of December? Sure, everyone around looked cheerful enough, and the group of retired women whose cheeks were suspiciously rosy had offered me a sip of whatever their hip flasks contained, but I didn’t feel at ease.
I had first visited Wales a couple of years before and had irremediably fallen in love with the country (because yes, Wales is its own country; the English might assume differently and the Welsh are more than happy to let them believe so, but trust me, it is all pantomime aimed at keeping the Queen contented), which resulted in a series of unexpected consequences.
I always cry when I hear the Welsh national anthem, I have been known to say things like “Let’s have a tidy cwtch, butty,” and, if forced to by a shady character with a long knife in a dark pub, I’ll even drink a pint of Brains. All in all, if you’re bound to find plastic Paddies in Dublin, then I am the plastic Rhys of Swansea three weeks a year. Yet, I always want to experience the real thing, and it’s that specific brand of innocuous death wish that had led me to book a ticket to the New Year’s Eve rugby game.
Still, I would be lying if I said that my taste for the genuine Welsh experience was the only force that had driven me there on that cold winter day. After all, I could have spent the afternoon in the warmth of the Owain Glyndwr, at the National Museum or exploring the Gower. Instead, I was sitting uncomfortably among Blues fans who were all too happy to discuss the latest developments in the league while I could feel my butt freeze on the plastic seats of Cardiff Arms Park.
The reason why I was there? Leigh Halfpenny, the dreamy fullback of the Scarlets. And yes, I am well aware that it is a terribly shallow reason to be attending a rugby game when it is minus a million degrees outside, but it is the truth. The Welsh will tell you about their mountains, their beautiful sandy beaches, their rivers, their food and their (bonkers) legends, but the real national treasure of Wales, if you ask me, is the 29-year-old player from Gorseinon.
If you want more women to find a sudden interest in rugby, there’s no need for you to get into long explanations about the beauty of the sport or the feeling of oneness that springs when fifteen thousand fans start singing their hymn like an ancient shamanic chant. Don’t bother with the intrinsic magnificence of a successful box-kick or with the magic of seeing the underdog emerge from the game exhausted and broken, but victorious. Just show us a picture of Leigh Halfpenny and get ready never to be in charge of the remote control on Sunday afternoon from then on.
Unfortunately, Halfpenny plays for the Scarlets. Though it is a character flaw whose dramatic significance might get lost on outsiders, it was not on, say, the three thousand Cardiff supporters now shouting around me. I was sat, by fate or by accident, in the Cardiff Blues fan zone, if the bright blue flags that had been distributed by jolly volunteers were any indication to go by.
If there is a universal law to being a foreigner that I have learned in my travels, it is that when in Rome, you have to do as the Romans do, whether you like it or not. It’s even truer when you’re in a stadium packed with overexcited Welshmen who all are a good two feet taller than you, in which case you just cheer for the team they support, regardless of your own beliefs (or innocent attraction to a fullback from the opposite team, even if he has just scored his third conversion of the game).
Or so I thought. If there is one exception to the law of conformation to your surroundings, then the Welsh must be it. For you see, the inhabitants of Wales are a curious people if I know one, in that they never fail to show kindness, even when the home team ends up being beaten 11-14 on their own grounds after a game that mainly consisted in dropping the ball by accident. They still hugged each other like the gigantic Care Bears that they are and we all went to the pub, vicarious winners and graceful losers, in the purest Welsh tradition.