• Six Nations 2020: Pivac era opens to familiar refrains as Welsh rugby choirs vow their show will go on

    Wales begin the Wayne Pivac era on Saturday, and performing on the pitch remains as great a passion for male voice choirs as rugby players.
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    Wayne Pivac on the touchline; the Principality Stadium crowd brimming with back-to-school excitement.

    A new dawn was arriving for Welsh rugby as Saturday’s Six Nations opener against Italy came into view.

    Yet this story isn’t about coach Pivac, nor new dawns, nor the fact we’ve reached the 20-year anniversary of the Cardiff stadium staging its first match in the championship.

    Coaches come and coaches go and Pivac will have his day and leave; not even Warren Gatland was inclined to go on forever on the touchline.

    And the inevitable truth is that stadiums decay, to be replaced by grander, more suitable settings for world-class sport. Which themselves will one day lose their lustre.

    The St Helen’s ground in Swansea and Cardiff’s Arms Park used to proudly house the hallowed turf for Welsh rugby.

    Some things, though, have a greater permanence. And what endures perhaps best of all in Welsh rugby is its carved-in-stone connection to the country’s richly poetic and musical history, most pertinently the hymns and folk songs that permeate from Llanelli to Llanberis, Cardiff Bay to Cardigan Bay.

    That time-honoured beacon of Welsh society – the male voice choir – remains as much a part of the rugby fabric as it ever was. This story celebrates the glorious communion between song and Welsh rugby.

    Slated for success

    In the heart of Snowdonia lies Blaenau Ffestiniog, a largely Welsh-speaking small town renowned for centuries for its vast slate mines, and home today to the Brythoniaid Male Voice Choir.

    The Welsh Rugby Union invites such choirs on a rota basis to perform within the stadium before its home matches, knowing their presence rouses Cardiff crowds in such a way they become the team’s 16th man.

    Soon it will be the turn of Brythoniaid, seven-time winners of the National Eisteddfod. They are booked in for the match against Scotland in March.

    “We’ve done it before,” said Phill Jones, the choir secretary.

    “Most of the choir are fanatical rugby supporters anyhow, so to be allowed to get on the pitch and be allowed to sing to 70,000 people is a bit of an experience.”

     

    Have the Welsh crowds lost their voice?

    There have been questions asked recently about the atmosphere at Wales’ home games.

    Journalist and Pontypool rugby club media man Greg Caine argued on the Nation Cymru website that priorities were changing, and that Wales crowds had lost their voice, even at last year’s Grand Slam decider against Ireland.

    He wrote: “… the singing was seriously lacking, and it’s almost become a cliche, but [again] many really were more interested in going to the bar than watching the match.”

    He pointed to a “day out” culture and added: “Whilst this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – people are welcome to enjoy something they’ve paid for however they want – a symptom of the aforementioned attitude to the match is the general lack of singing, and it’s that which I find most disappointing and demoralising when attending Wales matches.”

    Most surprisingly of all, Caine claimed Wales football supporters have developed a “wider repertoire” of songs and chants than their rugby counterparts.

    “It does [surprise me]. I would say quite the opposite to be honest with you,” Brythoniaid’s Jones told Omnisport.

    Such an argument could run and run; what defies debate is the sense that song is deeply ingrained within Welsh sporting culture, whatever the shape of the ball.

    “The English only have one song”

    “Anywhere, at any standard of rugby, you get singing in the crowd,” said Jones. “We’ve got a local rugby team called Bro Ffestiniog, and even if the crowd might only be 50 or maybe less, they’ll sing like mad.

    “We’ll take a choir, just to give them entertainment and help along as well, and they’ll say it makes a heck of a difference.

    “You’ll only hear one song being sung in an English match and that’s the chariot one [‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’]. You listen to a Welsh crowd and you’ll get such variation. I think it’s something we’re very good at, and the Scottish and the French are as well.”

    Jones says singing in Wales has always come with a rivalry aspect.

    “You go back to the days when there was real hardship,” he said. “In those days, the chapels and churches were at their strongest, where you had congregations in the hundreds and singing was a part of life.

    “Where we sing, there were two huge quarries with 7,000 men working, and at each level of the mine, there was a shed where they would congregate having lunch, and they used to have singing competitions between each shed.

    “It was tradition back then, and that’s how the choir started. Most of the big choirs in Wales are associated with areas where coal mining and chapels were very strong. There’s a lot less now than there used to be.

    “We’re not so bad, but we used to have massive choirs; I would say 120 to 130 [people]. These days people have other things to do.”

    Together, this is what we’ll do

    The Brythoniaid Male Voice Choir struck lucky when they were invited to perform at Festival No 6 in Portmeirion, performing ‘Go West’ with the Pet Shop Boys in 2014 and joining a 2017 line-up that featured The Flaming Lips and Rag’n’Bone Man.

    “Because of that, we got more wanting to be involved with the choir,” Jones recalls. “We were down to about 45 in the choir at one stage but we’re now up to around 75, so you have to be prepared to change. Not change too much, but you’ve got to adapt.”

    Will the national anthem – Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau – ring out inside rugby stadiums in 50 years’ time? Will future generations still incant Calon Lan, these days a favourite of so many supporters? Might Bread of Heaven still be bellowed from the stands towards the end of this century?

    Will Max Boyce’s Hymns and Arias always resonate?

    “I would think so, I would hope so anyway,” said Jones. “The choirs are getting smaller, so you might not have the same size of choir that are taking part now. But even though they get smaller, I think they’ll still go on.”

    Gary Morgan, secretary of the Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir, agrees.

    “Those songs are there and they’re not going away,” said Morgan.

    “Some of our choir might groan a little when it comes to rehearsing the same old hymns, but those are the ones the crowds want and they enjoy them so much. And when on match days the crowd are singing them back, it’s just a moment of great pride.

    “We sang at Gavin Henson’s wedding last year. People always love to hear a Welsh male voice choir on a big occasion.”

    But not only are the choirs shrinking, they are ageing, too, which has to be a worry.

    “It’s a real struggle to find anyone under the age of 40 wanting to join,” Morgan said. “I couldn’t give the choir the commitment I do now until I retired from teaching.

    “But I can’t imagine the Arms Park or the Principality Stadium without those songs. They’re such an vital part of Welsh rugby life.”

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