Tag: world cup

A brief history of Welsh football through the 1970s Admiral Shirt

Image credit: The Welsh Football Collection, Wrexham County Borough Museum & Archives.

This cotton Wales football shirt was worn by Nick Deacy of PSV Eindhoven in an under 21s international match against Scotland in 1977. The two nations had been competing against each other since 1876, making it the second oldest international fixture in world football.  The shirt is part of the collections of the new national Football Museum for Wales in Wrexham, the town where the Football Association of Wales (FAW) was created. The museum documents Wales’ position as one of the formative nations in world football.

This shirt design was worn by Wales from 1976 to 1979 and has become iconic in Welsh football culture. Fan culture is often deeply nostalgic, especially amongst older men lamenting the passing of their youth.  Much of this nostalgia centres on the 1970s and 1980s terrace culture that lost its focal point with the introduction of all-seater stadiums in the 1990s. Terrace culture was occasionally violent but always boisterous and often deeply concerned with style and aesthetics. During the 1970s and 80s, fashionable football fans rarely wore replica shirts but now those same fans are older they have become interested in the kits of yesteryear. To meet this demand, the FAW released a new version of this kit during the 2016 European championships. It sold well and continues to be worn at Wales matches. Many who bought the 2016 reissue were far too young to have seen Wales play in the original version but by wearing it they were showing themselves to be supporters who knew Welsh football history; it perhaps helped mark them out as authentic fans. Yet the reissue itself was not authentic. Copyright and commercial issues meant that it did not feature the logo of the original manufacturer Admiral.

The Admiral trademark had been in use on clothing since 1914 and in 1973 it appeared on Leeds United shirts. This was the first time a football shirt in the English first division had been branded. The Leeds shirt design was copyrighted and put on sale to fans, making the company a pioneer in manufacturing replica kits for supporters. Admiral also helped drive forward more colourful and creative football shirt designs, as it sought to take advantage of the new visual possibilities that football on colour television presented.

One such design was the tramline design featured on this Wales shirt, a design which had already been used by Admiral in kits for Coventry City and Dundee. The FAW described the colouring of their version as ‘Red with Yellow and Green trim’. Welsh national sporting outfits are red because of the dragon that forms the basis of the Welsh flag and which gave the FAW the symbol on their badge in the shirt’s centre. The green in the stripe and badge also came from the Welsh flag. Yellow had been used for change strips by the Welsh national side since 1949 and is the colour of the daffodil, the national flower of Wales. It also featured prominently on the coat of arms of the House of Aberffraw, a Welsh medieval dynasty that resisted English intrusion into Wales.

The last part of Wales under native rule fell to English control in 1283 and the Welsh nation was formally annexed by England in the sixteenth century. Although the majority of Welsh people accepted English rule, a strong sense of Welsh identity remained, not least because of the prevalence of the Welsh language. It was still spoken by probably eighty percent of people in the early nineteenth century, when Wales was undergoing economic and cultural transformation thanks to its rich deposits in coal and iron ore. While the Welsh language had begun to decline significantly, there was a renaissance in Welsh national pride in the late nineteenth century. Thus, when England and Scotland formed national associations and began playing each other, first in football and then in rugby, Wales quickly followed suit. It was Wales’ cultural assimilation into Britain that meant that organized modern sport was an important part of Welsh popular culture but it was Wales’ enduring sense of difference that meant this was utilized to celebrate and sustain Welsh nationhood.

Indeed, sport became one of the most important facets in Welsh identity in the early and mid-twentieth centuries. There was large-scale migration into industrial Wales at the start of the century and sport helped people form a connection with their new nation. The interwar depression saw that movement of people go into reverse and it inflicted on Wales an economic trauma that it has never fully recovered from. Migration also pushed the Welsh language further into decline and by 1961 it was spoken by just a quarter of the population. Some people were choosing not to raise their children in Welsh but others, who did not speak the language, resented any implication that this made them less Welsh. Some felt greater political autonomy was the answer to Wales’ problems. A language movement waged a campaign of direct action to win legal rights for the use of Welsh but a 1979 referendum on the creation of some form of Welsh parliament was lost amidst fears about the potential impact on the nation’s cultural, constitutional and economic future. Another referendum on the same question was won narrowly in 1997 and the demands for further Welsh political autonomy continue to grow, though not to universal acclaim.

Amidst such turmoil, and the divisions in Welsh society that it exposed and perpetuated, sport was something of a healer. It allowed people to celebrate their sense of Welshness but made no demands on people as to what Wales should mean. Welsh national teams could be supported by all regardless of their cultural and political backgrounds and beliefs. Indeed, few other cultural forms as sport were so well equipped to express national identity. Sport’s emblems, emotions, songs and contests all made it a perfect vehicle through which collective ideas of nationhood could be expressed. Sport has thus been a central tenet in inventing, maintaining and projecting the idea of a Welsh national identity in and outside its blurred borders. It has helped gloss over the different meanings that the people of Wales attach to their nationality, enabling them to assert their Welshness in the face of internal division and the political, social and cultural shadow of England.

Of course, results did not always match aspirations and the Welsh national football side has not matched its rugby equivalent for sporting impact and recognition. Wales has only twice played at the World Cup, partly because before 1939 the FAW shared the wider British disdain for FIFA and global football. Wales did reach the semi-final of the 2016 European Championships, and wearing this shirt, the 1976 quarterfinal of the same tournament too. At the beginning of the latter match, both the Welsh and British anthems were played. That was one of the last times the FAW played God Save the Queen, as football increasingly became a symbol of a single Welsh identity rather than a dual British and Welsh one. Indeed, at the 2016 European Championship, a fans’ banner proudly declared ‘Welsh not British’. That was not how the majority of Welsh people felt. But national identities are never static and Britishness does seem to be in decline in the 21st century raising questions about whether the United Kingdom can survive. Football has played a major role in sustaining Welsh identity and it will almost certainly have a role in contributing to its future direction too.

This essay was first published in: Daphné Bolz & Michael Krüger (eds), A History of Sport in Europe in 100 Objects (2023).

Further reading and references

“Admiral: Our History,” accessed 22 February 2022, https://admiralsportswear.com/history/

Johnes, Martin, A History of Sport in Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005)

Johnes, Martin, Wales: England’s Colony? The Conquest, Assimilation and Re-creation of Wales (Cardigan: Parthian, 2019).

Stead, Phil, Red Dragons: The Story of Welsh Football (Talybont: Y Lolfa, 2012).

Why a football TeamGB is a threat to the independence of the ‘home nations’

To have an official national football team, a country has to be a member of FIFA, football’s world governing body. Membership of FIFA is not permanent. A vote by three-quarters of members can expel any FIFA member.

Article 10.1 of the FIFA statutes states:

Any Association which is responsible for organising and supervising football in its country may become a Member of FIFA. In this context, the expression “country” shall refer to an independent state recognised by the international community.

England, Scotland , Northern Ireland and Wales do not meet this criteria but do have their special position as seperate members enshrined in their own article (10.5).

FIFA also recignizes that nationhood may not be straightforward and article 10.6 states ‘An Association in a region which has not yet gained independence may, with the authorisation of the Association in the country on which it is dependent, also apply for admission to FIFA.’  Note the ‘yet’, an assumption that independence will come.

Thus the position is that the British associations having separate membership is an acknowledged contradiction to FIFA’s membership rules but one that is explicitly protected in its own statutes.

So, do the 2012 Olympics threaten that? It can’t be pretended that the Olympics are nothing to do with FIFA.  Olympic matches are regarded by FIFA as official internationals (because this means it can charge a financial levy). Can the UK say it is four nations in one FIFA competition but one in another? Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president, has said yes. He has repeated his belief that Olympic participation does not undermine the UK position. But Blatter is also a man prone to change his mind, something evident by his conversion to goal-line technology after a long entrenched hostility.

Moreover, in 2008 Blatter said:

If you start to put together a combined team for the Olympic Games, the question will automatically come up that there are four different associations so how can they play in one team. If this is the case then why the hell do they have four associations and four votes and their own vice-presidency? This will put into question all the privileges that the British associations have been given by the Congress in 1946.

Blatter is 76 years old and will not be around forever. His successor will probably want to make big changes at FIFA, to lessen the taint of scandal and corruption that hangs over its highest levels.

FIFA is also a democracy. A president may offer guidance but ultimately it’s down to what individual members think. As Blatter himself has said in a different context: ‘FIFA must not be reduced to the smallest common denominator: its President … FIFA is ultimately nothing but the expression of the will of its more than 208 Member Associations’.

The fiasco of the recent England World Cup bid illustrates that British football is not exactly held in wide regard amongst those members. Admiring the Premier League is one thing. Understanding why the British get special treatment is another.

BBC Wales have recently pointed to the trend being for more countries in FIFA not less, while Stuart Pearce has claimed that no one is calling for the return of a single Yugoslavian team. That last argument is silly because Yugoslavia no longer exists, but the UK does. The trend for more FIFA members has been because the number of independent nations has grown in the last 30 years. Of course, if Scotland votes for independence then the whole parameters of this issue will change. But the key issue is not the politics of statehood but of football.

There is historical evidence that the UK’s special position has been questioned before. For example:

  • In 1972 the Uruguay FA withdrew a proposal to end the home nations’ independence after the 4 UK associations agreed to pay FIFA a levy from the home championship (as all other nations have to from their internationals). That year the Secretary of the SFA noted ‘there was no doubt that the South American Confederation wished to remove the independence of the Four British Associations’.
  • In 1992 British delegates at the International Football Association Board were told by FIFA delegates that if they voted against the introduction of the backpass rule it would jeopardise their separate status. The FAW’s sense that its position was under threat was already so strong that it created the League of Wales in 1992 to ensure it could not just be seen as a region of English football.

The FAW were particularly shocked at the threats that surrounded the backpass rule because they had always believed they had European support for their position. Four British nations after all cemented the European domination of the world game but the break up of the old Communist bloc significantly increased the number of European members. Suddenly, Europe had less need of British votes at FIFA.

The European domination of world football is clear in the places allocated for the 2010 World Cup:

Number of countries seeking qualification Number of places allocated
Europe 53 13
Africa 53 6
Asia 43 4
Central & N America 35 3
Oceania 11 1
South America 10 5

Morever, Africa only got 6 places instead of its normal 5 because South Africa qualified automatically as hosts.

The executive of FIFA appears to think this is not an issue in which democracy should prevail. Blatter said in 2011: ‘All of the Fifa member countries have equal voting rights, but when it comes to the World Cup, which is the only income of Fifa, our executive committee agrees that those confederations that have the best football should have more representatives.’

Television money and sponsor reasons aside, the key moral argument in support of the status quo is that this is about the quality of football and FIFA rankings do support the notion that the bulk of the best teams are in Europe. But it is difficult for the rest of the world to accept European domination for reasons of  ‘quality’. There is more than a whiff of an old-fashioned western sense of superiority here, a sense that the rest of the world resents. Even in Australasia there is resentment that their continent isn’t even guaranteed at least one place.

It’s within this context of resentment about the nature of power within FIFA that the British nations’ special position can come under the spotlight. This is likely because the British privileges extend beyond just having four members.

The FIFA executive is made up of a president, 8 vice presidents and 15 members. Of these vice presidents Britain gets one, Europe gets another two and the rest of the world get five between them. The distribution of members is also skewed towards Europe.

The only justification for the UK having the same number of vice presidents as the whole of Africa is history. When football was reorganized after the Second World War, FIFA was desperate to bring in the UK nations, the inventors of the game, to legitimize its own position and buttress the organization’s financial future. The cost was giving the British a disproportionate influence.

That extends beyond the FIFA executive. The International Football Association Board is the body that sets the actual rules of the game of football. There are eight votes on this board: FIFA have 4 and the UK associations have one each. In other words, the British associations have as much say in the rules of football as the rest of the world put together.

A stranglehold on the game’s rules and a permanent vice-presidency on an executive that does not distribute the spoils of football’s centrepiece fairly mean that the British position is of interest to the rest of the world. It has a direct impact on the governance of world football and a symbolic importance. Paul Darby, a historian of African football, has noted:

The individual membership of each of the British associations, which affords them full voting rights at FIFA Congress, has been a particular source of discontent with the African football confederation. Indeed, on many occasions the membership status of the British authorities has been heavily criticised as evidence of global inequality within world football and has been cited as constituting just one manifestation of European bias and privilege within the game’s institutional and administrative structures.

Just because there isn’t currently a campaign to get rid of the UK’s four teams does not mean there won’t be in the future. And when it happens, people will point to the precedent of the 2012 Olympics.  If TeamGB competes again, as some pundits, players and the manager hope, the danger of the issue coming back will be all the greater.

There is little sentiment for tradition and history in football and it is only tradition and history that allows the four UK nations to have their own national teams.  Moreover, as long as the British nations have a disproportionate say in the power of world football then there will be those that resent the fact that the UK has four teams.