England Needs Its Own Voice
Sunder Katwala thinks England deserves its own anthem.
4 Feb 2012, 00:10
A voice for England
The Six Nations is a great tournament, drawing in many of us who don’t pay a great deal of attention to rugby for the rest of the year.
And Scotland versus England at Murrayfield on Saturday afternoon probably does not need any additional political spice as context. It is hard to imagine the fans will be discussing devo-max at half-time.
Some always worry that any display of national identity will lapse into jingoism. Even George Orwell, usually so good on the need for a healthy patriotism, uncharacteristically took the kneejerk leftist side of the argument in his dismissal of international sporting competition.
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.
But I struggle to see the case for condemning the pomp, circumstance and ceremony of the Six of Nations. La Marsellaise, Bread of Heaven, Flower of Scotland, Ireland’s Call and the fantastically tub-thumping Italian march are a great part of the spectacle.
But what about England?
We hear a great deal about the need to give England a voice – and the political debate is finally now emerging.
Yet England will again take the field in Edinburgh and line-up for the British national anthem as their own, making it look for all the world like the Rugby Football Union don’t know the difference between England and Britain at all.
They certainly won’t get on to that contentious “rebellious Scots to crush” verse, but I doubt it does any good to anybody – certainly not to the Union or the Monarchy; nor to – to go to Edinburgh and to appropriate the British anthem for the English.
So let’s now have an English anthem for an English team – and keep the British anthem for Team GB at the London Olympics.
There is a case for playing the British anthem too before all-British fixtures - when Wales play Scotland, or England play the other British nations. After all, the Republic of Ireland’s anthem is played before six nations fixtures in Dublin, while Ireland’s Call represents the broader identity represented in a team selected from across the 32 counties of the island of Ireland.
Perhaps there will be different views about what to choose.
Maybe Swing Low, Sweet Chariot could make the transfer from the Twickenham terraces to the official ceremonies.
But most people may well think that there is an obvious choice in Jerusalem.
“And did those feet in ancient times …”.
It is finally time to give sporting England its own voice.
Comments (8)
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Very true. Gradually we (the English) are finding our voice, in this(dis)united Kingdom.
04/02/2012 10:13Thank you for bringing it up, yes Jersulem would be perfect as I pointed out to the English FA a couple of years ago. Who then wrote back saying there was no great desire in English fans to to change. That they had conducted a poll amongst England fans and they wanted to keep the UK National Anthem.
Strange that, I'm an England fan and have never been asked and nor have the many other England fans that I know. Then again they could just be telling me porkies, still at least they have taken the armband away from Terry, now all they have to do is sack Capello.
04/02/2012 10:39Both the RFU and FA insist the English anthem is God Save the Queen.
By default that means any 2012 Olympics gold medallists from Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland will receive their medals to the strains of the English national anthem.
Jerusalem is the obvious choice for the real English anthem as it is English and the most popular choice. "Land of Hope and Glory" is the British Empire song and "There'll always be an England" makes reference to the red white and blue. Neither is English, but both are British.
By the way, the verse about rebellious Scots was a music hall joke and not ever an official part of God Save the Queen. It also made reference to rebellious Scots not the vast majority of loyal Scots. The latter included the Black Watch which was guarding England's south coast at the time of the Battle of Culloden, when the few rebellious Scots were being hammered.
04/02/2012 16:23England indeed needs its own voice - an English parliament should do the trick.
On anthems I'd prefer a re-lyriced "I vow to thee my country" minus the Empire stuff but definitely keeping the "and all her paths are peace" lines. however to make that the case it would have to be for an independent England as the UK leads us into one war after another.
So for me it's an English parliament working in the interests of an independent England. Small, peaceful and prosperous. Bring it on.
04/02/2012 16:38I actually agree with you Wyrdtimes but I want both a Parliament and an English National Anthem. I would also agree about not going off on all these UK assisted wars.
05/02/2012 14:25Or we could just keep it simple and only sing the one national anthem for England, Scotland and Wales.
05/02/2012 17:58My preference would be for Six Nations matches between England, Scotland and Wales to feature three anthems - the national anthem, the Scottish/Welsh anthem, and an English anthem, which I agree should be Jerusalem. This would emphasise the unity-in-diversity which is one of the most important aspects of the Union.
07/02/2012 13:47England should certainly have its own Parliament.
It already has its own anthem: Land of Hope and Glory.
03/03/2012 19:10