Far from the teargas in Marseille, Wales celebrated one of the biggest days in its sporting history as tens of thousands congregated in France for the football team’s first major tournament game for nearly 60 years and the country’s rugby squad took on the world’s best team.
Around 30,000 Welsh football fans gathered in Bordeaux on Saturday evening before Wales’s Euro 2016 opener against Slovakia, the nation’s most high-profile match since the 1958 World Cup quarter-final against Brazil. Groups of red-shirted Welsh fans could be seen mixing happily, often raucously, with locals, some of whom were draped in Welsh flags.
Hours earlier, the nation was glued to events 12,000 miles away in Auckland as the Welsh rugby team played New Zealand, a match the All Blacks won 39-21 in the first test of the three-match series. Many, though, saw the match as merely the hors d’oeuvre for the main event, the match against Slovakia which kicked off at 5pm amid a festival mood. In truth, the Welsh party had begun long before with thousands transforming the journey to Bordeaux into a triumphant procession.
On one ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo on Friday night, Welsh supporters were caught belting out tracks from Welsh rock band Stereophonics.
Similarly, Bristol airport was described as being festooned with Welsh flags as supporters began their journey south.
Many of those who are travelling to watch the football team appeared intent on teaching their hosts how to perform the Joe Ledley dance, copying the famous celebratory jig of their talismanic midfielder.
Others remarked how well their fans had behaved compared with the English supporters embroiled in violent scenes in Marseille. One man wrote on the Welsh football fans Facebook page: “As an English man with Welsh family, it’s an honour that some of my blood belongs to your amazing country. Cymru am Byth.”
Another stated: “Good on you all! So lovely to see the Welsh belting out our beautiful anthem, sent chills down my spine and made me cry a little!”
Thousands of fans who are not heading to France to watch their team play gathered in city centres in Wales with a large screen erected at Swansea’s Castle Square. On Saturday morning, a giant Welsh football shirt was erected in Cardiff city centre, celebrating the achievements of the country in getting to the finals of Euro 2016.
For many Welsh fans, however, the real deal takes place on Thursday, when the team will play England in Lens. The Real Madrid winger Gareth Bale has said that Wales will demonstrate more pride and passion than England when they meet.
