Welsh Nonconformity & Popular Culture 9: Sport

Lastly in this series on Welsh Nonconformity and popular culture, we come to sport. Wales is, of course, famous for its Rugby, and so we could not end things without reference to sport. Cinema will not be examined, as a new book is out on that and I haven't read it yet.

Sport was widely seen as a threat to clean living and morality by the chapel hierarchy, being associated with drinking, disorder and the culture of working men’s clubs. The formation of the Ystradgynlais Rugby Club in 1890, for example, was met with trenchant opposition from the chapels, culminating with the removal of the goal posts before the club’s first game.[1] This suspicion remained, despite the growing popularity of the sport, the Rev. John Rees of the Rhondda deploring the tendency of young people to play and to watch rugby, while verbally consigning those who frequented matches to the outer darkness.[2] There were a few evangelists, such as George Clarke, committed to ‘Muscular Christianity’ who embraced sport, while rejecting the culture of drinking and gambling that surrounded it.[3] As noted at the beginning, the Revival of 1904-5 led to the dissolution of Rugby and football teams, as their members were converted. In Ammanford, Rugby was not played again until 1907, in Evan Roberts’ home town of Loughor; there were no matches until 1909.[4] After 1910, however, the state of sport in Wales had returned to normal, and by the 1930s, many churches in South Wales would have their own football teams. As with the theatre, sport would remain something viewed with suspicion by many leading Nonconformists, while increasing numbers of chapel members made their own compromise with the world, choosing to attend or to play, while avoiding the more obvious vices.

[1] David Smith & Gareth Williams, Fields of Praise: The Official History of the Welsh Rugby Union 1881-1981 (Cardiff, 1980), pp.7-8.
[2] Smith & Williams, Fields, p.101.
[3] Smith & Williams, Fields, p.126.
[4] Smith & Williams, Fields, pp.126-8.