National Anthem

[Frutos]

What happens to GSTQ when she snuffs it and Charlie gets the nod? God save the king?

Yes, that is precisely what will happen.

 

[Nemesis]

Yes, that is precisely what will happen.

Unfortunately...

 

[NMH]

Singing the BRITISH national anthem is wrong, for English national events.

Jerusalem would get sung with so much more gusto and passion, and not least because it contains the word ENGLAND in it!!

 

[NMH]

God save the King has been sung far more frequently than GSTQ since it was adopted as the National Anthem.

Vicky should have retired it, since she was the monarch who had it the longest.

 

[NMH]

Agreed. Our troops go to war all over the world to defend 'Queen and Country', the anthem should gee up the players to the fact they are also (in an obviously much less meaningful way) about to represent 'Queen and Country'

Two things; GSTQ is not about our country. Our troops too, do not represent England.

Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, are NOT England. If a Scotsman fights to defend 'Queen and Country' with "our troops", he's not representing England, or Scotland - he's representing The United Kingdom (or shouldn't it be United Queendom?).

England should have a national anthem.

 

[Tooting Gull]

South Africa have got some big problems on this issue. The current national anthem is very much a black rallying cry from the bad old days. But rugby remains a game very much rooted in Afrikaaner culture. You can see it, it does not mean everything to them when they sing it, it's not 'their' song.

I remember reading something earlier this year about some other song that the Afrikaaners are starting to sing instead - not the old apartheid one, but another Boer War song. And I'm sure Jacques Kallis got into some trouble, maybe last year, for not singing the national anthem in the cricket.

 

[hart's shirt]

South Africa have got some big problems on this issue. The current national anthem is very much a black rallying cry from the bad old days. But rugby remains a game very much rooted in Afrikaaner culture. You can see it, it does not mean everything to them when they sing it, it's not 'their' song.

I remember reading something earlier this year about some other song that the Afrikaaners are starting to sing instead - not the old apartheid one, but another Boer War song. And I'm sure Jacques Kallis got into some trouble, maybe last year, for not singing the national anthem in the cricket.

Absolutely right, Tooting.

I'm friendly with a number of Boks over here in Dubai - they genuinely don't know the words to the current national anthem and therefore don't like to sing it.

However they do know the words to the Afrikaaner song and will sing it at any given moment when SA is doing the business on the pitch. It's as if they don't really seem to have any sense of ownership of the new anthem - it's something that's been imposed upon them.

It's even worse for them now as there has been serious consideration given to removing the Springbok emblem from the SA rugby shirt due to negative connotations of the image.

I suppose it might be a bit like replacing the 3 lions on the England football shirt because it conjured up too many images of Britannia ruling, the Empire and all that.