KEVIN MCCALLUM: A bright sheen to lift Wales out of gloom

In Cape Town on Thursday, the weather was rather undecided. It was, like the president of SA, neither one thing or the other, caught in a nothing place between cloudy and mild or kinda sunny but still bleh. 

It was that tricky area between shorts and long pants weather, a decision I manage to negate by wearing a jersey with my ever-present shorts. I have, it has been said, the best ankles in sports journalism and who am I to deny the world a pleasure such as that?

There are a few people on social media who still call me “Ankles” because of that. There was once another sports journalist, a late friend called “Ankles”, but that was for reasons that are a little too rough for the public. 

The weather needed a pep talk on Thursday. It needed to up its game. It needed Welsh actor Michael Sheen to roar it into shape the way he did the Wales football team. You have watched it, right? It was the best thing in sport in the last few months if not this year. 

On A League of Their Own, the British sports panel TV show, he produced an imaginary speech to Wales.   

“When the English coming knock on our door, let’s give them some sugar, boys, let’s give them some Welsh sugar. They’ve always said we are too small, we are too slow, we are too weak, too full of fear. But yma o hyd (Still here), you sons of Speed, and they fall around us. We are still here,” roared Sheen. 

It was so overwhelmingly good, so full of passion and love it made you yearn to be Welsh. Wales manager Rob Page agreed and got Sheen in to give one to the team in person. It was as stunning. Here are some of the best bits 

“Yma o hyd. Yma o hyd (We are still here, we are still here). I hear the voices singing, speed your journey, bois, bois bach. A nation singing with one voice. A song of hope, a song of defiance, a victory song that floats through the valleys like a red mist, that rolls over the mountain tops like crimson thunder. 

“A storm, a red storm, is coming to the gates of Qatar. It sparkles and crackles with the spirit of ’58 and Jimmy Murphy’s boys. It turns the pages of the history books, and finds Rob’s page, there, waiting to be written. Still waiting to be written. 

“What will you write there, boys? Dare you write your names on that page? Sixty-four years, and far from home. Far from the old land of our fathers. Hen wlad fy nhadau (land of my fathers). 

“When you are standing there, listening to that song of songs start up, shoulder to shoulder with the lads in this room. Teammates, friends, brothers, princes all, selected by the divine.

"When you’re standing there, side by side, and that holy song begins, close your eyes and feel the breath on the back of your necks.  

“Because that’s every man, woman and child in this old land, standing there with you, at your back. That’s the people of Wales. Your people. Feel their breath quickening with yours.

“Hear their blood drumming in your ears, pounding through your heart, bursting in your chest, that’s the blood of Wales.

“That’s your blood, red as the ancient book of dreams. Red as the rising flag of Merthyr. Red as the great wall of Gwalia. Because that’s what you carry with you, boys. Across 64 years, across half the span of the world, it’s there, on your chest. It’s there, at your back. It’s there, at your side.

“Because they’ll always say we’re too small, too slow, too weak, too full of fear, but yma o hyd, you sons of [Gary] Speed, with that red wall around us. We are still here. Come on, Wales. Come on.” 

The weather needed that other leader of red men, Jurgen Klopp, to give his prematch speech before Liverpool played Barcelona in the second leg of the Champions League semifinal at Anfield.

They were 3-0 down from the first leg. Dejan Lovren, the Croatian defender, remembered what Klopp told them: “Boys, believe. One or two goals, even if we don’t score in the first 15, 20 minutes, believe in the 65th, 66th, 67th minute that we can score, and then with Anfield behind us, trust me guys, we can do it. We did it once against Dortmund, we can do it tonight. Just show f**king balls tonight.”

And did they ever. Four goals. Barcelona decimated. 

Just had another look outside. The weather is still rubbish. It needs a new sheen.