We make no bones about our admiration for the great Welsh actor Michael Sheen. The man who played everyone from Tony Blair to Chris Tarrant is also an ardent Welsh nationalist and passionate advocate for the Welsh language.
Michael Sheen was guest on League Of Their Own this week and the upcoming Wales v England World Cup game was mentioned. We've never been massive fans of the programme but our minds were changed completely when Sheen issued the following call to arm for Rob Page's men. It's up there with the best battlefield oratory of William Wallace.
MICHAEL SHEEN is truly MAGNIFICENT.
Get a LOAD of THIS. pic.twitter.com/zZh5k3jcSs— Michael Warburton (@MichaelWarbur17) September 9, 2022
'The Sons of Speed' line really got us. Not long after, we found ourselves googling the price of Chris Gunter jerseys and looking up stories about Jimmy Murphy's boys of 1958. It's goosebumps stuff and we're grateful to the kind folk of Wales Online who transcribed the whole thing below. You can bet you'll be hearing this Michael Sheen speech a few times between now and 29 November when the two countries meet in Qatar.
Michael Sheen speech in full
Yma o hyd, yma o hyd,
I hear the voices singing,
Speed your journey, bois bach,
One nation, singing with one voice,
A song of hope, a song of courage,
A victory song that floats through the valleys, like a red mist,
Rolls over the mountain tops, like crimson thunder,
A red storm is coming to the gates of Qatar,
It crackles, with the spirit of '58 and Jimmy Murphy's boys,
It turns the pages of the history books,
And finds Rob's page, waiting, still to be written,
What would you right in there, boys?
Dare you write your names on that page?
We haven't waited 64 years and come half way around the world,
To be troubled by a neighbour from back home,
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, you sons of Speed,
And they fall around us,
We are still here.
