After his rousing inspirational speech for the Welsh football team on A League Of Their Own, Michael Sheen was invited to perform for the squad at their training ground by the team manager Rob Page, and was presented with a Wales shirt.
Michael performed a customised version of the original speech. There is a transcript below the tweets (taken from the BBC article).
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.
