By Carly Kjersgaard
With so many accents and cultures in the world, it can be difficult to tell the difference. Woodbridge High School’s Mr. Clarke, the boys’ varsity soccer coach, knows all about that, as students and staff continue to speculate whether he is truly English or if he is, in fact, Welsh.
The question is an honest one, as it predates even Coach Clark. As far back as the tenth century, there has always been a misconception of the two cultures. The colonization and emigration of the two peoples have made it nearly impossible to distinguish the difference between English and Welsh cultures and, in this case, their accents.
To make matters more sticky, the English and Welsh have a history of strongly opposing one another. The diminishment of the Welsh religion and language has been blamed on the English, something they feel is absurd. In 1997, A.A. Gill of the Sunday Times in England described Welsh as “loquacious, dissemblers, immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark, ugly, pugnacious little trolls.”
With such a harsh history, it came as a shock that people of Coach Clarke’s nationality—whether it be Welsh or English—would have such hostile feelings towards another group of people.
Senior goalie Joe Shaw, reportedly of one hundred percent Irish descent, said, “The English were typically protestant and the Irish were Catholics; it was mostly religion that had everyone against everyone else. Everyone knows that.”
From Welsh to British to Irish, the dissention between cultures has haunted the British Isles for centuries. But while the cultural conflict brews, staff and students cannot wait any longer for an answer: is Coach Clarke, in fact, actually English?
