League Two 24/25 - The Other 23

All about the quality. We have it in boat loads. Relax, all will be well.

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I know it’s not the right thread but this amused me. Time to f88k off the Welsh clubs?
Blow for EFL clubs’ European hopes as FA blocks Welsh League Cup plan (msn.com)

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They should be able to play in the Welsh Cup…. if they f*** off to the Welsh League.

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Did Walsall ever play in the Welsh cup? Back in the day when these things were possible?

What, on the grounds that Walsall in Anglo-Saxon means the Welsh hall or the place where the Welas/Welshies live?

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:joy: no just think Shrewsbury used to and I believe Stourbridge got to the final once.

I don’t think Walsall ever entered, but not sure

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Don’t like James McClean of wrexham but he’s nailed it when he’s called Shrewsbury a cesspit of inbreds :sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

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Didn’t Hednesford play in the Welsh Cup?

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I know the perfect guy to ask

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Respectfully, it’s closer in meaning to ‘foreigner’ referring to the native Britons. Walsall’s placename meaning is contested as either

  • Walh’s [personal name] nook of land’ or,’
  • Britons’ nook of land

WealdsHealde (Welsh haters) before that.

Interesting if true. Are there any references I could check out to verify it? My understanding is that Weald means ‘wooded area’ and Healde means ‘hill’ or ‘slope’.

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That’s not how I remember the article. Sorry i don’t recall the source but I’ve seen us the original Welsh haters ever since.

Bare in mind as well the marauding Welsh met resistance only when they go to us, simply marching straight through Salop land ( no surprise there)…

So, the plural Old English for Welsh people was ‘Wēalas’ and a single Welsh person being ‘Wealh’ which is similar to Weald. I’m not too sure on the hater bit though, sorry!

There’s no mention that I can find of anything similar to Welsh Haters in the British Place Name History books for Walsall though.

But the ‘native Britons’ are the Welsh though aren’t they?

I thought the ‘native Britons’ were pushed west by the invading Anglo Saxons and forced west.

So I’m guessing Walsall got its name at a time when the ‘native Britons’/Welsh lived here and then got pushed further west at a later date.

Interesting topic👍

There’s really only one thing I’d like to add before we get back onto the topic. Placenames were typically geographic and descriptive for a reason. If I said to someone “go to the place where people hate the Welsh”, they wouldn’t have a clue where to go. But, if I said to “go the clearing on the ridge”(Rugeley) they’d have a better idea of what they were looking for.

Good point, I don’t know. I’m more than happy to adopt the less geographical version though.

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Effectively, the Welsh and Cornish areas were the places which were not carved out by Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (ignoring Scotland and Ireland which I confess - I know nothing about in this era).

There is evidence that the Anglo-Saxons were not all conquering and that they were here defending Britain during the Roman era and they were simply left behind around 410CE when Rome left Britain. What followed was an FA cup style carving out of borders and clashes between petty kingdoms before we ended up with the Heptarchy we came to know like Mercia, Northumbria etc. There is also evidence for the violent pushing of Britons towards the West too so anyone’s guess is probably at least somewhat true.

Placenames with ‘Wal’ may suggest places where Britons were allowed to remain. They may have been sizeable settlements which were notable for the amount of Britons there. There is rarely an exact science for this era with few written sources and a lot of conflicting evidence from region to region. If you’re insteredted, I’m happy to talk more via DM or share some sources so it doesn’t derail the thread.

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Don’t worry about that! :rofl: It’s one of the better things about UTS :rofl:
Yes, Welas is basically Saxon for foreigners, hence Wallonia in Belgium also.
Anybody claiming to be Welsh is admitting that they’re a foreigner. The Welsh should refer to themselves as Cymraig, if I am spelling it correctly.
You’ve got remember that most of the Welsh weren’t kicked out, the Anglo-saxons largely took over at the top, and then “conquered” people gradually adopted the ways of their overlords. Same happened after the Norman conquest, which is why about 40% of modern English is “badly pronounced French” to quote some French academic whose name I can’t remember (partly because it was Norman-French, which was already bastardised anyway). West Mercia was originally part of the lands of the Cornovii, which became Powys. The original capital at Wroxeter then moving to Shrewsbury and then back to Welshpool as they lost more ground to an increasingly dominant Mercia.
This is also why there are many Black Country dialect words that are of Welsh origin, and why there are a fair few people surnamed Welsh/Welch/Wallace, not to mention all the Powells and Powesses.

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