Jerusalem Challenge

When, on St George's Day 2010, Commonwealth Games England announced that they would determine which anthem should be played for Team England at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Delhi by letting the public vote for their own favourite, Sir Hubert Parry’s stirring setting of William Blake’s visionary poem “Jerusalem” was chosen by a clear majority over its rivals “God save the Queen” and “Land of Hope and Glory”.

The 52.5 % who voted for “Jerusalem” could never have predicted the minor national outcry which ensued when footage was broadcast by the BBC of the England women’s hockey team attempting a rather feeble, threadbare version of Parry’s patriotic masterpiece before their Pool B match in Delhi. “One of the great hymns”, opined the reverential BBC commentator, adding drily as the camera panned painfully along a succession of silent England hockey internationals, “I think they need to issue a sheet which produces the second verse”.

Close inspection of the footage in question (click here to view) actually reveals that a copy of the first verse might also have proved handy for many of the players. Intriguingly it also reveals that not all of them were tongue-tied by the “Jerusalem” challenge, as the three Old Reptonians currently playing in the England women’s team (Suzie Gilbert, Charlotte Craddock and Georgie Twigg) are clearly to be seen singing the first verse tunefully and enthusiastically (they are third, fourth and fifth from the right respectively). Their voices can also be heard continuing faultlessly through the allegedly absent second verse as the camera moves unforgivingly along the line of their mainly silent team-mates.



A fortunate coincidence? Hardly – “Jerusalem” is one of the favourite hymns in weekly chapel at Repton, and one that is regularly chosen by the pupils themselves to be sung at leavers’ and other special services. The OR trio know it well, and were no doubt thinking of their old school as they gave their fellow squad-members a lesson in how to perform the Parry classic. We wish them well as the team progresses to the rather more serious business of trying to secure a winner’s medal in the Commonwealth women’s hockey tournament.