Jeux Sans Frontières 1994:
Celebrity Christmas Special

Festive Jeux Sans Frontières Special

Entrants Christmas 1994: Switzerland (CH) • Wales (CYM) • Greece (GR)
Malta (M) • Portugal (P)

Presenters / Commentators:
Paolo Calissano and Caterina Ruggeri (TSR - CH)
Nia Chiswell, Iestyn Garlick and Johnny Tudor (S4C - CYM)
Dafne Bokota and Filippos Sofianos (ERT-ET1 - GR)
John Demanuele (PBM - M)
Eládio Clímaco and Cristina Lebre (RTP - P)

International Referee:
Denis Pettiaux

Production Credits:

Producers: Robin Evans and Susan Waters; Designer: Martin Morley; Costumes: Jan Marshall; Make up: Julie Fox Pritchard; Lighting Design: Stan Jones

Produced by TSR (CH), Ffilmiau'r Nant for S4C (CYM),
ERT-ET1 (GR), PBM (M), RTP (P)

CYM

Jeux Sans Frontières 1994:
Celebrity Christmas Special

Christmas Special

Event Staged: Tuesday 6th September 1994
Venue: Cardiff Castle, Cardiff, South Glamorgan, Great Britain

European Transmissions (Local Timings):
S4C (CYM): Friday 23rd December 1994, 7.29-8.27pm
ERT (GR): Saturday 24th December 1994, 10.50pm-12.00am and 12.15-12.40am
RTP (P): Sunday 25th December 1994, 4.30-5.30pm
TSI (CH): Monday 26th December 1994, 8.30-9.45pm

Musical Interludes performed by:
Dafne Bokota and Filippos Sofianos (GR)
Mary Spiteri (M)
Cristina (P)
Mauro Gisletter (CH)
Caryl Parry Jones (CYM)

Theme: Festive Fun

Teams: Switzerland (CH) v. Cymru (Wales) (CYM) v. Greece (GR) v.
Malta (M) v. Portugal  (P)

Team Members included:
Switzerland (CH) - Pierre Pellegrini;
Wales/Cymru (CYM) - Hywel Davies, Melerie Davies, Raymond Gravell, Gethin Jones, John Owen-Jones, Caryl Parry Jones and Alwyn Roberts;
Greece (GR) - Zisis Prokopiou (Thessaloniki), Vangelis Palatsidis (Ioannina), Maria Stefanaki (Agios Nikolaos) and Katerina Kartsoli (Poros);
Portugal (P) - Rui Pinheiro.

Games (Official Titles): Snowballs, Swiss Ice Hockey, Collecting Nuts and Fruit for Christmas Stocking/Shoe, Greek Christmas Trees, Bolo-reis and Merry Christmas;
Fil Rouge: The Christmas Cracker.

Game Results and Standings

Result

 Team

Points

Final Scoreboard

1st
1st
1st
1st
1st

 CH • Switzerland ●
 CYM • Cymru (Wales) ●
 GR • Greece ●
 M • Malta ●
 P • Portugal ●

20
20
20
20
20

The Venue

Cardiff, Great Britain

Cardiff (Caerdydd in Welsh) is the capital and largest city in Wales with a population of around 350,000 inhabitants and is ranked the ninth largest city in the United Kingdom. The city straddles the Rivers Taff and Ely and is located 16 miles (26km) south of Pontypool, 26 miles (42km) west of Bristol, 26 miles (42km) north of Bridgwater and 34 miles (55km) east of Swansea, the principality’s second largest city.

It is the chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for Wales. Cardiff is a significant tourist centre and the most popular visitor destination in Wales with around 18 million visitors per year. It is also the county town of the historic county of Glamorgan (and later of South Glamorgan) and has the motto ‘Y ddraig goch ddyry cychwyn’ (The red dragon will lead the way).

In 1081, King William I (1028-1087) began work on the castle keep within the walls of the old Roman fort. This resulted in a small town growing up in the shadow of the castle, made up primarily of settlers from England. In the early 12th century, a wooden palisade was erected around the city to protect it. By this time it had a population of between 1,500 and 2,000 inhabitants, a relatively normal size for a Welsh town in this period. By the end of the 13th century, Cardiff was the only town in Wales with a population exceeding 2,000, but it was relatively small compared with most notable towns in the Kingdom of England.

During the Middle Ages, Cardiff was a busy port and in 1327 was declared a ‘staple port’ (one that required merchant barges or ships to unload their goods at the port, and display them for sale for a certain period, often three days). In 1404, Owain Glyndŵr (c.1349-c.1415) burned Cardiff and took Cardiff Castle. As the town was still very small, most of the buildings were made of wood and the town was destroyed. However, the town was soon rebuilt and began to flourish once again and by 1542, Cardiff had become a Free Borough.

In 1573, it was made a head port for collection of customs duties, and in 1581, Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) granted Cardiff its first royal charter. Cardiff was finally granted city status on 28th October 1905 by King Edward VII (1841-1910), and was proclaimed the first official capital of Wales on 20th December 1955 by the then Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd George (1894-1967), 1st Viscount Tenby.

Since the 1990s, Cardiff has seen significant development. A new waterfront area at Cardiff Bay contains the Senedd building, home to the Welsh Assembly and the Wales Millennium Centre arts complex. Current developments include the continuation of the redevelopment of the Cardiff Bay and city centre areas with projects such as the Cardiff International Sports Village, a BBC drama village, and a new business district in the city centre.

The city is rich in sporting history and as such has numerous sporting venues in the city’s confines which include the Millennium Stadium (the national stadium for the Wales national rugby union team and the Welsh national football team), SWALEC Stadium (the home of Glamorgan County Cricket Club), Cardiff City Stadium (the home of Cardiff City football team), Cardiff International Sports Stadium (the home of Cardiff Amateur Athletic Club) and Cardiff Arms Park (the home of Cardiff Blues and Cardiff RFC rugby union teams). The Millennium Stadium hosted 11 football matches as part of the London 2012 Summer Olympics, including the games' opening event and the men's bronze medal match.

When this Jeux Sans Frontières competition was held, Cardiff was in the county of South Glamorgan. On April 1st 1996, as a result of the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, South Glamorgan County Council was abolished, with Cardiff becoming its own unitary authority.

The Venue

Cardiff Castle

The games were played within the confines of Cardiff Castle, which owes its existence to the Romans. In their 300 years of occupation, the Romans built four forts on the site of the present castle, on what was hitherto marshland. The square perimeter wall of Cardiff Castle today was once the outer stone wall of the Roman fort, outside of which a small settlement of traders and suppliers began to grow.

When the Romans suddenly left in 400 AD, the fort was abandoned and in the six centuries which followed, it gradually disappeared through decay and (no doubt) plunder. When the Norman conquerors arrived in Wales in 1089, all they probably found was a large eight acre square (32,374 m²) plot boundaried by grass embankments, surrounded by a small trading settlement and port on the river. The remains of the actual Roman walls were not to be rediscovered for another 800 years. The Normans quickly built a classic motte and bailey keep, recognising - like the Romans - that this was a good spot to guard the river and the sea (both of which were then much closer to the castle than they are today).

In the 12th century, the castle became the stronghold of Robert Fitzroy (c.1100-1147), 1st Earl of Gloucester and 2nd Lord of Glamorgan, the illegitimate son of King Henry I of England (c.1068-1135) and grandson of William the Conqueror. Hailed as one of Europe’s greatest warriors and statesmen of his day, he played a huge role in English history, even minting his own coins. One of his most famous acts was imprisoning his uncle, Robert Duke of Normandy (1051-1134), the eldest son of William the Conqueror (1028-1087), in Cardiff Castle in order to stop him claiming the throne. The Duke later died a prisoner in the stone keep.

For successive centuries, Cardiff Castle, which slowly expanded along the western wall, came under the possession of leading nobles and statesmen, often as a Royal reward. It also passed through many generations of Kings in waiting, including King John (1166-1216), Richard III (1452-1485), Henry VII (1457-1509) and Henry VIII (1491-1547).

However, Cardiff Castle’s greatest moment came in the 19th century, when it was inherited by ‘the richest baby in the British Empire’. John Patrick Crichton-Stuart (1847-1900), 3rd Marquess of Bute, was only six months old when his father, Baron Cardiff (1793-1848), died suddenly after having amassed a fortune through his successful gamble of building the docks at Cardiff for exporting Welsh coal. That single act was to cause Cardiff to grow almost one hundred times in size in just one century to become the largest city in Wales and, in 1955, Capital City of Wales.

By the time the 3rd Marquess himself died in 1900, he was one of the richest men in the entire world. John devoted vast sums to creating in Cardiff Castle the perfect medieval fantasy castle, with no expense spared. The Bute family left in 1947 and sold the Castle to Cardiff City Council for just £1!

Today, the castle and its four hundred acres of adjoining parkland belong to the city and are open to the public, giving Cardiff more parkland per head of population than any other city in Europe. To step inside the castle is not only a journey through two thousand years of Roman, Norman, Plantagenet, Tudor, Georgian and Victorian history, but a breathtaking fantasy journey through rooms decorated lavishly with gold, wood, stone and marble, lined with painstakingly detailed wall murals. Every room has a theme, concerning medieval history, time, space and astrology and, especially, religion.

Additional Information

This special, recorded in Cardiff three days after the 1994 International Final was held, was billed as a 25th Anniversary celebration. In truth, it was actually celebrating twenty-five series of Jeux Sans Frontières that had been produced over a thirty year period. Played out purely for fun, it saw referees and presenters assisting - and hindering - not only their own teams but also the fellow competitors. In a fitting conclusion, all teams finished with equal points, and all in first place!

Each of the first five games were played in two rounds of two teams, and after the first round of each game, the Fil Rouge was played by the ‘missing’ country. Following each Fil Rouge, the teams were presented with a Christmas Cracker, each with a different size, by referee Denis Pettiaux. This was then followed by a three-minute musical interlude by a performer from each of the competing nations.

Although points were not awarded as such, each game was followed by a scoreboard noting the finishing positions of the teams, followed by the current standings. After Game 2, it was clear from the current standings that the points being awarded on the games were 5 pts, 4 pts, 3 pts and 2 pts. After the final game the result of the Fil Rouge was revealed which ‘quite coincidently’ scored the teams in such a manner that all teams ended the contest equal with 20 pts as shown above. Interestingly, the S4C transmission showed all teams in equal 1st place but did not reveal the scores.

The teams were shown on screen as countries, but they were in fact sourced from specific areas of their countries. In their commentary, Welsh presenters Iestyn Garlick and Nia Chiswell refer to the Portuguese team as Batalha and the Swiss team as Olivone.

The teams included several celebrities. Among the Swiss team was artist Pierre Pellgrini, while the Welsh team sported the jockey Hywel Davies, who had won the 1985 Grand National, Raymond Gravell, a former Welsh rugby international, John Owen-Jones, a musical theatre actor and Caryl Parry Jones, a Welsh singer.

Made in Colour • This programme exists in European Archives

JSFnetGB Series Guide pages researched by
Neil Storer and Alan Hayes
with Ischa Bijl, Julien Dessy, Sébastien Dias, David Hamilton, Denis Kirsanov, Paul Leaver, Philippe Minet,
Christos Moustakas, David Laich Ruiz, Marko Voštan and JSFnet Websites