Day Out

Three Red Passion writers reflect on Wales' first victory in a very long time

The Millennium Stadium is a huge asset, say Rich and Steve Williams: 

A late call on the Friday before offered us the chance to see Wales in their last game of the qualifying campaign. Three tickets in an executive box at the Millennium Stadium were just too good to miss! 

And so we eagerly drove down on the Saturday morning. A good journey, the promise of a beer festival after the game, and satisfying purchases in the shopping centre meant that we were in good spirits entering the stadium, and excited at the prospect of being a VIP for the day; comfy seats, refreshments, and colour TV showing the England v Greece game - lovely! We settled down in our seats, eagerly awaiting a good performance and result to cap off a disappointing campaign. Perfect! Or so we thought...

Almost immediately, as the players came onto the pitch, the box to our right erupted with 12 or so seemingly patriotic, high-spirited Wales fans. They started singing, and we thought: 'Oh good, a little bit of an atmosphere!' Without some noise, it promised to be a rather sterile environment with only around a tenth of the seats in the ground occupied! How wrong could we be. Now, we all like, and encourage, a sing-song and chanting at football games, and indeed this is all part and parcel of cheering on our beloved heroes. Unfortunately, these guys only had three songs in their repertoire, and had either completely forgotten the words to Men of Harlech or hadn't realised that there were words to this ancient call-to-arms! La, la la, la la la laa, laa laa laa, laa laa, la la. Sounded
pretty good for a couple of minutes. After some 20 minutes, their stamina had gone, but one lonely soul kept on with this ongoing rant of wordless chanting (or groaning), with no gaps or pause for breath in between. Almost everybody within 20 yards either side of this gentleman, except for his 11 mates, were getting pretty ****** off, to say the least. It was becoming a little tedious. One of our party cracked, and asked, rather impolitely, if this guy knew any other songs. His mates rallied round him, and unfortunately this critique of his vocal prowess spurred him on even further by increasing the intensity, so that by now we could feel our earwax being dislodged, and falling like dandruff onto our shoulders. Thank goodness the game was exciting enough - with loads of action and solid performances, goal opportunities etc - to dull the pain in our almost perforated eardrums. The constant bellowing of the imperfect 'tune' (if you can call it that) by this moron completely marred the first 45 minutes. 

Half-time came, and as we realised that these guys were built like outside toilets, our eyes focused directly in front, none of us daring to complain further. Thank goodness that during the second half, things were toned down a bit as John Hartson netted for the Red Dragons, which sent the whole stadium into rapturous applause. Just think of the possibilities if Wales had done slightly better in their previous games. Also think of the possibilities if Wales ever do well in a competition - 70,000 screaming Welshmen would intimidate anyone!

Did he have a sore throat? Was he tiring? Did someone have a quiet word? We will never know. All I do know is that it made for an interesting observation: the higher a monkey climbs the more he shows his backside! Anyway, it was the result that we all wanted, and we came home to North Wales happy but slightly annoyed, with a few tales to tell.

We were excellent, says Mark Sly…

What a pleasant and welcome surprise! After Wales' miserable September performances, I seriously considered giving the game a miss. However, I am glad I decided to turn up, unlike the thousands of patriotic Welsh fans who stayed at home watching the England-Greece game! What followed was a superb game of football that bought a rare Welsh victory, allied to one of the most complete all-round Welsh performances for many years.

A sparse crowd of 12,000 managed to produce a really good atmosphere, which was helped by the closure of the roof. Wales started off in sparkling fashion, totally tearing apart the Belarus defence with some brilliant football. In a totally one-sided first half, Wales had several excellent chances in what was probably their best 45 minutes since the Yorath era. Only a mixture of poor finishing, bad luck, desperate defending and a couple of good saves prevented Wales from taking an unassailable first-half lead. The excellent Bellamy and Simon Davies were both guilty of terrible misses in either half, which was a shame as they both had brilliant matches. Like the rest of the crowd, I was astonished that such an entertaining half had ended goaless. Knowing that the Welsh are world champions at self-destruction, I feared that they would be made to pay for such slipshod finishing. I was cheered up during the break with the news that the Greeks had taken the lead!

The second half started with a superb Welsh goal almost straight from the kick-off. A brilliant move resulted in a fine Davies cross being met by a well-taken Hartson header into the net. The pace of the game continued at a high level. Wales were still the better side and missed several chances to kill the game. Nevertheless, they were not as dominant as in the first-half, although that would have been expecting a bit too much. The old central-defensive frailties showed up in the second-half, with the visitors missing a couple of chances and forcing a superb save from Paul Jones. Wales deservedly held out for the victory, which was treated with ecstasy and relief from both the partisan crowd and players alike. The only mystery was that such a free-flowing game ended 1-0.On the balance of play and chances created, a score something like 6-2 would have been a more accurate picture of events.

After this performance, it is even more frustrating when you take into account Wales' generally disappointing campaign. It is really put into perspective when one realises that Wales should have hammered a Belarus side that was 90 minutes away from the play-offs. Sadly, while there were many positive aspects of the Welsh performances, it is highly unlikely that Wales will ever again get a group with so many nations that they should be capable of beating.
As for the playing side, things are a lot more promising. Bellamy and Davies have both showed they could become great servants for Wales, and if they both manage to improve their finishing could develop into top quality international performers. Matthew Jones has looked good in midfield and, at last, Hartson has shown his full potential in the Welsh shirt. After his superb display, Gary Speed might have given his international career new impetus in the problematic left-back role. The central defence still looks dodgy and we can only hope that Coleman gets back to full fitness and a youngster, possibly Cardiff's Danny Gabbidon, makes the grade in the next couple of years. Surely, it can be no coincidence that Wales' most dominant and fluent midfield performance for years was achieved without the over-rated Mr Savage being anywhere near the proceedings! It must help the Welsh cause that they can now play an all-Premiership starting XI, and it can only be hoped that this traumatic campaign will make Mark Hughes a better and wiser coach. See you in Portugal 2004!