Iwan, I know what you mean, a few others have made this point, so here’s my contribution.

On that night, I must confess that I also found myself switching channels and watching more of the England game than the Wales game. Why? Because Wales had no hope of qualifying, the game was a ‘dead rubber’, whereas had England lost they might not have qualified. I’m not a man who can watch friendlies, I have no interest in the Barbarians and similar set-ups. For me, in any sport, or most other things, there has to be something worth playing for. So I’m not going to sit through 90 minutes of a pointless game out a sense of patriotism.

In addition, this Wales team is not exactly one of our best, is it? And that night there was no Gareth Bale, no Ashley Williams, no Ben Davies. Truth is, we haven’t really had a good team since the one that went to Sweden for the ’58 World Cup. (And might have won if Big John hadn’t been clogged out of the Brazil game by the Magyars.) Another factor is that I tend to agree with John Charles that you should be Welsh to play for Wales. In recent decades Wales has put out teams containing far too many players with only the most tenuous connection to Wales.

Regarding the pubs in Sancler, if you go round those same pubs in the spring, when Wales and England are playing rugby at the same time, then you know which game they’ll be showing. Yes, I know, the 6N games are staggered, so there are never two on at the same time, but I’m just making a point.

So cheer up, the glass is half full.

Most people do not consider themselves Welsh and British, most in Wales consider themselves Welsh only. The same is true for both the Scottish in Scotland and the English in England, the three nations of Britain have all rejected British as a nationality, we are Welsh, Scottish and English but only a minority consider themselves British.

Should we therefore scrap the FAW and merge with the English FA to form an England & Wales FA and an England & Wales national team? This would guarantee Cardiff City, Swansea City, Wrexham, Newport, Colwyn Bay & Merthyr Tydfil the right to play in the English pyramid. World Classs footballers born in Wales would stand a better chance of playing in a major tournament, and since Welsh internationals draw small crowds and smaller revenue, we could have sellout crowds in the Millenium stadium whenever the E&W FA desire to host games out of Wembley.

Of course anyone making such a suggestion would be rightly so met with fierce opposition (remember the British Olympic football controversy last year) and rightly so. So one has to argue how does Cricket differ from football? Since cricket is bigger in Wales than it is in Scoltand, Ireland, Canada, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea etc I would expect us to be favourites every time

It is also wrong to assume that those who want a Welsh team are all nationalists. If we were talking about was breaking away from Team GB than yeah I can understand be we are talking breaking away from England, a country which we are not part of. Most people consider themselves to be Welsh and British, but they do not consider themselves to be English, and we have a right to object to the idea of being represented in sporting events as ‘England’. How would the English would feel if the team was just called ‘Wales’? Just for a bit of tongue in cheek, maybe that should apply to rugby union so that rugby fans east of Offas Dyke can enjoy some Six Nations success.

Yes, the Swalec Stadium was another prestige project for Cardiff – justified on the grounds that it was ‘national’ – that had to be baled out with public funding, like the Millennium Centre and a few other projects. Which is why AMs from Swansea should have been arguing along the lines of, ‘St. Helen’s was Glamorgan’s natural home, it’s where the support was, it was in a wonderful location on Swansea Bay and could have been developed at half the price of the Swalec Stadium. What’s more the fans would have been there so it wouldn’t have needed public funding’.

Wales in general, and Swansea in particular, are losing out to the ‘everything in Cardiff’ syndrome. This debate gave Bean and Black the opportunity to say this, to expose the madness and waste of public funding. Instead they used the debate to parade their petty prejudices. Bean even defended the Swalec Stadium!

True. That’s what I mean when I talk of ‘the package’. If you’re a Wales hater in one field then the chances are you’ll be a Wales hater on other issues.