A 30-year rollercoaster ride in Welsh football

WELSH football - what a truly surreal tale. Where do you start?

- PAUL ABBANDONATO

The inexplicable double loss of two popular young managers who were each doing a brilliant job with winning Wales teams.

From the biggest underachievers in world football over many years to biggest overachievers with that Euro 2016 magic carpet ride.

Among the worst supported countries in Europe when barely 5,000 turned up for Mark Hughes’ first home match as manager, a Racecourse qualifier with Switzerland, to the very best just a few months on as 74,000 sellout crowds regularly packed into the Millennium Stadium.

Gareth Bale, snubbed by Wales Schools (try to get your head around that one!), yet going on to become his country’s greatest player.

Barmy Sliding Doors moments, well before Gwyneth Paltrow’s scriptwriters had even invented the phrase, which saw Wales within 90 minutes of spectacular success - only to agonisingly fail and enter the wilderness years instead.

Indeed, a Hollywood director would struggle to dream up some of the drama which actually happened over the last three decades - a tale of crazy moments, confusion, trauma and thrilling triumphs.

As someone who has had one of the best seats in the house, often travelling with the team and given access to managers, players and powerbrokers, it was suggested I should put pen to paper on 30-plus years of covering Wales in a new book. So I have!

In The Dragons’ Den (The scarcely believable stories from 30 years at the sharp end of Welsh football) covers the highs and lows of this utterly remarkable period which, courtesy of my job, I was fortunate to have the inside track on.

At the time, writing for the mainstream Welsh newspapers and then Wales Online, I just went with the flow.

Week by week, story by story. It is by packaging everything together three decades on that I realise this really is a boom-bust sporting rollercoaster like no other.