What a brilliant day! My experience as a Welsh international
Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:43 pm
A few weeks back I entered a competition on facebook for the chance to play in the millennium stadium, and got selected.
This event was run by vauxhall as a promotion for their new sponsorship for the home nations. And what a brilliant event it was.
30 guys had the opportunity to be managed by 2 senior ex-wales internationals, and to be captained by 2 recent ex-wales internationals.
These were kept secret until arrival at the stadium. It turned out that the managers were Mickey Thomas and Kevin Ratcliffe, and the captains of the sides were Iwan Roberts and Matthew Jones.
I was selected for the home welsh team and my manager was Mickey Thomas, captained by Iwan Roberts. As we entered the home welsh dressing room, vauxhall had gone all out and supplied full legitimate Wales umbro kit. complete with numbers. (which we were able to keep).
I was shown to my kit..........Number 11. I immediately thought ''these are big boots to fill''. Vauxhall also sorted out the team in the away dressing room with the welsh white away kit.
Everything had been arranged to make you feel as if you really were representing our country as professional footballers. The walk out of the tunnel side by side. Lining up at the beginning of the game. All the way to being interviewed in the press room at the end on the game. We even taped black armbands on and lined up round the center circle for a minutes silence in respect for Mike Dye and the miners.
There were dozens of photographers and cameramen covering the whole event. I scored the equalising goal as matthew jones slotted away a penalty in the first half. We (home team) eventually went on to win the game 4 -3, and I was unfortunate not to have scored a 40 yarder after seeing the keeper off his line, he just managed to tip it on to the bar. and Iwan Roberts missed a sitter. We joked that it would've been his time to score a goal for wales.
After the game we were told to head to the st. davids suite, where refreshments were laid out and a presentation planned for the winners and runners up. Family were invited too. Kevin and Mickey gave speeches about their time as welsh internationals, and joked about Ian Rush.
We will be sent a DVD of the whole day. including full match, interviews and the presentation, and also will receive 2 tickets to the Wales v Swizerland game, all courtesy of vauxhall.
All who involved were a great bunch of lads, and I now have huge respect for. On a whole the coverage and organisation of the event was nothing short of breathtaking.
So I would like to take time out and say a huge thankyou to Vauxhall on this brilliant event and promotion.
This event was run by vauxhall as a promotion for their new sponsorship for the home nations. And what a brilliant event it was.
30 guys had the opportunity to be managed by 2 senior ex-wales internationals, and to be captained by 2 recent ex-wales internationals.
These were kept secret until arrival at the stadium. It turned out that the managers were Mickey Thomas and Kevin Ratcliffe, and the captains of the sides were Iwan Roberts and Matthew Jones.
I was selected for the home welsh team and my manager was Mickey Thomas, captained by Iwan Roberts. As we entered the home welsh dressing room, vauxhall had gone all out and supplied full legitimate Wales umbro kit. complete with numbers. (which we were able to keep).
I was shown to my kit..........Number 11. I immediately thought ''these are big boots to fill''. Vauxhall also sorted out the team in the away dressing room with the welsh white away kit.
Everything had been arranged to make you feel as if you really were representing our country as professional footballers. The walk out of the tunnel side by side. Lining up at the beginning of the game. All the way to being interviewed in the press room at the end on the game. We even taped black armbands on and lined up round the center circle for a minutes silence in respect for Mike Dye and the miners.
There were dozens of photographers and cameramen covering the whole event. I scored the equalising goal as matthew jones slotted away a penalty in the first half. We (home team) eventually went on to win the game 4 -3, and I was unfortunate not to have scored a 40 yarder after seeing the keeper off his line, he just managed to tip it on to the bar. and Iwan Roberts missed a sitter. We joked that it would've been his time to score a goal for wales.
After the game we were told to head to the st. davids suite, where refreshments were laid out and a presentation planned for the winners and runners up. Family were invited too. Kevin and Mickey gave speeches about their time as welsh internationals, and joked about Ian Rush.
We will be sent a DVD of the whole day. including full match, interviews and the presentation, and also will receive 2 tickets to the Wales v Swizerland game, all courtesy of vauxhall.
All who involved were a great bunch of lads, and I now have huge respect for. On a whole the coverage and organisation of the event was nothing short of breathtaking.
So I would like to take time out and say a huge thankyou to Vauxhall on this brilliant event and promotion.
Re: What a brilliant day! My experience as a Welsh international
Thu Sep 22, 2011 10:07 pm
A mate of mine reffed down the millennium last June, was a game between welsh assembly staff and millennium stadium staff, he asked me to go down with him and I managed to have a kick around pre match which was as you described it... breath taking, but your experience trounces mine a million times over, still doesn't beat me scoring a header to make it 3-3 at penderyn park after being 3-0 down 
Went onto win 6-3 btw
Went onto win 6-3 btw
Re: What a brilliant day! My experience as a Welsh international
Thu Sep 22, 2011 10:26 pm
Thatcher's GOLD wrote:A mate of mine reffed down the millennium last June, was a game between welsh assembly staff and millennium stadium staff, he asked me to go down with him and I managed to have a kick around pre match which was as you described it... breath taking, but your experience trounces mine a million times over, still doesn't beat me scoring a header to make it 3-3 at penderyn park after being 3-0 down
Went onto win 6-3 btw
Yeah it really was that good. Pitch wasn't great but it never caused to many problems. All i could think about as I was looking up at the stands was ''what would it be like if this place was rocking''.
If I had scored that 40 yard lob, I would've booked the first flight to barcelona and demanded a trial!