Gareth Bale isn’t the first: Ten Welsh stars who could have made England great

Wales may be the third oldest international team in the history of world football, but the country has only once qualified for the finals of a major tournament – and that via the unusual medium of a play-off necessitated by the refusal of other nations to play against Israel for political reasons.

Having thus secured a place in 1958 World Cup finals in Sweden, Wales gave a good account of themselves; but apart from that ‘golden generation’ of the late 1950s, a number of world class
Welshmen have been deprived of the opportunity to strut their stuff on the biggest stages.

Their patriotism and national pride – let alone the rules – would have prevented them turning out for any other country, but they could be forgiven if they’d ever looked wistfully across the border at lesser players going off to World Cups and European Championships with England and failing to cover the Three Lions in glory.

So, ahead of Saturday’s Euro 2012 qualifier in Cardiff between Wales and England, Goal.com UK pays tribute to 10 Welsh players who would have been automatic selections in the England squads of their respective eras had they been born to the east of Offa’s Dyke…

JOHN CHARLES
38 caps for Wales, 15 goals (1950-1965)

John Charles won his first cap shortly after his 18th birthday and quickly became a colossus at a time when the England team was learning, in painful lessons inflicted famously by Hungary, and infamously by the United States, that the rest of the world was catching up with and overtaking it.

A world class performer, Charles was destined for greatness from the start. After his 1949 first-team debut for Leeds in a friendly against Queen of the South, Scotland striker Billy Houliston, fresh from terrorising England in a 3-1 victory, said 17-year-old Charles was “the best centre-half I’ve ever played against”.

As well as later being the first non-Italian inducted to the Azzurri Hall of Fame and being voted the greatest foreign player ever in Serie A for his impressive spell with Juventus, he was a key player in the Wales team that reached the World Cup quarter-finals in 1958 (further than England), and in 2003, to celebrate Uefa’s Jubilee, was selected as the Golden Player of Wales by the FAW as their most outstanding player of the last 50 years.

   
IVOR ALLCHURCH
68 caps, 23 goals (1951-1966)

Another star of the 1958 World Cup squad, Swansea-born Ivor Allchurch was a gifted inside-forward known as the ‘Golden Boy’ of Welsh football, whom England’s World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore described as “one of the best inside-forwards I have ever played against”.

Moore’s England team-mate Bobby Charlton said of Allchurch: “He was a great player, with footballing presence and charisma”, while Charlton’s manager Sir Matt Busby acknowledged the Welshman’s talent with this glowing tribute: “Ivor never needed a number on his back for identification. His polish, his class could not be missed. He vies with the greatest of all time, yet he has a modesty that becomes him”.

His international career began in 1951 with a goal against England, who had reason to wish this accomplished performer – who always seemed to have the time and vision to spot and play a defence-splitting pass – was qualified to play for them.

JACK KELSEY
41 caps (1954-1962)

Big and strong but remarkably agile and unflinchingly brave, Kelsey, widely regarded as the best shot-stopper in the world in the 1950s, was the archetypal exponent of the goalkeeper’s art.

Kelsey replaced the accomplished George Swindin in Arsenal’s goal, and won a League championship medal in his first full season as the club’s No.1. Yet the Gunners were about to enter a period of prolonged mediocrity (no trophies for 17 years – and Wenger is under pressure after six!) and often only Kelsey’s enduring consistency stood between Arsenal and ignominy.

He was an automatic selection for Wales and once famously represented both his club (v John Charles’ Juventus) and country (v England) on the same day.

He one of the heroes of the 1958 World Cup campaign, being dubbed “the cat with the magnetic claws” in a defeat to Brazil, where Pele beat him with a deflected effort. Kelsey himself said of Pele: “I think this kid has got a good future.”

CLIFF JONES
59 caps, 16 goals (1952-1967)

That 1958 Wales team also included in Cliff Jones a player who, when winning the Double with Tottenham in 1960-61, was widely considered to be the best right-winger in the world.

He became one of Bill Nicholson’s first and most important purchases for Spurs, arriving at White Hart Lane in 1958 and quickly establishing himself as a vital member of the legendary side that dominated English football in the early 1960s.

Tirelessly energetic and outstanding in the air, with a penchant for the flying header, Jones would have added dash and dynamism to either England flank before Alf Ramsey opted to dispense with wingers.

JOHN TOSHACK
40 caps, 13 goals (1969-1980)

It was ironic that during the 1970s, that relative wasteland for the England national team, one of their biggest stars – two-time European Footballer of the Year Kevin Keegan – had a Welsh club-mate with whom he formed a lethal strike partnership. Ironic too that John Toshack’s impact on the international scene would have been greatly enhanced had he been able to link up with someone like Keegan in a Wales shirt.

The pair enjoyed a near-telepathic understanding at Anfield when manager Bill Shankly, having bought Toshack from Cardiff, united him with Keegan whom he bought from Scunthorpe United. Standing 6ft 1in tall, Toshack won just about everything in the air, while the diminutive Keegan feasted on the knock-downs, finshing in style. “Toshack, Keegan, one-nil” became something of a catchphrase for BBC TV commentator David Coleman, and by the time Keegan quit Anfield for Hamburg he’d scored exactly 100 Liverpool goals, the majority assisted by Toshack.

The Welshman, who has had two less distinguished spells as national team boss, himself scored 96 goals for the Reds and was a member of the team that won a number of trophies in the 1970s, later being voted 34th by Liverpool fans selecting their 100 ‘Players who shook the Kop”.

IAN RUSH
73 caps, 28 goals (1980-1996)

Another prolific marksman for Liverpool and Wales was Ian Rush, at his prime and in partnership with Scot Kenny Dalglish among the most coveted strikers in Europe. At a time when the Reds famously bought players and initially put them in the reserves to learn ‘the Liverpool way’, Rush arrived from Chester City and made his full debut for Wales before being given his first start for Liverpool.

He went on to become indispensable for both club and country, and scored the winning goal for the Dragons in a Euro ’92 qualifier against Germany, but Wales couldn’t get over the finishing line so Rush, was denied his chance on the continental or global stage. Had he been English, he would certainly have been in the national team and graced at least some of those tournaments.

Rush is, though, joint fourth on the list of players who’ve made the most appearances for Wales (73), and is also his country’s record scorer with 28 goals.

KEVIN RATCLIFFE
59 caps (1981-1993)

Accomplished Everton captain Kevin Ratcliffe, widely regarded as one of quickest and most intelligent central defenders around in the 1980s, was another to miss out on the top tournaments, but it is fairly safe to assume that he would have been picked ahead of Terry Fenwick and Alvin Martin in Bobby Robson’s 1986 England World Cup squad had he been born an Englishman.

Ratcliffe would have forged an imposing central defensive partnership with Terry Butcher, and though Maradona would probably have scored that stunning second goal against any opposition, it is interesting to speculate ‘what if…’

 
MARK HUGHES
72 caps, 16 goals (1984-1999)

The current Fulham boss is arguably his country’s finest manager since Jimmy Murphy in the 1950s, but will always be best remembered as a combative and highly successful centre-forward with the knack of scoring spectacular goals.

He announced his arrival on the international scene by scoring the winning goal against England in his Wales debut in May 1984, and 11 months later scored arguably the greatest goal of his international career – a stunningly acrobatic volley from just inside the penalty area in a 1986 World Cup qualifier against Spain.

On November 11 1987 Hughes, like Kelsey before him, played two competitive matches in one day: firstly for Wales against Czechoslovakia in Prague in a Euro ’88 qualifier, and secondly, after being driven across the border into Germany, for Bayern Munich (coming on as a substitute) in a cup replay victory over Borussia Moenchengladbach.

RYAN GIGGS
64 caps, 12 goals (1991-2007)

Contemporary Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs is the most decorated player in English football history, having earned 11 Premier League winner’s medals, four FA Cup winner’s medals, three League Cup winner’s medals and two Champions League winner’s medals.

While Giggs, originally a left winger but more recently filling a deeper midfield role, has had plenty of success at club level, internationally, he was once the youngest player to ever represent his country. Cardiff-born, he had played for England Schoolboys – the criterion for which is school location (Salford), not nationality – but was never eligible to play for the England senior side. He made it crystal clear that he would have opted for Wales anyway, though successive England managers would no doubt have loved to have him in their teams.

Initially compared with George Best, Giggs is so highly regarded that Best himself once remarked: “One day they might even say that I was another Ryan Giggs.”

CRAIG BELLAMY
60 caps, 18 goals (1998 to date)