Chris Gunter will always be remembered for his insubordination. Across a 16-year, 109-cap, zero-goal career of pure, unwavering servitude to his country, Gunter will be eternalised in the five seconds of football he flouted his manager’s instructions and dared to “cross the f*cking ball.”
It’s a good catchphrase. As good as any for a superhero, not that many outside the immediate Wales fanbase would consciously categorise the Newport boy with such Herculean terminology. Gunter himself, it should be noted, certainly wouldn’t.
That, of course, was always the stubborn paradox of Gunter: the national superhero venerated for being, on the immediate face of things, anything but super. For simply turning up and turning out with unerring, unnerving commitment.
