When Rob Page announces his Wales squad for their first World Cup in 64 years on Wednesday, he will return to an old haunt for something of a trip down memory lane. Back to Tylorstown Miners’ Welfare Hall, the last surviving one in the Rhondda valley, which this week was home to a Welsh wrestling extravaganza and last month held a Tom Jones and Tina Turner tribute act.
Page smiles when informed the comedian Owen Money will take centre stage a few days after him. “It was my old snooker hall,” he says. “Before I moved away at 16 [to play for Watford] I’d go in, not through the big doors in the middle but to the left, down into the cellar and there was a little cubby hole where you’d get your tray of balls. I was not exactly Ronnie O’Sullivan.”
