Terry Medwin is at his dining room table, slowly running his index finger across a black-and-white photograph of himself and his former Wales teammates taken before their crucial World Cup playoff eliminator victory against Israel at Ninian Park in February 1958. A few months later, Wales made their first – and last – appearance on the global stage, with Medwin scoring the winning goal against Hungary to advance to the quarter-finals. “It is a nice feeling,” Medwin says of reminiscing. “Big John [Charles], Mel [Charles], Ivor [Allchurch], Cliffy [Jones],” he says, fondly.
Wales were knocked out by an unknown 17-year-old called Pelé, who went on to help Brazil win their first World Cup. When Mel and John Charles returned from Sweden to High Street Station in Swansea, there were no teeming crowds or commotion. “One of the porters asked Mel if he’d been on holiday,” says Joyce, Medwin’s wife of almost 70 years. “They didn’t even know they’d been playing in a World Cup. It was just played down, which is really sad. It was all very low-key. Nobody was there to greet them, except the porters, and they were saying the wrong thing.”
