And having seen more than 170 games, I feel like I’m 350, you know.

Perhaps a refund is in order?

In that time we’ve come a long way – from Bobby Gould basket case to an FAW marketing department peddling a range of ridiculous stuff you don’t need – an entire online shop dedicated to darts stuff.

Crumbs! Maybe we’re still a pub team now we’re suddenly channelling Sid Waddell as a sideline. Didn’t those days evaporate 25 years or so ago?

Other delights include a garden gnome who doesn’t resemble Hal Robson-Kanu (missed a trick there) – yours for £25. You pay £24 for the female version. Flippin’ heck!

Well at least that’s a giggle. But shame on someone – you can take a Gareth Bale fixation too far, you know – for touting golf gear tat. Stuff for that most satanic ‘sport’. Ych a fi!

Anyway, the history

No can do here. Too much of it, impossible to do it justice. Swot up by buying Phil Stead’s official version. A great read.

Mario Risoli’s When Pele Broke Our Hearts is about the 1958 World Cup exploits. You know, the one we should have won. He did the obvious thing of interviewing the players. An excellent job.

My butty Nick Burnell wrote a book about the 1976 European championship players. Buy it here!

The personal history is: first game 1979 v Scotland. John Toshack, bless his soul, crunches a hat-trick in a 3-0 win.

First away: Amsterdam 1988. Lost 1-0. Did we get out of our own half against the reigning European champions – a fabulous Dutch side among the all-time international greats? Didn’t seem like it.

We met the Welsh players in a club/pub – appropriately named Club Babylon – after the game. One of then bought a round of 43 drinks and a player spirited off the woman I was with at the end of the night. What really hurt was that he was even uglier than myself. NEVER TRUST A PLAYER!

The pub team

Not me saying it. Read Nathan Blake, above, in the Wales on Sunday in 2000. To be fair to the late 90s, Gary Speed also came up with the phrase in a Bulgarian hotel lift when Mike Smith was interim manager.

Mr Gould inherited a pub team and honed it to perfection. We lost 7-1 in Eindhoven to the Dutch in 1996. Maybe should’ve been 15-1. Penny should’ve dropped then – he lasted until 1999 and his stink, sorry stint, included a wrestling bout with John Hartson.

God, the 90s were unremittingly bad and not always Mr Gould’s fault. A fair bit of bad luck, minor miscalculations that cost us dear – some great players never got near a tournament.

The greatest pub team ever

From pub players to sparkledust majesty to the power of a zillion – a Euro 2016 side as beautiful as a blue sky. A night in Lille when Hal Robson-Kanu made the moon smile.

So much has been written about the joys of that summer and how it lit up the country etc etc, that I’ll gloss over it with a view to a separate piece some time this summer, if I can be bothered.

It was, of course, lyfli! Diolch Gareth a phawb.

Wales 1 Ghana 1

We’re 150 you know! It was mildly surprising Luke Littler wasn’t introduced to the crowd in the pre-match preamble to throw three bull’s eyes in a row in the oche – total 150. Another trick missed. A sort of homage to the pub team of old.

That would have been great. Might have doubled the gate. We could have sung darts songs for a far better atmosphere.

Ghana were not first choice for the 150th, no doubt. We have Bosnia to thank for that, and it was hard not to reflect on that exit in March – it may yet have long-lasting repercussions. This game’s attendance looks like one.

Even if many of us would not have visited Trumpland the World Cup experience would have lifted the players.

So we were stuck with Ghana. And vice versa. In fact, they were a perfect off the wall choice.

We got lucky. They brought 1,500 fans and thank God for that otherwise this would’ve been more of a funeral than a celebration.

In fact, with something to play for, Ghana provided an edge other opponents might have lacked.

I don’t say this too often: it was an enjoyable friendly. Quite competitive too. Lot better than the damp squib of Norn Ireland in March – does anyone even remember what the score was in that one?

So, thanks Ghana for turning up. It was a pleasure to host you. Usually our home games are a lot more fun but for some reason we left our party hats at home.

Then there’s us

Football is about fans innit?

The pain shared, the laughs along the road, and when the indefatigable quest for qualification was finally achieved in the back of beyond in where else? – deepest Bosnia – our life-goal tick box had been well and truly ticked. Phew!

We deserved it. Gareth Bale and Euro 2016’s joyfest were just the cherry on the cake.

Marvellous characters we met included top, random butties like Tiny from Holyhead, above in Qatar 2000, last sighted at Euro 2016, a fellow who should’ve been guest of honour at the Ghana game. Wonder what’s happened to him.

Others I found myself thinking of: Sean from Swansea; Gary from Aberdare; Cowboy from Treorchy. Disappeared. Pretty sure he wasn’t a cowboy, but you never know up there. Big dog breeder. Frank Lampard once visited him to buy a puppy.

Yet more are definitely no longer with us – Clem and Ray from Garth, Eleanor Dainton from Bargoed who died in the winter. Fans raised more than £3,000 at a game, pictured below, in Merthyr on Sunday for the Gol charity – a grand of which was given to a cause in Ghana.Another grand was donated to a charity in Bucharest last weekend.

So, yes, 150 years, you know. I’m 350, you know. Lots to take in. A sniff of success at last to savour. Grateful for that. Felt like it was deserved after decades of mediocrity.

At the very least, the bottomless ignominy that came with being known to support the national team as if you were some sort of pervert has disappeared.

People have stopped giving you funny looks and asking: ‘What the eff do you watch them for?’ after you’ve returned from Armenia.

Yma o hyd, indeed.

It’s been a bizarre gonzo-verse of average players, fabulous holidays in dumps – I’m thinking of you, Bulgaria – wonderful nightclubs (if the players don’t turn up), great company.

There’s only one phrase that will ever describe those 150 death-defying, miraculous, pub team-turned-supermen, horrible-but-joyous, extraordinary years. It is this:

Magic Darts!