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Volcanoes and sabotage: Story of Wales’ wild last visit to Turkey

Highlights: Turkey 6-4 Wales

By Dafydd Pritchard
BBC Sport Wales

Euro 2024 qualifying - Group D: Turkey v Wales

Venue: Samsun Stadium, Samsun Date: Monday, 19 June Kick-off: 19:45 BST

Coverage: Live on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru, BBC Sport website & app; live text commentary on BBC Sport website & app; highlights on Match of the Day Wales

Few international sporting entities can match Bobby Gould's Welsh national football team of the late-1990s for controversy, dysfunction and sheer chaos.

From conducting training sessions in a prison to wrestling John Hartson in front of a bemused squad, Gould oversaw a four-year tenure of scarcely believable farce.

Even by their standards, though, Wales' last visit to Turkey in 1997 was wild.

Gould and his players arrived in Istanbul with their hopes of qualifying for the 1998 World Cup, as usual at the time, almost non-existent.

The Netherlands and Belgium were Group 7's heavyweights but few away fixtures during that decade instilled fear like one in Turkey.

Istanbul in particular was a hotbed for intimidating atmospheres; think of the infamous 'Welcome to hell' greeting from Galatasaray fans' for Manchester United in 1993.

Wales forward Dean Saunders had played for Gala during the 1995-96 season but, for his international team-mates, a first visit to the Turkish capital was an assault on the senses.

"Deano knew how hostile it was and had warned us, but it was ridiculous, crazy things happening," Nathan Blake, Saunders' strike partner that evening, told BBC Sport Wales.

"We were thinking 'We're not England' so it won't be as bad, but oh my days! It's probably the most intimidating atmosphere I've ever experienced.

"We had riot shields to come out for the warm-up, over our heads.

"That sort of aggression, I always want to meet with aggression. I'm a Ringland boy, Cardiff-born, family and friends of fighters who don't back down.

"It was a crazy game and, because it was so hostile, so much aggression, everyone was so pumped."

There was no doubting the players' appetite for the contest but there was confusion too. This was Gould after all.

Wales had become such a shambles under the former Wimbledon boss that even the Manic Street Preachers, during a live performance on BBC Radio 1, changed the lyrics of their song 'Everything Must Go' to 'Bobby Gould must go'.

Gould's unorthodox methods were on full display in Istanbul, starting with his deployment of Wales' brightest attacking talent, Manchester United winger Ryan Giggs.

"Giggsy played left wing-back that day," Robert Page, then a Wales centre-back and now the country's manager, recalls with a wide grin.

"I looking along the line. I had Andy Melville next to me on one side then I looked to my left, saw Giggsy and thought: 'What are you doing there">