Gareth Bale absent as Wales squad dance along to Manic Street Preachers’ Euro 2016 song
Legendary Welsh rockers hope Together Stronger can stand up to classics World In Motion and Three Lions
MANIC STREET PREACHERS have released their Euro 2016 anthem featuring Wales’ heroes — minus Gareth Bale.
Chris Coleman’s Dragons have qualified for their first major finals since 1958 and teamed up with the legendary rockers.
The feel-good tune name drops the likes of Bale, Aaron Ramsey and skipper Ashley Williams.
And the squad took part in filming at their Vale of Glamorgan training complex but Bale could not get away to join in.
Few fans will bemoan his absence however after the Real Madrid star turned up in inspired form for ever game in qualifying to drag an expectant nation over the line.
Coleman has fostered a superb team spirit in the Welsh camp but Bale, 26, is a vital cog as showed by poor performances in warm-up games without their talismanic forward.
The video for Together Stronger (C’mon Wales) features iconic moments from Wales’ qualifying campaign as well as heartbreak from years gone by.
Clips of Paul Bodin’s missed penalty with Wales on the verge of qualifying and the agonising defeat against Russia will bring back awful memories for Wales fans.
But clips of Bale and Ramsey in action along with uplifting lyrics rams home the significance of the past 18 months as the tournament draws near.
Wales will compete against neighbours and rivals England as well as Slovakia and Russia, against whom the Dragons fell at the final hurdle in a play-off for Euro 2004.
The Manics had always wanted to do a tournament anthem for Wales but the likes of Mark Hughes, Gary Speed, Ian Rush and Ryan Giggs just could not seem to get over the line. Until now.
Manics’ frontman James Dean Bradfield said: “It had always been on the cards.
“Nick had written lyrics for a song during previous campaigns, but of course, they’d all bitten the dust.
“It was the Belgium home game where the cogs in Nick’s head started whirring when we knew it was game on and we had a great chance of qualifying.
“You always wonder if you can actually pull off a football song, because let’s face it there have been so many bad ones out there.
“We’ve got to admit that the benchmarks are Three Lions and World In Motion – they are two great football songs.
“I thought we had a good chance because I knew that Nick would write such a well-informed lyric – there would be so much history in there.
“That moment happened when Kieran said to them ‘come on this is the last take, go for it’ and one of the players shouted ‘let’s have a tear up’.
“Everybody laughed and they were just enjoying themselves.
“They’d had a full day of training and we felt a bit guilty asking them to do this at the end of the day, but it didn’t feel awkward.
“All the players were great and went for it.
“It felt like a club mentality. It didn’t feel like a fake brotherhood. They were all so comfortable with each other.”