"This isn't Eurovision Song Contest" - Wales legend has say on Ukraine World Cup play-off

Barry Hone has a first-class chemistry degree, but there is no known medicinal compound to tranquillise his biggest disappointment in football.

In a parallel universe, Horne would have captained Wales at the 1994 World Cup finals, and 29 years ago he was so close to living the dream he was almost at the check-in desk. With their death-or-glory qualifier against Romania in Cardiff locked at 1-1, and Wales on the warpath after Dean Saunders' equaliser, they were awarded a penalty when the late Gary Speed was tripped in the box by Dan Petrescu.

The BBC, who had begun the night showing live coverage of England's futile 7-1 win against San Marino – which came too late to save the Three Lions' chances of going to the USA and Graham Taylor's job as manager – even switched to the more meaningful drama across the Severn Bridge. But Paul Bodin crashed his spot-kick against the bar and Romania, who had been rocking under a fierce Welsh onslaught, recovered their composure to win 2-1.

For sobering context, a 67-year-old retired postman from Merthyr Tydfil was later killed when a distress flare was launched inside the ground and hit him in the chest. Tell that to the morons who decorate games with pyrotechnics now and think their coloured smoke bombs are just a bit of harmless fun.

Horne, now 60, hopes Robert Page's side can end 64 years of hurt and near misses in Sunday's World Cup play-off against Ukraine and land their first ticket to the finals since 1958. But the pain of being skipper at that Romania game in November 1993 has never left him.

“Even now, hardly a day goes by when I don't think about it, and how my life might have turned out if the result had been different,” he admitted. “To be honest, I've never really got