10 LEIGHTON JAMES

IT’S DAY TWO OF OUR LIST OF WALES’ 25 GREATEST POST-WAR FOOTBALLERS TO CELEBRATE THE TEAM REACHING THE WORLD CUP FOR THE FIRST TIME IN SIX DECADES. IN YESTERDAY’S PAPER WE BROUGHT YOU NUMBERS 25 THROUGH TO 11. HERE IS THE TOP 10 .... WINGER CAPS 54 1971-1983 GOALS 10

WHAT would this guy be worth in today’s transfer market?

A free-flowing, free scoring winger, he would destroy opposition full-backs by running at them with his searing pace and inevitably creating something at the end of it.

In a Wales team full of real stars and strong characters, he was perhaps the most talented of the lot.

Did his bit to help Wales top their qualifying group for the 1976 European Championships – the only time that has happened. The format was different back then, they went into a quarter-final with Yugoslavia, with the victors going through to a finals of just four teams. Wales lost in contentious circumstances and that was the big stage denied James.

The clubs he played for weren’t superpowers, but they were really decent teams back then. Derby County twice won the league during the 1970s, Queens Park Rangers were a force. Then James moved back home to join Swansea City in the top flight under John Toshack, where they beat the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal to sit at the top of the table with only a handful of games to go.

Upon hanging up his boots, James tried his hand at management, wrote a column on football for the South Wales Evening Post and became a pundit for the BBC and the Real Radio sports chat show. Produced radio stardust with his infamous on air bust-up with Robbie Savage over his decision to quit international football after John Toshack axed him from a Wales squad.

Aged 69, he has been settled in west Wales for a number of years.