England vs Wales reaction: So near to the greatest day in Welsh football history...

Yes, they lost. But there doesn’t seem to be much doubt about who’s having the better time during Euro 2016

Welsh fans celebrate after Gareth Bale scores the first goal at the Cardiff Fanzone in Bute Park on June 16 (Getty)

For 31 balmy minutes it was “1-0 to the sheepsh******”, England were going home and they weren’t going to shut up about it. It was already pretty lively in the Prince of Wales on St Mary’s Street, Cardiff. Then Gareth Bale’s free kick looped its way over the England wall, checked its watch, said “All right, boyo!” to Joe Hart and took a leisurely stroll in to the England net and the lager bounced off the walls.

In the rarefied moments before kick-off, around a thousand Welshmen and Welsh women had been busily engaged in a collective game of keepy-uppy with an inflatable sheep. For the opening 42 minutes it was conspicuous by its absence. Whoever had it, they were keeping it to themselves. Whether its sudden liberation in the pandemonium following Wales’s opening goal was by accident of design remains unknown, but there it was again, bouncing around expressionless as an arrow shower of lager rained down the necks, in the ears and up the noses of the joy-nuked masses.

The second half was all a bit different. In the Brewhouse opposite, some found themselves unexpectedly debating the intricacies of what is now known simply as Law 11. Yes it went forward off Ashley Wiliams, “but look at picture 13 on page 118. Look. I’ve got on my phone. It clearly says, if it’s ‘a rebound or deflection...’”

Others briefly supplanted their particular Brythonic branch of Celtic in favour of a well known term of Germanic origin: “Jamie Vardy. You cheating ****.”

When the TV cameras had cut to a visibly disgruntled Vardy sitting on England’s bench, there’d been lough laughter: “Vardy not startin’. What are they doin’ eh?” They weren’t laughing now.

With 10 minutes to go there was no doubting they’d have taken a draw. “Don’t send me home / Please don’t send me home / I just don’t want to go to work,” they chanted, an old, slightly amended Billy Ray Cyrus favourite.

The last goal sank them, but they recovered quickly enough. “We’ll do what the gaffer says. We’ll do what the gaffer says,” a 28-year-old barber called Aled Evans told me, apparently unaware that he is not technically a member of the squad. “Beating England. It would have been nice but, you know, as the gaffer says, it’s just another match. Those Russians aren’t up to much.”

Gareth Bale celebrates after scoring the first goal in the match against England (Getty)

Others were less philosophical. “You jammy buggers. You jammy jammy buggers. You jammy jammy jammy jammy buggers,” another chap in his mid-twenties said, who was advised by his friend not to “tell him your bloody name”, on account of their both being estate agents, and both having cancelled all their viewings for the afternoon. “I left one hanging for half six,” said his mate. “I was thinking I might but we’re in no fit state. No fit state.”

What will they do instead? “Oh, you know, head up there, you know, smash a few bottles. Start a few fights. Ha. Pathetic isn’t it? Pathetic. I just don’t get it.”

Another gent, Owen, stumbled out of the Kiwi Bar at full time, ordinarily a home from home for the grand masters of Wales’s preferred sport. His biceps half bursting from Cardiff City shirt like Hulk Hogan in his prime, he bear-hugged the bouncer, lifted him clean off his feet, gave his hair a semi-aggressive tousling, laughed then put him down on his feet again. Said bouncer laughed back. What choice did he have? “Close but far, close but far. We didn’t deserve it, but we could have had it. We could have had you. Still a long way to go. We’re going through. You’re going through. Gareth can beat anyone. Anyone. Maybe we’ll be seeing you again. Who knows?”

“You wait 58 years, and you’re 45 minutes away from sending the English home,” said Aaron Matthews, walking out the Wetherspoons with his two young daughters. “Will we get another chance like that? Never mind. It’s not all about England. Bring on Slovakia.”

From the vantage point of Cardiff town centre, it’s hard to deduce just how relevant is the fact that, before their opening game in Bordeaux, Wales fans sang gave impromptu renditions of traditional Welsh songs at a passing wedding party, their visit having been spoken about in almost tearfully joyous terms by the Bordeaux tourist board. England, meanwhile, have sung their traditional German bomber songs, thrown their traditional chairs and been subject to their traditionally high number of arrests, much of which has somehow become semi-excusable merely because Russia’s malignant minority were worse.

Yes, Wales lost. But there doesn’t seem to be much doubt about who’s having the better time.