The talented young footballers of Fishguard Sports AFC received a very special visitor as they recently trained with head coach Matthew ‘Minty’ Lamb at the Fishguard Leisure Centre’s astroturf – and discovered that their guest coach for this special session was none other than Wales and Manchester United football legend Ryan Giggs!
 
Giggs played in all the first 22 seasons of the Premier League and actually scored in all but the final one before he decided to hang up his boots with no fewer than 34 top medals that included 13 in the Premier League and others in the FA Cup (4), the League Cup (4) and the European Championship (2).
 
He played 64 times for Wales (12 goals) and a record-breaking 672 Premiership games for Manchester United, scoring 114 goals, was BBC Sports Personality for 2009 after receiving an OBE two years earlier. Throw in other sundry honours and it is likely that his records will never be beaten!
 
So it was easy to see why the girls were so thrilled and after the coaching session they joined him in a changing room to take selfies, have sundry items of kit autographed and to ask questions – and he also autographed a Welsh shirt for Finn Price, as reward for the youngster’s persistence in waiting around for a long time, and spoke to local cancer sufferer Luke Harding before leaving.
 
Matthew Lamb told us afterwards,
“Ryan came to us as part of the Football Association of Wales’ scheme to launch this season’s ‘Community Coach of the Year’ award after I had won it last year – and I was told we would have a former Welsh player with us, as well as Jack Rutter, who is an ambassador who played in the UK seven a side football team in the Rio Paralympics.
 
“He was very professional in his approach and was great to chat to and we will all remember his visit for years to come – and we are grateful to Tom and Gareth from the FAW for their input into the afternoon.”
 
Perhaps the only slightly downbeat side of the afternoon was the fact that those involved from London in running what was clearly for them a carefully-scripted corporate event kept Ryan Giggs away from keen football supporters, with parents not allowed inside the perimeter fence of the astroturf after waiting a long time to see the Welsh superstar coach their daughters.
 
Prior to that he was over 90 minutes in a changing room talking to the likes of BBC Wales and others about subjects like whether Gareth Bale was fit again to play for Wales, with the TV coverage that night of what was a special day for ‘Minty’ and the girls sketchy to say the least – but perhaps their interviews might show the hwyl that exists with the squads from under 10 to under 16 when they feature in a forthcoming ‘Match of the Day Kickabout’ on a Saturday morning.
 
But that aside it was a memorable day for all the girls, including one young lady who was singled out by Ryan for her skills after almost missing the afternoon because of illness!

Pics by Johnny Morris