IF you love watching your international team and have dreamed your entire life of seeing Wales play in a major international football tournament, then it is my sincere hope you still intend to do exactly that.

If for years you've imagined Wales competing against the very best international nations on the very biggest stage, then hopefully the atrocities of Friday night in Paris won't dissuade you from doing so.

An opinionated sport column, which primarily focuses on the fortunes of a League Two football club, is no place to try and debate and discuss the politics of a major world event, a front page news atrocity, nor will it ever be.

However, it's impossible to not see the link here, the impact this tragedy has on European football fans, with France next summer set to host the major tournament Wales will finally participate in after 58-years of never quite getting there.

Football served as the backdrop for Friday's orchestrated attacks on Paris, with explosions heard around the France v Germany international friendly, a bomb at the Stade de France killing three.

Sadly, as we all now know, the carnage and the senseless murder didn't stop there.

I drove up towards Accrington on Friday evening after covering Wales versus Netherlands for the Argus in preparation for Saturday's game at the Crown Ground for Newport County.

Listening to the coverage as it unfolded in Paris was distressing and as testimony began to roll in, the viewpoints from those who were in the Stade de France was powerful and upsetting.

People running and screaming from the ground, clutching their children, desperately worried for their safety after explosions and gunfire had been heard.

A Friday evening of socialising and doing ordinary things in a vibrant and wonderful city turning into a terrifying nightmare, with many warnings from eminent professionals in terrorism that France is facing potentially more destruction.

So it is entirely understandable if Welsh fans, or any other football fans for that matter, are pondering whether they should still travel to France, because surely a football match isn't worth risking your life over?

Except, in doing that, by factoring violent and senseless extremists who I have no intention of mentioning here, into the decisions on how you live your life, you are letting them win.

As citizens we don't make laws, we don't instigate policies or decisions on how our respective countries act in terms of their military strategy. We only really get to govern our own little domains, our own decisions and our own travel plans.

And if your intention was to head to France next summer to watch Wales play international football, that is exactly what you should do.

Horrific and chilling as Friday's attacks in Paris were, we must remember that Paris is a city of 2.3 million people and for every tragic victim on Friday, there were 18000 survivors.

We can't let extremists stop our daily lives and we can't let fear stop us from doing things that make us happy. We don't honour the victims by cowering and thinking about the worst case scenario all the time.

Because France is going to be a fantastic experience for Welsh football fans, who travel in their thousands and are a merry, amusing and generally fun bunch of supporters.

I only got to witness them in Brussels in this campaign, but the Welsh fans are a credit to the sport when they travel away and they, like the Northern Ireland supporters this summer, will hugely enhance the fan experience, simply by how excited they are to have finally qualified.

They will mix with supporters from across Europe, they will drink in bars, eat in restaurants and they will show the French people that they stand with them.

Which quite frankly, is all we can do as citizens of an increasingly dangerous and hostile environment, where the biggest threat to the future of mankind, continues to be mankind.

We can merely live our lives and enjoy the trivial things, the fun things, like watching 22 men or women kicking a ball around a football pitch. It's not life or death, but fun matters.

But the best way we can respond to the events unfolding around us at this time is by focusing on the best things in life, rather than living in perpetual fear or with anger at events we simply can't possibly control.

Don't let horror and violence stop you supporting Wales in France next summer. Don't let those vile and evil terrorists win their game, by stopping you watching yours.