THEY came, they saw ... they went home looking a bit miserable. All right, it wasn't exactly the fall of the Roman empire at the Millennium Stadium last night but, in Welsh football terms, it was history in the making.

And in years to come each of us will be able to say, in true Max Boyce fashion, "I was there."

Us, in this case, was myself and my sons James, eight, and Joe, five (oh, and about 72,000 others). While James is a bit of an international soccer veteran - this was his eighth or ninth Wales game at the Millennium Stadium - Joe was making his debut among the Welsh hordes.

What a way to start. The atmosphere was like nothing I had witnessed before at a Wales soccer match. If Mark Hughes wants to overtake rugby as the nation's number one sport, then this is the way to do it.

There was emotion from the start as John Charles, a hero to both sets of supporters, was presented to the crowd.

And Gwent's own rock gods the Manic Street Preachers got everyone in fine voice with a two-song set.

And the match? It was a cracker. Italy didn't perform badly but they were simply outplayed, particularly in the second half, by a Welsh team inspired by phenomenal support.

At one point, after Craig Bellamy had stroked home the winner for Wales, the home crowd taunted the Italian fans with the terrace classic "You're not singing anymore". Anymore? I hadn't heard a peep from our friends in blue, even when Alessandro del Piero notched his lucky equaliser, such was the noise generated by those wearing red shirts and with dragons on their faces.

In the family enclosure, the noise levels matched anything elsewhere in the stadium, though it was pitched several octaves higher.

And at the end the place, as they say, went wild. My two, who are pretty manic at the best of times, went utterly ballistic.

As the thousands filed away, many stole glances at the giant electronic scoreboards as if to convince themselves it had really happened. It did. And boy was it good.

PICTURED: Kevin Ward with sons James and Joe