Wales dreaming of nearly qualifying for Euro 2016

WELSH footballers are hoping to only just miss out on Euro 2016, it has emerged.

After heroically defeating Cyprus, the team are allowing themselves to dream that they can finish third in their group and lose in a playoff.

Gareth Bale said: “I’ve been fantasising about that moment when we’re sat head in hands on the field after a play-off loss to Ukraine.

“A footballer can’t ask for better than that. Not a Welsh player anyway.”

Welsh fans still look back fondly on the qualification for World Cup 1994 when Paul Bodin missed a late penalty kick.

Bodin said: “Just to be a part of us narrowly failing to qualify, it makes my chest swell with pride. We could do it again, but it’s a big aspiration.”

Pension money spent entirely on figurines

RETIRED people allowed to dip into their pension pots have blown the lot on porcelain figurines.

This is your inheritance

The UK is facing a financial crisis after millions of old people frittered their pensions on playful kittens, Edwardian ladies and sad clowns.

Pensioner Mary Fisher said: “When Mr Osborne said you’re allowed to spend your pension, I immediately cashed in £50,000 and purchased a small army of limited edition Victorian street urchins.

“Now I’ve got no money for food and there’s only a tin of corned beef to last me until I die.”

Fellow pensioner Roy Hobbs said: “I can’t pay my electricity bill because I spunked the lot on Royal Doulton, but hopefully my badly painted Huckleberry Finn ornament will give me enough of a warm glow inside to see me through the winter.

“I tried to borrow a pound for some candles from my friend Reg, but he’d starved to death in a nest of collectable Toby jugs.”

The government is now trying to restore the nation’s pension funds by selling the figurines, probably to the Russians who seem to like that sort of thing.

A treasury spokesman said: “If that doesn’t work we’ve got our top scientists working on a way to turn china shire horses into a viable food source.”