📍Whitchurch, Cardiff CF14, UK
1989 – 2005“Gareth Bale was born in Cardiff in July 1989 and grew up in Whitchurch, a leafy suburb in the north of the city, with his parents, Frank, a school caretaker, and Debbie, an operations manager, and his older sister, Vicky. His uncle, Chris Pike, had played for Cardiff City, and Gareth was football-mad from a young age, idolising Ryan Giggs, another Welsh left-winger from Cardiff. He went to Eglwys Newydd Primary School in Whitchurch, and at about nine he was playing for Cardiff Civil Service in a six-a-side tournament in Newport when he was spotted by Rod Ruddick, a scout for Southampton, who ran the club's youth centre in Bath. For years his father drove him across the Severn Bridge to Bath to train. At Whitchurch High School his PE teacher made him play with only one touch, to give the other boys a chance; he was also a fine runner and rugby player, and a friend of the future rugby captain Sam Warburton, and he left school in 2005 with an A in PE. He moved to Southampton, made his first-team debut at sixteen in 2006, and became Wales's youngest international. At Tottenham he became one of the most exciting players in the world, and at Real Madrid he won five Champions Leagues, scoring a famous overhead kick in the 2018 final. He led Wales to the semi-finals of Euro 2016, and is the country's all-time top scorer. Whitchurch has always been proud of him, and his old school proudly remembers its most famous pupil.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today