CHRIS GUNTER is currently winning the race to become the first Welsh footballer to win 100 international caps, but he insists it’s only qualification for a major tournament that he wants to look back on in retirement.

Gunter has 61 caps for his country, putting him ahead of his contemporaries, with Wayne Hennessey (51), Joe Ledley (57) and Gareth Bale (52) all also closing in on potentially record appearances for the Dragons.

Neville Southall has the most caps of any Welshman with 92 while Gary Speed is the most-capped outfield player on 85.

Gunter is now within three caps of Ryan Giggs, but ahead of two qualifiers that should secure Wales a berth at Euro 2016 – in Bosnia on Saturday and at home to Andorra on Tuesday – Gunter insists making history through statistics is no priority for him, even if the Newport-born defender is now one of the senior members of Chris Coleman’s squad.

“We don’t talk about who will be first to 100 caps. I bet a lot of the players couldn’t answer how many caps they have. They just stack up,” he said.

“We’ve never qualified for a tournament, which is why no Welsh player got to 100 caps.

“If you play every two summers – friendlies beforehand and three games in the space of a week to ten days – you see some of the numbers the England players have racked up and they are on 100, 120 because they can get 10 caps in the space of two months, it makes a difference. It would be fantastic if any of us could get to that.

‘It's one thing getting to 100 caps, but it’d be even better saying ‘Do you remember that night we sealed qualification?’ or one of the summers getting fantastic results in major competitions. We all want to be part of something that we can look back on when we do eventually finish and reflect on really special occasions.

“I’ve been fortunate, since I made my debut I’ve picked up caps at pretty much every game. But every situation is different. Aaron Ramsey has a lot of caps for his age, but you’d add ten or 15 if he hadn’t been injured.

“You have to make yourself available, of course.”

Gunter admits it feels almost surreal to be on the cusp of greatness after 58-years of hurt and wants to reward the long-suffering Welsh fans.

“It’s been a hard time, we aren’t the biggest nation but we’ve probably underachieved,” he explained.

“It’s nice to be involved in the right sort of scenarios towards the end of the group. We played Belgium when they celebrated getting to the World Cup and we’ve put ourselves in that position now.

“It’s been a campaign full of highs and hopefully there is one more to come.

“Our job is to focus on the game, we can’t let our minds wander, it’s too important.

“The fans have a massive part to play; we had years of struggling to sell tickets, in stadiums three-quarters empty, but from the beginning of this campaign it’s been different.

“Andorra was a nightmare to get too, even worse for the fans, but they filled the away end and it has snowballed from there.

“The atmosphere against Belgium was amazing, away in Cyprus the fans were unbelievable and it’s nice to repay that support with good results.

“I remember Belgium as the final game in the last campaign (when they’d just qualified for the World Cup), you could sense, the human part of you, thinks ‘it’d be great if we could experience this for ourselves.’

“That was a night where for a small time you allowed yourself to think what it would be like to be in that position.

“Hopefully it’s come full circle and we can now do it for the fans. It’s important for them to know how much we appreciate them.”

And Gunter had a word of warning for those of us (including this reporter) who had advised using Gareth Bale cautiously, as he returns from a calf injury, insisting he’s likely to start in Bosnia and against Andorra.

“Gareth is here, he’s fit, and he’s done the same as everybody else. It’s brilliant news for us and the gaffer as well,” Gunter said of his former Spurs teammate.

“I don’t think if he’s fit and here we’ll look beyond the game at the weekend, it’d be a brave man to tell him he’s not playing Saturday.

“If he’s fit I’m sure he’ll be involved and hopefully in the same form as the rest of the campaign.”