Our day at Wrexham

Last weekend Simon and Glynis Wright travelled to North Wales to see if Wrexham would survive in League Two.

Now to the main business of the day, our trip to Wrexham, where they were doing battle with poor Boston United. Never mind either hype or clichés, this one really was a 'must-win', both sides currently bumping and banging their way around the muddy sea-bed of the Football League. And Boston had troubles of their own, BIG ones, too. Their players hadn't been paid for weeks and weeks, twelve, in fact - even the PFA had stopped bankrolling them - and their physio for four months, so they're now left with but eight properly fit players, and another three doubtful - and that's their first-choice eleven!

The club as a whole owes something in the region of £2 million. All this has been going on for something in the order of three months: the remarkable thing is that they've managed to keep in touch with the other relegation candidates right up until the last day. The stakes today were pretty high - fail to win, and they were down, with genuine administration (see above!) and 10-point deduction to follow, no doubt. For their last home game, versus doomed Torquay, they could only muster 2,200: today's game would bring forth 600 hardy souls. Even their manager was thought to be heading in the general direction of Chester City after today.

That was the background, then, the reality was heading towards North Wales with the sun's warmth on our faces, as we threaded our motorised course through some of the most picturesque scenery I've seen in ages. Not a hint of cloud in the sky, either. Lovely stuff. And, no traffic problems, for once, which meant we parked up in a street about 200 yards from the ground at around one in the afternoon.

From there, it was a mere bagatelle to find The Turf pub, the local of choice for home supporters ever since Wrexham's ground opened for business, but now in danger of being demolished to make way for flats by people who ought to have known better. According to those organising the petition, despite the place playing a huge part in Wrexham's history - and that of Welsh international football, as it happened – the Welsh answer to the Department of the Environment wouldn't budge on having the building made a listed monument. This, mind, despite the presence there of an ancient balcony, a bit like the one at Craven Cottage, where people could quite legitimately sit and watch the game in peace. Fulham's is listed, The Turf's isn't. Go figure.

And who should we bump into while slaking our (considerable) thirst? "Of all the football grounds in all the world, it had to be this one…." Not Humphrey Bogart circa 1942, regrettably, but none other than John Homer, he of the impenetrable Black Country accent, not to mention a command of the spoken English tongue that would have most Parliamentarians turning green with envy. (Even Winston Churchill: 'We wo' arf' lomp 'em on the cowin' beaches, aer kid….')You always get a better class of insult with John!

Heaven alone knows what those sitting around him today made of his more exotic curses: hell, some Welsh-speakers might even have thought it an exotic variation on their own native tongue! I'm not really sure as to whether there is a clear etymological link between words spoken in Lower Gornal, and what goes in the place commonly known as the "Land Of My Fathers", or not, but I'm sure there's many an academic out there positively itching to put me on the right track.

And John wasn't the only 'foreign' footie supporter taking time off to watch this game, either: already, we'd seen a Dingles garment, closely followed by a Mackem one, with that of Chelsea making it three. I could only assume the same applied everywhere else in that ground. Vultures, or simply turning up in the hope of watching a cracker? Difficult to say, really.

Inside, the clean lines of their new stand stood out a country mile from those on the other three sides. The weather was now perfect for football: warm, sunny, shirt-wearing stuff, but not so good for the players, who were destined to sweat buckets out there. At the opposite end to ours was The Kop, at 5,000 capacity, the biggest terrace left in Britain, standing room only, but rapidly becoming an anachronism.
On all three sides, an absolute riot of red and white made a startling contrast with a cloudless blue sky and green pitch of vivid hue. You had to feel sorry for Boston's 600 followers, huddled in the corner of the stand adjacent to our left side, all wearing yellow and black. Everything about this game shrieked "Cup-tie" – but one where the stakes were much, much higher than for that battered old bit of silverware. Already feeling well outgunned by then, the Wrexham wheeze of bringing in a male voice choir to sing the Welsh National Anthem just prior to both teams taking to the field of play (pictured - part of the Racecourse when Hereford United were the visitors earlier this season) must have really twisted the knife in poor old Boston's side. As a rabble-rouser, it had no equal: pretty soon, there wasn't a single dry eye in the house. Except in that away end, of course.

Off they went, then - and in some strange reversal of normal football custom and practice, it was the seats, not the seeming mute-of-malice terracing, making all the noise out there. "Wrexham Lager, Feed Me Till I Want No More…." sang the Taffs, to the familiar Cym Rhondda tune, more commonly known as "Bread Of Heaven" in English circles. Oh, and there was a phantom bass-drum player, too. Sponsored by a large manufacturer of over the counter headache remedies, perchance? Bloody glad I wasn't sitting next to him, mind.

The first half saw Wrexham, just about the better side (or was that just nerves making things appear worse than they should have been?) trying to penetrate a dogged Boston defence. Their runs on the left flank had upset the visitors no end, and were unlucky not to be in front. For their part, the visitors were playing a long-ball game (they had the people up front with sufficient height to make that a viable proposition), trying to catch the home side on the break. My money would undoubtedly have gone on Wrexham to draw blood first, but with around six to the break, it was Boston who first managed to violate the official record-keeper's pristine page, and with a move that more or less ran with their planned script.

Fair play to Wrexham's noisy followers, though. Despite falling one behind, they still kept the faith, even though their favourites had stuffed up, in typical Albion fashion, a brace of clear scoring opportunities, so falling behind must have acted as something of a wake-up call for them. "We Are Staying Up", they roared, still, in much the same way as Buddhist monks would a mantra.

Come the second half, then, and the gods finally spoke. With 56 minutes on the clock, Wrexham managed to land a spot-kick. A bit of a dubious affair, it seemed to my neutral eyes, but the home supporters weren't complaining. That they duly potted: now, the real sweat was on. First of all Wrexham hit the bar from a free-kick, then, up the other end, Boston won a corner. Directly from that set-piece, they then had no less than THREE copper-bottomed chances on the bounce to take the lead, once more, but it just wouldn't go in for them, despite the ball pinging around in the six-yard box for some time afterwards.

Had Boston netted again, I suspect Wrexham might well have had an uphill task on their hands, but with around three minutes of normal time left, the home side finally managed to take the lead themselves. Boston, having chucked everything into attack, three up front, no less, were caught stone-cold by Llewellyn, and paid the price. Then, right at the death, they made it three, courtesy old Mackem Proctor. The rest became a formality.

Fair play to Wrexham, at the final whistle, their supporters ran over to the Boston end - not to hurl abuse, as I'd initially thought, but to enthusiastically applaud their vocal efforts. Shame on us also, but we, too, ended up on that excellently kept swarth of bright green turf. And, much to my surprise, so had a couple of wheelchair-bound Taffs. Whether their helpers had done all the work, or they'd done it under their own steam, I know not. All I knew was the fact they too were getting equal access to an able-bodied pitch invasion! Very egalitarian, that!

Nothing left, then, but to head on out to our vehicle, and make ready to journey home. But not before we'd found a lovely pit-stop in the country, a hotel bar with an extensive menu, not to mention an ambience to die for, right on the canal bank, ducks, barges and all! And, in the warm rays of that evening sun, too lovely for words, it was.

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