Thursday April 24, 2008
Wrexham Relegated

It had basically become inevitable but it was still somewhat disappointing to see Wrexham relegated out of the Football League after their defeat at Hereford on Tuesday night.

Wrexham have been continuous members of the Football League since being elected into the first ever Division Three North in 1921 and the club has contributed much to the league in that time.

It is a while now since Mickey Thomas's free kick knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup but the memory is still fresh and I vividly remember the outstanding Wrexham team of the late 1970's which stormed to the third division championship while enjoying long runs in both cup competitions.

Down the years the club also had one or two notable European nights with their most notable scalp being Porto who they knocked out of the Cup Winners Cup on away goals in the mid 1980's after a thrilling 3-4 defeat in Portugal.

It is probably because my formative years as a football fan coincided with the Wrexham teams of Arfon Griffiths, Joey Jones, Mickey Thomas, Billy Ashcroft and Dixie McNeil et al that I retain a soft spot for the club.

As a supporter of a lower league team myself the games against Wrexham were always important affairs with bigger than normal crowds, higher than usual excitement and generally good games with plenty of goals.

I suppose it's a while since the neutral has regarded Wrexham as that kind of a club, however, and the writing has pretty much been on the wall for a few years now. Wrexham slipped into League Two three years ago after being deducted ten points for falling into administration and they have never really recovered.

They managed a mid-table finish in 2006 but only avoided the dreaded drop on the final day of last season with victory over Boston. This season has proved an equal struggle and relegation was confirmed at Hereford on Tuesday night.

Wrexham have struggled consistently this season and although the appointment of Brian Little as manager initially brought some respite this improvement was not lasting.

Under Little the club showed decent form from January through to the middle of March with several new faces joining the club and a home win over MK Dons being particularly morale boosting.

Such form could not be maintained, however, as the teams' shortcomings remained impossible to fix. The most damaging of these has been a chronic shortage of goals. The inability to hit the net not only made relegation look a certainty for some time it has ensured that the season has been just about as miserable as it could be for the clubs' supporters.

Only one man, Michael Proctor, has managed double figures on the goalscoring front and even he, strangely, has spent half his time on the bench as the club chopped and changed in the vain search for a winning formula.

Even after their best run of the season the club found themselves four points short of safety, albeit with a couple of games in hand. There were obvious games which had to be targeted for three points against other teams in danger but when the crunch games came around victories were not forthcoming.

The home draw with Dagenham was crucial as was defeat at Mansfield. The home draw with Macclesfield was another missed opportunity. Although Wrexham did then manage to sneak a victory over Notts County this had really come too late and it was defeat in the following game that confirmed Wrexham's fate.

Victory at promotion chasing Hereford was always a big ask and although Wrexham battled hard the quality, once again, simply wasn't there. Gary Hooper's goal on the stroke of half time pushed Wrexham to the very edge of the precipice and Theo Robinson's second on the hour pushed them over the edge.

Almost five hundred fans had travelled from North Wales to observe the last rites and they, along with the clubs' other hard core fans, have reason to wonder why the club has fallen so far.

Can Wrexham return? You get the feeling that it won't be easy and significant improvement will be needed in the playing staff. Knowing where to start the rrebuilding might not be an easy task. The club have used a whopping 41 players this season but very few have inspired any real optimism. Yet making further wholesale changes carries its' own risks.

It would appear that the club have done well to secure manager Brian Little for a further two years although sections of the crowd, almost inevitably, are not convinced by the new man.

Little has been around, however, and it gives a positive impression that he is keen to commit to the club for the immediate future. He has a reputation to restore in the game and will want to do so by restoring Wrexham's.

You would also think that he is better equipped to attract players to the club than anyone else Wrexham could realistically bring in as manager at the moment.

How far the club can go to bringing in any players Little identifies has also got to be a concern, however, and it may well be harder attracting decent players to the club now that they are in the Conference.

Extra quality is certainly needed to help out as the club hopes to see a new batch of youngsters emerge.

Wrexham continue to develop and blood young players but recent newcomers have not been of the standard of player the club nurtured in the seventies, eighties and nineties.

In the 70's the club were blessed with the likes of Niedzwiecki, Joey Jones, Thomas, Whittle, Smallman and Ashcroft coming through the ranks and this tradition was carried on by players like Barry Horne, Karl Connolly and Bryan Hughes in subsequent decades.

It is also possible that Wrexham is suffering from a general footballing malaise in its' region. Football seems to be like that. If one or two clubs in an area are doing well it tends to stir the others into action. If a couple of teams start to slide then they seem to take a couple more with them.

Chester and Shrewsbury, perhaps Wrexham's two closest rivals, have both been relegated from the league in recent years and now Wrexham have joined them.

Wrexham can take heart from the fact that both Chester and Shrewsbury have regained their league status but, in general, the area is beginning to look like a backwater and this is something else that will make Little's task more difficult as he tries to bring in the right calibre of player.

It is exactly thirty years ago that Wrexham took the old third division by storm and made the whole of the country sit up and take notice of them. This has been a sad way to mark the anniversary but hopefully this latest fall from grace can shock the club, the town and the whole region into a positive response.

A few years ago Carlisle United found themselves in the same situation and they have been moving forwards ever since. Wrexham would appear to have the potential resources of a club like Carlisle and it must be hoped that their reaction will be equally stirring.

The alternative for Wales's oldest club is not worth thinking about. The alternative is oblivion.