Cod Almighty | Article
by Tony Butcher
10 September 2021
Still stranded in non-League despite the gift of Shaun Pearson (now reclaimed) Tony feels a little sorry for "Ryan Reynolds's Wrexham"
How are you?
I really got to know Wrexham in the classic period of non-League. Good fellows on the whole, did their best you know. Wrexham doesn't really look any worse than a lot of other Northern towns. Bombed about a bit. Good times, bad times, you know they've had their share.
But now it's hurray for Hollywood. They're just some rich foreigner's current "project", like a new swimming pool in the shape of their favourite dog. They are no longer Wrexham, but Ryan Reynolds's Wrexham, to be patronised from afar with a smorgasbord of yankee doodle celebrities gurning "Go you Wrexhammers!" into a gold and diamond encrusted iPhone.
Medium time, no see?
Since we've been gone they've done nothing, nada, zilch.
They've been busy going nowhere in exactly the same way for year after year after year. You see, they kept forgetting to score goals, thinking the meanest defence this side of Reno was the way forward. They just needed a Bogle, not a Bungle up front. Gunslingers, not bunflingers.
Last season was the pièce de resistance and coup de grace for Dean Keates' management – managing to fall out of the play-offs in added time after a calamitous last day draw at Dagenham. Only one permutation of results in four separate games would result in avoiding them play-offs - and they succeeded in the near impossible. It was an achievement.
But there's an expensive elephant in the room.
How are you feeling?
Honk! Money, money, money, it's almost funny. It will be for everyone else if they don't go up.
They're going overboard with a capital O.
Yes, they can't believe their luck and when you are down on your luck you'll accept any help offered. Maybe they should resist but, you know, at a time like this their resistance is low.
You have to feel sorry for them, the supporters. Happiness is just an illusion filled with sadness and confusion. What will become of the broken hearted when their new-found money is departed? For all the exhilarating exuberance and positivity there is that nasty, nagging fear that they are just stooges in a documentary and they'll be left low and dry.
£9,000 a week for a striker? £200,000 for a stodgy quarterback centre-back? Wrexham expects every new man to do his duty.
What if it doesn't succeed immediately?
Where are you from?
A run down town, a de-industrialised wasteland of low wage dronery seething at the world passing it by on the A483.
But everything is groovy today, with bundles of Red Wall bribes promised, plus the Hollywood bounce. Nothing can go wrong now, it's even got a new prison. Swanky or what!
The Racecourse Ground - owned by the local university and leased back to the club – is the oldest international ground in the world. That's simply a fact. There's no point in telling you about their in-house catering and the local pubs as we aren't playing them there until January. They'll have built a sushi bar in a yurt behind the evocatively named Bkoncepts Stand by then.
Everything but the pubs will be closed in January, so let's not waste time with highfalutin cultural stuff, eh.
You must be so missing Europe
Ah, the days, those sacred days winning the Welsh Cup gave you. All those free trips into Europe are from the past, another country where they did things differently. We have the 1939 FA Cup Semi-Final, Wrexham have the 1976 Cup Winners Cup quarter-final defeat to Anderlecht to wallow in self-pity and pride. One day the FA Trophy may gain the winner entrance into the Europa Bananarama League (North) and then we're talking!
Pre-Match factfile
Form
Well, as they haven't won every game 6-0 and aren't already promoted they are officially a club in crisis, a team in turmoil! The semi-flagging Dragons are the darlings of those dreary pundits, far too fulsome in their fawning, and just irking everyone else into an unofficial Project: Stop The Pigeons.
So far the pigeons are not what they seem.
Last time
A dour 0-0 and, despite the woeful weather and Hoban's presence, a 1-0 Town win in our promotion season. With his crutch, old age and wisdom, the wind whispered Disley that day.
Dangerman
Mercenary Mullin has returned from counting all his money. As they've chucked gazillions of dollars around hoovering up "top talent" all over the shop, they're all kung fu fighting. What? A little bit frightening. Oh come off it. There are still non-League; it's 11 v 11.
Watch out for Ben Tozer's enormous torpedo. No, not a sandwich, but a big bloke hurling a big chuckle into the mixer. Subtle.
Ex-Town factor
It would have been Shaun Pearson if we hadn't taken back stolen goods. And it would have been Reece Hall-Johnson if he was fit. But he isn't. So that's that. No-one there to irrationally boo, boo-boys and boo-girls.
Rivalometer – 5.347
They are the Grimsby of Wales, with knobs on. Look, we gave them The Shaun of Pearson and they still managed to avoid promotion.
There is nothing but day-tripping name calling between us. We almost feel sorry for them for their 14 seasons of non-League hurt. But now Hollywood calls, we'll be calling them names again. Nothing personal, it's only business banter.