IT HIT HIS BACK! - Wrexham AFC vs the Mighty

Do you remember the past? It was great. It was cold at Christmas, there were places in town that weren't vape shops and you were younger than you are now and didn't waste your life reading shite off the internet on a phone. League One was called Division 3 (or 2 if it was slightly less 'the past') and there were none of these 'Crawley' and 'Stevenage' nonsense teams to play against, just proper clubs like, I dunno York and the place we're going today.

In the past Wrexhan were a thing. They weren't Man Utd or owt, but they were pretty good at football, or, at least they were roughly about as good as Blackpool at football for quite a while and we had some cracking games against them. Then stuff went very badly wrong with them and they fell hard, so hard that it seemed possible they might not return. So hard, that not even a combined strike force of Andy Morell and Brett Ormerod could lift them back and let's be honest, if there's a problem that can't be fixed by those two, it's a pretty big issue.

Today then, they're back but they're back with bells on and aspirations. Some actors bought them apparently. I'm not sure who the actors actually are other than they seem to think they're funny, so I'll say that it was Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase. 

Dan and Chevy became beloved by the locals by doing quirky clips on Twitter and buying them some half decent players and making a documentary about "hopes and dreams and soccerball" and whilst the wider world lapped all this up as a story of plucky success, those of us who support clubs who are in and around their orbit, mutter dark things about them being a bunch of Disney+ princess melts who've bought the league.

This is, of course, jealousy more raw than steak tartare. Wrexhan have had as torrid a time as anyone in the last few decades and you can view their current celebrity elevated status as either yet another example of the distorting influence of global money in the English game or a feel-good fairy tale of a grand old football name finally getting a day in the sun. Either way, Wrexham is one of the few games in this somewhat bland division that has a bit of anticipation about it and that's something.

There's something about a fog shrouded ground. Wrexham warm up in a psychedelic swirl of a shirt. The fog falls a bit more. The noise builds. The stand we're in is really rubbish and I can't see a lot of the pitch, nor is there room to move below but in a strange way, I like that too. Going to the football shouldn't be about padded seats and 3 course meals. The head height rusty exposed screws in the panelling at the back of the stand are a particularly nice touch. The noise builds some more. This is great, it's rammed in here. Fuck Hollywood, but to be fair to Hollywood, at least they're a team we'd give a fuck about beating.  

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I really can't see much at all. Every time the ball goes towards what was the Kop end, it more or less disappears in a combination of fog, glare from a light in the stand and metalwork. When the ball is at the far touchline, I have to bend my knees to duck low enough to see. I am trying to chant and clap above my head whilst in a weird crouch. I'm not sure this looks very graceful. 

What does look graceful is us, belting down the left and in the fog, I can make out the elegant lurching run of Jimmy Husband, who crosses through the gloom and there's big Ashley Fletcher to miss it bundle the ball home and send me and the other 1400 Pool fans into a shock early rapture, scuttling down the gangway and filling the misty air with throaty roars of primal joy. It's a great start, the best start. Perfect. 

Ash Fletcher has definitely had his weetabix. He doesn't simply score - He's all flicks and lovely touches, coming deep, laying off, spinning and showing a real fleetness of foot and intricate dancing steps, skipping past the Wrexham defenders more than once, looking like a child leaping nimbly across stepping stones in a river... 'What the fuck did Fletcher get for Christmas?' asks someone in front of me in response to another lovely bit of play from the big man. I don't have an answer, but more of this please. 

We're doing well. We nearly double our lead when an attack ends up being half cleared and Hayden Coulson comes from deep to pounce on a ball that seems to float in the air for ages and plants a firm downward header just the wrong side of the post. C'mon Pool! The stand is rocking, this is the most fun I've had for ages... 

James Mclean is playing, as he always does, the role of the panto villain. He's not so much a flying winger these days as a filthy full back and he practically batters Rob Apter, elbows, studs, ankle clips, anything goes but the ref seems somewhat unwilling to do anything about it. I enjoy it when Lee Evans gets a bit bored of it and just wanders over and hoofs Mclean up in the air and then wanders away again. 

The game gets more even and Wrexham have several attacks, shots are blocked or crosses wasted. It's really hard to see and I'm starting to think, 'if this gets any thicker, we might be in trouble here' when there's a sound of anticipation from the home fans and then, (I've lost track of the ball behind the stanchion holding the roof up) Harry Tyrer dives, and then the sound of delight. I surmise that the ball has gone in from somewhere behind the metalwork and it's 1-1. I'm told it's a really good goal scored by Paul Mullin but I really have no idea because to me, it was just a random dive and some sound. 

The festive spirit is only momentarily dimmed. We get back on the front foot and at them. The noise redoubles. During the game we get a weird monotone Ash Fletcher chant, an airing of songs for Brett Ormerod and Ludo Sylvestre, the classic 'where were you when you were shit?' which I haven't heard for ages and a load more. There's a lot to be said for a tightly packed and low roofed stand and the roof would have come off if we'd scored again.

We nearly do as Joseph goes down the right, squares it, it's behind Fletcher but Apter picks it up, weaves into a space in which he can shoot and is denied by a full length slides from a defender. We nearly do again, as Lee Evans takes a weirdly (and brilliantly) flat free kick that evades everyone to find Ollie Casey who seemingly only needs to make contact to score. He does make contact, but then, in the haze, the (in my memory anyway) resoundingly average Mark Howard seems to morph into Gordon Banks and pulls off a point blank stop to deny us. So close. C'mon Pool! 

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I've really enjoyed this. We've been the better side I think. We've certainly had the better chances. Wrexham have done very little and We've both started and ended the half on top. 

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I don't know what Phil Parkinson said to Wrexham, but it's worked. Where they looked fairly timid in the first half, they're now a red wave, pouring forward, time after time after time. We can't get out. I keep looking at the clock and 10,20,25 minutes have gone by and we've done absolutely nothing other than defend. It's somewhat of a siege but we're putting up a decent defence against a side who all seem to have eaten some of the aforementioned raw meat at half time and all grown about 3 inches in height as a result. 

We block heroically. The centre backs head, Albie Morgan puts himself in the way several times. Kyle Joseph ends up back in his own box wrestling the ball away. They keep coming, particularly down their left where it feels as if we've got no one playing such is the ease with which they work it again and again. Evans dives to block one, Hubby dives under his own bar and turns one away. Tyrer dives and palms one away and out of danger too. A flick on, Mullin twists and turns and cracks it, Tyrer dives and saves low. Mullin heads on over he should do better with. 

I was concerned about not being able to see our attacks, but as we literally don't have any until 70 minutes are well gone, I was worrying about nothing. The Pool massive are getting restless. Bruce isn't changing things when it looks like we need changes. I'm not wholly sure we've got the players to change things, but for a while it feels a matter of time before Wrexham score and a matter of fortune that they don't. They bring on some subs, we wait ages to do so. 

Finally, we have a spell of possession and knock it around nicely. Fletcher has been less involved this half but he has a lovely first time lay off in a really good move that eventually yields a corner. Evans has his laser guide out again and drops it right on (I think!) Joseph's head, but if the ball was good, the header is snatched at and ends up ballooning over the bar harmlessly. 

On 84 minutes, we manage a shot. Sonny Carey is on and has a lovely one two with Albie Morgan (probably my pick of the front 6 today) and bursts into the box. It's straight at the keeper but it gets a round of applause out of sheer relief that we seem to not be under the cosh any more. In fact, we seem reasonably comfortable and at 1-1, you never know. Maybe we've weathered the storm and are ready to hit them with a classic sucker punch away day winner. Fuck knows, it seem to happen to us at home often enough, so c'mon Pool. Lets have one! 

What we get instead is this. A simple ball is pumped up. A big Wrexham lad has got wrong side of Casey, but he fights back and hoots the ball away. It falls to another Wrexham lad who twats it and Casey blocks it. Nothing to see here. They demand a penalty but a) it obviously wasn't one and b) so long has passed between the incident without the referee reacting to it that their appeals look stupid.... 

... until, that is, the referee puts his whistle to his mouth and points at the spot. Our players go absolutely mental. I go mental. What I want to say is 'FUCK OFF, YOU ONLY GAVE THAT BECAUSE THEY SHOUTED AT YOU, YOU PATHETIC BOTTLING CUNT' but it comes out as 'FUCK OFF, YOU ONLY FUCK OFF YOU ONLY GAVE THAT FUCK OFF. FUCK OFF' because I cannot put words in the right order after seeing such a surreal decision given. 

Steven Fletcher. Scores. Low. Fuck off. 

The ref endears himself still further by randomly penalising us for nothing as we vainly attack and then, to top it all off, literally getting in the way of our most promising move of the dying moments, doing a better job than any Wrexham defender.

Fuck my life. Fuck football. Fuck stupid sky blue referee kits that look like shit cycling jerseys and fuck Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase and their stupid 'feel good' project. Fuck feeling good. Fuck off. I don't feel good. Jimmy is raging at the ref for about 3 minutes. It feels like he might never leave the pitch. Wrexham are filming things like some great giant vlogger project. Fuck them. Fuck it all. We're filing out, dejected.

Boxing day seems cursed... 

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I don't know. I thought we put a shift in today. Apter struggled when the game got really physical, but he's the only creativity and it's not his fault we've amassed a squad where he has to play wide right every week by default because no one else can do it. Fletcher really was decent for a good spell, I thought Morgan was tremendous and really got stuck in, even when the mismatch between him and some of their lads was almost comical. 

We did have to cling on in the second half but we did it (hallucinations from the referee not withstanding) and whilst they had a lot of the play, we didn't actually concede too many efforts on goal. I never want to be one of those people who bangs on about refereeing as if they've just this minute discovered football is unfair, because it has always been and refs always will be fallible and you go to games knowing full well you might get given a stupid goal or might lose a stupid goal and that's still 1000 times better than the heat death end of spontaneity experience of VAR but fuck me, it felt as if that ref was reading a script and Hollywood FC had written it because I still have no idea how he felt it was a penalty because it never was and never should have been. Sometimes you see a 50/50 call. Sometimes a 40/60. Maybe a 30/70 will go against you and so on... but this was literally a 0/100 call. 

In an odd way, it was good to play Wrexham again despite the result. There was a decent atmosphere, some back and forth and I actually perversely enjoyed the utter shitness of the stand - this game was one I always enjoyed way back when it was last a thing because they bring a few and we take a few and it's got a bit about it and I'm bored of nothing clubs and flat atmospheres and this was, despite the result, much more like it. 

This season is frustrating because it's clear that we've got a decent core and can play well at times. We more than matched them first half. It was also clear that whilst they could bring on some quality (as well as a terrifically inept massive lad) we're really short of game changing players and each game that passes makes me pine for January that bit more because the core needs adding to and we need more. We're so short of proper pace it hurts to watch sometimes - we just couldn't stretch Wrexham at all on the break. We're lacking the brute up front you sometimes need as well as we were just penned in and hopeful balls were gobbled up by their no5 who had the look of a suave 80s wrestler about him and swatted away our forwards with ease. We need width, we need... 

... You all know this. I'm repeating myself.

Anyway, we was robbed. 

Onward!  

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