Pre-match preamble
Everyone knows the Cinderella story of Wrexham, since Hollywood arrived in their town, and we have all witnessed the recent double bounce winning seasons from Town, so an interesting clash was expected.
Wrexham F.C. was founded in 1864, in the Turf Tavern, and is reportedly "the heart and soul of this Welsh community". From 2011, the club was run by Wrexham fans and locals, until 2020 saw the takeover by Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds. The club's popularity has soared since then, nationally and globally. Interestingly, though, they already had a namesake club in Uganda, established in 2009 by the Welsh charity Teams4U.
The club's official team mascot is 'Wrex the Dragon', who made his debut in 2001 at the Racecourse Ground. The mascot, along with the team nickname, the 'Red Dragons', was introduced in the 2001–02 season in order to help promote the club and 'Welshify' its image. This also allowed them to drop their previous nickname of 'The Robins' – a name already shared with three other clubs. (Source: Wikipedia).
On Derby Day, Chester are their Norwich, and metaphorically speaking, their meet-ups are reputed to be ferocious. Sound familiar?
During the week, feeling a little bereft of club football action and after some bad trolley steering, I struck up a conversation with Gavin in Sainsbury's because he was wearing an Ipswich badge.
Like me and many others, he was hoping that Keiffer Moore, who was on loan to us two seasons ago, would not score against us today, as he's been playing well this year for Wrexham. With a 'goals scored' total already into double figures, it would be an ironic touch after unlucky Cam Burgess inadvertently helped our cause last time out at Swansea.
Gavin is looking forward to going to Blackburn with his girlfriend on 2nd December, which will no doubt be a real hard-fought grudge match. Hats off to all our amazing away fans, it will not be an easy trip on a Tuesday night. I wished him a good journey, and I'm guessing his cute little daughter, Alicia, is a future Tractor girl in the making.
We will also be facing Nathan Broadhead, who left us last summer to take up a four-year contract at Wrexham.
First half
Slightly relieved to find Moore is not playing today, though I wish him a speedy recovery, and that Broadhead is on the bench. Don't want to tempt fate.
Town began positively and dominated play from the start with several forays at goal. Difficult to describe all the action in detail as there was no end product – suffice to say Town had three quarters of the possession and were pushing hard.
There were goal attempts from Walle Egeli, Philogene, Dara O'Shea and Azon, which went close, but all were either picked up by Okonkwo, driven wide or high, or ricocheted off a defender.
This was the story of the whole first half with neither side breaking through and Wrexham making less attempt to do so. Towards the end of the half Town's pace became slower, and I was reminded of the 'irresistible force meets an immovable object' paradox, which proves that one of those definitions is inherently wrong. This was unfortunately proving to be a perfect example.
The crowd was beginning to get restless, with Philogene's strong effort towards the near post the closest effort from the team before half-time. We all hoped the interval would provide some answers and advice in the dressing room for the deadlock.
Second half
On the return, Philogene was involved again within five minutes, when his long-range strike was picked up by Akpom, who ultimately failed to capitalise on the resulting chance.
Azon was often in the right place but not quite tall enough to head the balls lofted in, in an attempt to beat the defensive wall.
Walle Egeli then gathered the ball on the edge of the area, but sent his shot over the top right-hand corner of the goal.
Really pleased that Broadhead came off the bench to a round of applause from the Town fans – he was a good player for us in the promotion-chasing seasons and an all-round nice guy. A Wrexham fan on the train told me they were surprised at that reaction, so I explained to him that Town fans are just a really nice bunch of people. I actually do believe that is mostly true. Hah!
There was a call for a penalty in this half, for handball by a Wrexham player, but it was rightly or wrongly swiftly dismissed.
This half continued in much the same way, with a couple more half-chances and a fair bit of time-wasting from Wrexham. A Walle Egeli / Taylor combination saw another shot end in the arms of the keeper, and later another gathered from a low strike, again from Egeli.
Perhaps one of the best chances of the match fell to McAteer after a Davis free-kick towards the back post was moved on by Kipre, but the angle caused the shot to go wide.
Match ended…goalless.
Men of the match
There were few stand-out performances, though many did their job adequately, though perhaps not inspirationally. However, Walle Egeli, Azon, O'Shea and Kipre should, I feel, be commended on their work rate and tenacity.
Man of the Match should perhaps go to Arthur Okonkwo, the Wrexham goalkeeper.
Post-match pondering
Bit lost for words (rare). Lack of creativity on the pitch seems to be testing mine. That game was ours for the taking. But we didn't. Take it.
Several decent chances for us in front of the goal were directed straight at the keeper, so initially, I didn't believe he was really being tested, but as the game progressed, he was always in the right place to keep the slate clean for them. There were several scrappy "How the hell did that not go in moments" too, when sometimes luck is on your side – and quite often not.
Christian Walton had little to do, partly because our defence was reasonable, and Wrexham had maybe only two serious shots at goal. The only time he could have felt tested was near the end of the match when we gave away a couple of corners; the worst time; that time when one always dreads the last-minute winner, the stoppage time goal.
After the last couple of away games, I had expected a hard-fought game, but a probable win for us. We showed without a doubt as the better side, but in a frustrating scoreless draw, that wasn't much of a consolation.
Why? This seems to happen every time we come through an international break: is that in some way a contributing factor? Some queried the recycled nature of the team structure again. It is also happening more often at home games. Is the added pressure of expected performance levels by thousands too heavy? It is their job after all.
Of course, there is always, in all sports, that strange underdog influence that brings crazy adrenaline, often with a dash of unaccountable luck, allowing teams and players to win against those more skilful and experienced. But this wasn't one of those occasions. We were, and are, a much better team, but they kept us pegged back with a dogged defensive block. 'Parking the bus,' I believe it's called, and they made it work. Fortunately, however, they did not have any flashes of luck or strokes of genius to turn the game to their advantage.
So my pre-match hopeful assertion that our team 'Wrex their chance of taking home 3 points' was not to be.
Perhaps a fitting retribution for such a terrible pun.
