A cure for cup fever
There’s still no vaccine for the FA Cup bug. But this Takeaway Tournament strain isn’t infecting us in quite the same way…
Not all trophies are created equal…
In about seven weeks’ time, you’ll be huddled around the Christmas tree and somebody - probably your nan, a distant second cousin, or your sister’s new fella who’s on his eighth tin of Foster’s of the day at 2pm - will hand you a misguided gift, like a Wroxham or Hexham FC mug, and you’ll have to feign a smile and say “thanks”.
This present wasn’t what you wanted, but the polite thing to do is just accept it and crack on.
That’s kind of how this week’s fixture against Port Vale feels. It’s still a gift - any game of football watching the mighty Reds is something to appreciate - so we should be grateful. But it wasn’t really the thing we were after, in all honesty.
The Football League Trophy - aka The Takeaway Cup With Premier League Toppings - is nobody’s favourite. It’s the Toffee Penny in the box of Quality Street. Nonetheless, it’s worth remembering that before we got these handsome Hollywood dentures fitted, we actually had some very happy times chewing our way through this tournament. The 2005 edition is a particularly sweet memory, as our Reds lifted the cup in the Welsh capital with a young lad called Ben Foster putting in a faultless display between the sticks (whatever happened to him?).
That cup run to the Millennium Stadium was also a welcome distraction at the time - offering respite from our perils in the league and off the pitch. Wrexham AFC was so bruised and battered back then - destined for relegation and administration - but a marvellous slice of cup magic in the LDV Vans Trophy (as it was known) was a way to escape all that, if only for a moment.
Ugarte’s glancing header. Fergie’s somersault. A 20,000-strong Red wall bouncing to Status Quo. Wrexham 2-0 Southend. It was a wonderful day out that many of us will never forget.
But from the moment we began trekking back north from Cardiff, reality reared its ugly head. A Southend-supporting motorist sped past our coach on the motorway and waved £20 notes at the windshield as a cruel reminder that despite our shiny new cup, we were still financially buggered (a gesture which hasn’t aged well given their current predicament). And everything went downhill for us for a long time after that.
But we still have a club - a bloody big one, actually - and we should revel in the fact that we can watch our team turn out at Y Cae Ras at all, given everything that went on in the mid-noughties.
Even still, it’s hard to get wildly excited about this Port Vale game. The tournament’s latest guise - a group stage featuring U21 teams from PL clubs - is so widely abhorred that some fans refuse to even attend on principle. Wrexham home tickets - which are usually about as easy to find as hen’s teeth - are actually available. So, this could be a rare chance to bring along your work mate who watched the documentary and has been banging on about wanting to go see Wayne in The Turf ever since.
But that’s about it really in terms of appeal. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll all sit up and take a bit more notice should we reach the later rounds.
Whilst the Takeaway Tournament isn’t in danger of causing hysteria in Wrexham, FA Cup fever is certainly infecting the town once again.
Our tie at Mansfield last weekend was billed as a big one - and boy, did we turn up.
Everyone knew Wrexham were pretty good at footy, but what did come as a bit of a surprise was our players’ swimming talent, with Parky’s pool divers splashing their way to victory at a swampy Field Mill to book our spot in the second round.
It’s a good thing we’ve got some aquanauts on staff actually, because we’re up against a club who call themselves the “Gills” next. That’s short for Gillingham, but it’s also an apt nickname for a club who play their games so far south they may live as amphibians in the English Channel for all we know.
Indeed, Gillingham are something of an exotic entity to us. They’re 223 miles away and we haven’t played them in the league for 23 years, so large swathes of the Red Army will either know nothing, or have forgotten everything there is to remember, about them.
What we know for sure is that Gillingham are having an ok season, but some of their supporters are sadly creating all the wrong kinds of headlines as being a troublesome, unsavoury bunch. Gills have been fined and banned for various incidents this year, whilst Notts County’s goalkeeper was pinged in the head by a vape during his visit to Priestfield Stadium in October. And all this has been happening when the Gills team are half-decent. Bizarre.
Perhaps the final few neanderthals have been removed from the Kent contingent and the real, good-natured Gills fans will arrive in Wales all sunshine and smiles on Saturday, which would be nice, although we don’t want to leave them feeling too upbeat come 4.45pm. A win would keep us in the top three and may even take us as high as second place.
Of course, that will be easier said than done. The Wrexham AFC treatment room is currently as packed, chaotic and bloody as Central Kebab at 2am on a Saturday evening - with Andy Cannon, Jordan Tunnicliffe, Ryan-Barnett-on-the-wing, Eoghan O’Connell and Steven Fletcher all out. Oh, Pele Mullin and James McClean are suspended, too…
We’re running a little low on resources right now, but Parky’s poetic profanity ought to be the tonic required to get a performance out of the lads, whatever the lineup might be.
Every game is a gift, folks. Let’s just hope this one isn’t a pair of socks.