Comeback Crisis and Supermarket Sweep
It all went wrong at Rodney Parade. Is a Big Shop the answer?
Boyle, browsing, and Blackburn
Red cards mean short bans for most players. They miss three matches, apologise to everyone, and promise it won’t happen again. That’s usually all there is to it.
But occasionally, the sight of a referee digging into his pocket can actually spell the beginning of the end.
Consider Lamine Sakho, for instance. When the silky Senegal international signed for Wrexham in September 2009 to form a French-speaking triumvirate with Heidi Taboubi and Mansour Assoumani (remember them?), he pledged to use his experience of prestige footy at Lens, Marseille and Leeds to enrich the club’s fortunes. Sadly, his standout Wrexham moment was anything but classy: Sakho rhino-charged a Hayes & Yeading player at Y Cae Ras and got an early bath in a 2-0 defeat - infuriating fans in the process. He never managed to get supporters back onside and was gone by March.
There’s also the case of Matty Crowell, who had nine days to prove himself worthy of a new deal at the end of 2007. He did that by executing a two-footed lunge in Rotherham and was given his marching orders - spending the second half on the touchline looking sadder than Eeyore on a hangover as furious Reds (who’d shelled out for a trek to Yorkshire three days before Christmas) screamed “wanker!” at him. Crowell’s hapless teammates were battered 3-0 that day. And he never played for us again.
And now, we have Will Boyle - who was part of an alarmingly leaky backline at the beginning of the season and returned to a league game lineup for the first time since September against Newport, lasting just 18 minutes before being dismissed.
Some Reds assume Boyle will follow in the footsteps of Sakho and Crowell for his ill-discipline (or bad luck, depending on how you interpret that tackle) and that his days in a Wrexham shirt are numbered.
Parky’s diplomatic comments on the matter provide no concrete answers. Whether Boyle will be back remains to be seen. Whether he was reckless or unfortunate is also up for debate. But in any case, he has a lot of work to do now to convince everyone he is worthy of another shot.
That red card left Wrexham facing an uphill battle to find a result at a newly renovated Rodney Parade - which was souped-up with a new stand ostensibly for the looming visit of Manchester United, but by some huge coincidence was also ready in time for our arrival (Newport’s sellout crowd don’t care about beating us all that much, though, honest). Given our see-saw away form in recent weeks, any hopes of a comeback proved futile.
Defeat in South Wales has set a few alarms ringing: Tinkling grocery shop doorbells rather than blaring home security systems, but alarms nonetheless. Now fans are channelling Dale Winton in their enthusiastic encouragement of Parky to complete a lucrative Supermarket Sweep before the transfer store closes. This will have to be a pretty rapid Big Shop, as the security guards manning the shutters on the League Two Transfer Outlet are beginning to check their watches, wondering when they can clock out for annual leave. But Parky never has been one to bounce over to the yellow sticker shelves; preferring to carefully peruse the premium aisles and select his ingredients carefully. He did once impulsively pick up a Canadian condiment which he never ended up using (see Charlie Trafford), but for the most part, he’s pretty reliable and resourceful when it comes to getting everything we need.
A pattern of away defeats can often feel like a crisis (particularly when one of them is to bloody Newport) but the salient facts are these: We are two points off top with more than half the season gone, and our insane home form will be enough to leave us in the mix come Spring, even if our record on the road remains rocky and a bulging bag of world-beating new players aren’t whizzed through the checkout tills this week.
Gut feeling is we’ll be sound. And hopefully Boyle will be, too. But we don’t have to worry about that right now. The league is taking a breather for Blackburn away next Monday and so can we. In these fixtures, form goes out the window. And half the town is coming along to watch the FA Cup work its magic.
Let Parky sort the shopping. Let Boyle get his head down and start again. All we need to do is make sure our voices are pitch-perfect and at full volume. This one will be a belter.
COYR.