Daft Punk and home videos
Forget Friday. It's time to Lose Yourself To Dance and watch that old Mickey T tape. It's FA Cup weekend.
Harder, better, faster, stronger
Getting a pint in the Tech End. Reaching the Ticketmaster checkout. Packing for Wembley.
Being a Red does have its challenges and chores. But perhaps the biggest of the lot is the 1.30pm Transport for Wales Saturday train to Wrexham General: A service which functions as the poster boy for Britain’s crippled public transport system.
Every weekend, an insufficient pair of tardy carriages waddle across the border with more passengers than they can carry - haphazardly lurching the overstuffed occupants against the steamy windows en route.
It’s a grim old journey. But the silver lining is that you do end up in close proximity to some colourful characters.
As last weekend’s train chugged away from Chester towards Y Cae Ras, a middle-aged man dressed in a Detroit hoodie gurgling an afternoon Brewdog began huffing and smirking at snippets of our conversation, eventually realising we were Reds.
“You’ve got Americans with you now!” he suddenly blurted out.
It turned out that this chap - Mr. Michigan - was actually braving a trip on UK rail for a Wrexham matchday - even though he didn’t have a ticket.
“I just wanna hang around in Wrexham and check it all out,” he explained.
“I was in The Turf last night, and I went to Conwy Castle this morning. I really like this country.”
Every week seems to bring a new transatlantic cousin that we didn’t know we had across the pond to Cymru. America and Wales’ Odd Couple camaraderie just keeps blossoming. We’re such good pals now, in fact, that we couldn’t even bring ourselves to beat one another on the global stage in Qatar - with our respective national sides settling for a point apiece instead.
With a rambunctious, McDonald’s-loving superpower firmly in our corner, Wrexham are surely the best-known non-league team anywhere in the world. But are we actually the biggest? A mischief of Magpies circling just below us might beg to differ.
Sure, we’re the third oldest professional football club in the world - but Notts County are the oldest of all.
Crowd-wise, Notts have the edge, too. Whilst little old Wrexham could only manage a measly 10,071 crowd for Aldershot - about as much as we will ever get until an exorcist is brought in to banish the demons from the haunted Kop - Notts County were busy smashing the non-league attendance record: Coaxing 16,000 poor souls into Meadow Lane with discount tickets for a goalless stalemate against a group of bewildered lads from Somerset treading water above the drop zone.
Notts County 0-0 Yeovil. Not even the chirpy staff in the nearby Hooters would have found anything to smile about after that one.
Frame it how you like - there’s always going to be a Daft Punk-style debate between The Reds and The Pies about who’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, or who’s better known Around The World. What matters most is who finishes top of the pile come May - and our 2-0 triumph over Hampshire Squaddies has put us in pole position (at least for now).
As County failed to put on a show for their whopping audience, Pele was busy lighting up the dancefloor in Wales by merrily gliding down the wing with the kind of panache that would have kept fellow footy star Tony Adams on Strictly Come Dancing for an extra week.
JJ bundled in a second - and that was that. 2-0 to the Reds.
The Shots couldn’t find much space to live up to their nickname and failed to truly trouble Mark Howard - who could have propped up a deckchair on the goal-line and left a groove in the seat. Our number one appeared to create his own little bit of excitement when he tossed the ball straight to an opposite player - but any danger was quickly snuffed out, leaving Howard to return to his hypothetical lounger to mentally plan the next episode of his podcast.
It all felt quite routine. Yet the celebrations post-match mirrored a massive victory.
World Cup fever is subsiding somewhat after Friday’s disaster, but every Wrexham matchday is still generating genuine delirium. Evenings in The Turf feature Wayne leaning back against his bar with arms folded, smirking at the sight of jumping bodies, red faces and sloshing glasses, whilst puffer jacket-padded supporters pack into Hill Street and The Parish to belt renditions of “We’ve got Mullin”, win, lose or draw.
The good vibes even suffused North Wales Police last weekend: A troublesome, wobbly away fan on Mold Road tried his best to rattle the old bill with insults post-game, but the boys in blue responded to the foul-mouthed taunts with a surprisingly mellow: “Well, that’s not very nice, is it?”
The only time the atmosphere truly sours on matchdays is when any fan dares to utter “This is our ye…” - before being promptly cut off with a wagging finger for fear of jinxing it all.
You can’t say it out loud. But we’re all thinking the same thing.
At least, we were until this weekend. The title-winning fantasy montage replaying on a loop in our minds is beginning to buzz and crackle - with crisp, daydreamed HD visions of Pele Mullin on a parade bus being temporarily taped over and replaced with fuzzy footage of Mickey Thomas’ free-kick on VHS.
It’s FA Cup time again. And this time our visitors are Farnborough FC.
Wrexham are not exactly Arsenal - whom Boro famously drew in this competition in 2003 - but their fans still seem pretty amped at the prospect of venturing up to North Wales; roaring with glee when our numbers were paired together.
"If you go to a place like Wrexham, you can be 3-0 down in the blink of an eye, without them even trying, so you’ve got to have a go," commented Boro boss Spencer Day in anticipation of the tie.
Sounds like they’re coming to play. And they might as well. The reward could be big.
The third round draw of the FA Cup is like being thrown into the same office Secret Santa as company directors who have money to burn. There’s always the chance you could end up with something much more exciting than a shower/bath combo kit from Boots… (the footballing equivalent of Forest Green away).
But all the finger-crossing for good prizes comes later. We’ve got to actually earn our spot first.