Here come the waterworks…
A splendid FA Cup splash one moment. A dirty, non-league mud bath the next. Ah, the life of a Red.
The great flood of January ‘23
There was a flood in the Chips residence last week.
It began with an innocent drip, drip, drip. But within seconds it morphed into an unstoppable stream - litres of water crashing over the tiles and turning the flat into a horrifying paddling pool.
Given this author possesses the kind of plumbing education that would struggle to fill the back of a postage stamp, a second wave of emotion soon followed - a perfect storm of frustration, humiliation and panic.
Now, it’s unclear whether Coventry City manager Mark Robins has ever had to contend with a flood in his own home, but he definitely knows what it feels like.
When little old Wrexham turned up at Robins’ gaff on Saturday evening, the backline of his Cov defence popped open, a stream of goals ensued, and an unrelenting, racket-inducing splash of Welsh song poured out from the stands onto the green field below.
The City gaffer was a perfect picture of frustration, humiliation and panic.
I know that look.
Of course, things seemed a little different from where we were standing. To us, this was great art being created before our very eyes.
Sam Dalby’s towering header after a cross from the right rekindled memories of Mark Carrington à la Stoke 2015 and the rapture that followed, before Elliot Lee, Tom O’Connor and Pele Mullin somehow put Wrexham 4-1 up at a Championship club and left Reds fans rubbing their eyes whenever they could catch a breath.
But no great flood lasts forever. And indeed, the tide did turn.
As Cov tightened their bolts and bagged a goal to plug the gap, the Red end suddenly feared this wet dream was over and reality was set to rear its ugly head.
Every occupant of the South Stand began biting their fingers, and then a third Cov goal went in - guaranteeing nails in North Wales would be uncharacteristically short the following week.
The home fans also recognised normality restoring itself. With about 10 minutes left on the clock, an abrupt, grating, pseudo-Brummie drawl was heard from the corner of the stadium.
“You’re not singing anymore!” came the taunt.
They might have big vocal chords in this part of the country, but Coventry fans also revealed themselves as good candidates for Rishi Sunak’s social experiment to keep Brits studying maths until aged 80 - as the massive stadium scoreboard showed their team were in fact still losing 3-4 to a non-league team.
They must be hard of hearing, too. Because the Welsh were indeed still full of song.
Oh, we were singing. Hymns and arias. Roaring our mighty Reds through seven inexplicable minutes of added time towards a magnificent, wonderful, excruciating, chest-puffing, remarkable FA Cup victory.
Any Red who was stood there on the night, watching it live on TV, or listening to it on the radio can count themselves lucky. This was one of the greatest FA Cup games that Wrexham have ever - and indeed will ever - participate in. Even with our record. A bonafide classic and a match for the ages.
The final whistle set off the waterworks in the away end, but these happy tears were just a drop in the bucket compared to the monsoon that descended on North Wales 72 hours later, as Wrexham’s return to league action coincided with a torrential downpour.
Nothing dampens the giddy magic of the cup quite as profoundly as a mud bath of a National League game against Bromley on a Tuesday evening, and much like our last tie with the Ravens - that final in the Big Smoke that never happened and we don’t talk about - it was a gruelling affair.
The Billionaire Bulldozer Ollie Palmer ploughed through the soggy turf with the kind of rugged power that the digger currently parked on the Kop would struggle to emulate, and Elliot Lee tried to tiptoe delicately through the mud like a teenager taking a shortcut home across Bellevue Park in freshly-bought white trainers from Eagles Meadow. But for long periods nothing worked. Not even the news that Notts County had fallen behind could spark the Reds’ imagination up top.
Still, out of all the attributes Phil Parkinson has brought to this Wrexham side, it’s a sense of stubbornness that has proven most valuable: A bull-headed refusal to lie down even when the legs have turned to jelly. It’s this trait that has won us the big points - even in games when we’ve been looking a day late and dollar short.
And so it proved again - super sub JJ bouncing off the bench to bang home a belter in biblical conditions for a 2-1 victory to make it 16 home wins on the bounce.
There’s an unmistakable sense of confidence oozing through Y Cae Ras in 2022/23 that makes every game played on the hallowed ground feel like an inevitable home win. Even when Bromley headed the ball across goal in added time and looked certain to equalise, it still stayed out.
And that was that. FA Cup sensation one moment. Non-league grind the next. The life of a Red.
This is the kind of form you tend to see from title winners, isn't it? But we shouldn’t go there. Not yet. There’s so much ground to make up this season, not even a Ben Tozer throw-in could cover it.
One day at a time. For now, we can just revel in a week that offered some much-needed therapy for an old cup nightmare, and a reminder that we can still be on the right side of knock-out tournament history after all.
Big breaths, everyone.
Oh, and we’re playing Altrincham in the FA Trophy on Friday - weather permitting - just in case anyone is interested. Our main fellas need and deserve a rest. So, Reds, if you’re heading up to the J Davidson Stadium for that one, bring your boots.