Just existing to just assisting
Who’s the least popular person on Wearside, do you reckon?
Our money’s on Alan Shearer. But Phil Parkinson must be a close second.
Despite being chased out of Mackem Land with pitchforks and torches way back in 2020 for his insipid reign as Sunderland gaffer, Parky is still catching flack from The Black Cats. Only last month, he made a decision that left them choking on their stottie cakes.
Bringing left-back Callum McFadzean to The Racecourse was apparently all the confirmation Sunderland fans needed that Parky doesn’t have a scooby what he’s doing.
McFadzean’s own stint at the Stadium of Light in 2020/21 was also an unhappy one, with some Mackems claiming he was among the worst players to pull on a red and white shirt.
One commented: “Usually you can say at least one positive about a player i.e. works hard, runs, good def, good attack but McFadzean was just...existing.”
These scathing reviews set teeth on edge in Wrexham, and it cranked up the pressure ahead of McFadzean’s first appearance, with the defender thrown into the starting lineup for last Saturday’s FA Trophy tie against Boreham Wood in front of a record home crowd. Well, it was a record-breaker for the We-Love-It-Only-When-We-Win-It Cup. But a record is a record. And 3,444 is still a bigger attendance than you’d find most weeks at 18 National League or 10 League Two stadiums.
The opening minutes didn’t bode well. McFadzean headed the ball into no-man’s land in a good attacking position, and then slipped and tumbled to the ground as Rob Lainton attempted a pass from a goal-kick. But just as fans were about to tweet McFadzean’s Wrexham career into oblivion before it had even begun, he pinged over a delicious cross for Ollie Palmer to put us 1-0 up, before beautifully playing in Jordan Davies who rifled one into the top corner.
Two assists and a Man of the Match award on his first game. Not bad for the worst player in Sunderland. Perhaps McFadzean will find himself more at home in North Wales than North East England.
In the final minute of the match, Aaron Hayden’s brick-trampoline forehead put the icing on the cake for 3-0 - setting up a tasty quarter-final at Meadow Lane next month.
We haven’t beaten Notts County for 14 years, but some Reds have already booked rooms at the Wembley Ibis. That confidence might seem misplaced, but anyone watching back our recent matches with the Magpies would admit we were desperately unfortunate to take just one point.
It feels like we’re due.
If you can’t be good, don’t be bad
Gordon Hill isn’t the first man to find fame in middle age after his booze-fuelled adventures were filmed at a football match (alright, Captain?). But almost a decade on from the day he was snapped squaring up to opposition fans - armed with a watery lager and half-lit rollie - the internet’s favourite football hooligan is - extraordinarily - still the face of Wealdstone FC, despite the fact the club is actually enjoying its best success on the pitch for three decades.
The Stones have won two promotions since The Raider first wobbled onto YouTube, but the team’s on-field achievements have always come second to Hill - with the world seemingly far more interested in how he scored a top ten single in the UK music charts or the time he was dragged in handcuffs through the streets of Barcelona for a stag do.
Still, despite his sloshy bravado, it turns out The Raider is in fact among the tamest of the Wealdstone toughs. Last weekend, around 800 Stones went to Barnet for the non-league North London derby and a few of them absolutely desecrated the place - ripping doors, smashing seats, pulling down ceiling tiles, and plugging the bogs with toilet roll.
Barnet’s statement condemning the damage was unintentionally undermined by use of the ridiculous sentence “a bottle and two other pieces of plastic [were] thrown at Mr. Bumble”, which one can only assume was a reference to the club’s bee mascot and not an unfortunate fan named after the character in Oliver Twist.
Entering Barnet’s stadium is akin to going through airport security, too, so the fact Wealdstone fans managed to cause quite so much chaos in an away end that’s often teeming with bouncers is even more alarming.
An investigation has been launched to catch the culprits, but in the meantime it sounds like these dullards would be better served by ditching their Raider impersonations and taking lead from Wrexham’s own social media sensation Bootlegger instead; borrowing The Captain’s Guide to Life and turning to the page that says: “If you can’t be good, don’t be bad, baby.”
With Wealdstone Away on the schedule this weekend, Wrexham head to Ruislip hoping to avoid three things:
A waterlogged pitch
Being bottled by those wannabe Raiders
A draw or a defeat
We’re still seeking a first ever win at Grosvenor Vale and this is the time to get it. Only long fingernails are keeping us in that final play-off spot, and despite Wealdstone’s little uptick in form, they’re the kind of side we simply have to be beating.
No doubt Mr Bumble will be rooting for us. And a certain Mr Reynolds might be there cheering us on, too…
A war without commanders
If by some small miracle the Wealdstone game goes ahead, we win, and we all get out alive, Wrexham fans will have about 72 hours to mentally prepare for another big old ding-dong at Chesterfield.
It’s usually a cheek-puffingly intense affair this one, but when The Spireites came to visit The Racecourse in October, a lot of Wrexham fans were busy getting overexcited by the presence of one particular player.
Right across the stadium, supporters were nudging their neighbours and going: “There! Him! You see him? There. That Chesterfield number 19! He’s good, he is! We need to watch out for him. Good player. Very good player. I’d have him!”
Alongside his status as the National League’s top scorer, Kabongo Tshimanga is also the proud owner of the Most Talked-About Player in Wrexham award, despite the fact he plies his trade for one of our title rivals.
The Congolese striker has had Welsh tongues wagging from day one of this campaign, and many supporters seemed genuinely giddy to see him in the flesh when Chesterfield came to town in autumn. The Spireites took the game by the scruff of the neck and when they were handed a penalty in the first half, everyone knew who was going to take it. What nobody expected is for Tshimanga to miss, and that his headlines would be stolen by our own star striker Pele Mullin - whose stonking late header salvaged a crucial point.
Nonetheless, that rough night in North Wales did nothing to dilute the local love for Tshimanga - with Transatlantic Translator Humphrey Ker alluding on a recent podcast that even Rob McElhenney was praying for the striker’s signature in January. Others simply hoped a Championship team would bulldoze into the Chesterfield boardroom with an offer that was too big to refuse and take him away from the National League forever.
The striker stayed in Derbyshire in the end - but was dealt the cruellest of blows on Saturday when he was stretchered off with a nasty injury.
It means there’ll be no Tshimanga in the lineup when Wrexham travel to Chesterfield on Tuesday, and with Mullin seemingly suspended for eternity, the game has turned into the most unusual of contests: A war without commanders.
Still, it’s a chance for new heroes to reveal themselves.
The trial of Lee Tomlin
Speaking of heroes, remember Brian Little? The white-haired knight who rode into Wales in 2007 to lead us to glory in the fight of our lives against relegation to non-league?
What a fantasy that turned out to be.
Little was unable to rally the troops and we were waggling the white flag with games to spare. Attendances tumbled and less than 3,000 fans bothered to come out to watch Little’s last match, which was a dreadful evening for almost everyone concerned. Except for Lee Tomlin.
The young midfielder completely ran the show that night - setting up two goals for Rushden & Diamonds as they pasted us 3-0 on our own patch and left Wrexham fans booing themselves to sleep.
“[If] people don't want me I've no intention of making their lives a misery,” burbled a fatalistic Little after the game, mentally planning his escape route from Wrexham General before he’d even finished the interview.
That was the end for Little but only the beginning for Tomlin - whose talent caught the eye of Championship scouts and saw him enjoy spells at Peterborough, Middlesbrough, Bristol City and Cardiff. He was even on the cusp of a move to Celtic at one point - which ultimately fell through and led to him trashing an office in frustration.
By some quirk of fate, the talented Tomlin - that very same player who tore us limb from limb - came on trial with Wrexham this week. But what appeared to be great news on the surface came with a few caveats.
First, Tomlin’s star showing at The Racecourse was for a club that’s been extinct for more than a decade. Second, at the ripe old age of 33 he’s managed less than six full first-team games in the past two years. And third, we tried a similar ‘seasoned pro’ experiment with Dave Jones earlier in the season which - barring an absolute thunderbastard at Solihull on opening day - hasn’t exactly proven a dependable option.
Tomlin played a role in dethroning a Wrexham manager back in 2008. And there was hope that if he could find a way to roll back the years, he might just end up saving another one in 2022.
Sadly, by Wednesday, the deal looked dead.
“The Lee Tomlin deal hasn't progressed and is unlikely to,” Parky stated.
The rumour going around is that they can’t agree on wages, which is a shame.
Wrexham fans who saw the young Tomlin play at The Racecourse that time might have been inclined to pay him all the money in the world…
Scraps from the fryer…
Did someone scream ‘goal’?
“Please come out in your numbers,” manager Luke Garrard begged Boreham Wood supporters ahead of their match against Altrincham this week.
“We need you there as a 12th man, for sure.”
Despite the team’s fine league form and FA Cup triumphs, Boreham Wood fans remain a passive bunch. This season, their average attendance is 928. That’s the second-lowest in the league and just six higher than Dover Athletic: A team so bad they’re still on minus points in February.
But if anyone could light a fire beneath Wood’s apathetic fanbase, it was Garrard: The local lad who steered the club to within an inch of the Football League in 2018 (sadly beaten in the play-off final by the Plastic Scousers).
And sure enough, his rousing speech worked a treat. 1,413 turned up for the Wood v Alty match - the fourth highest attendance at Meadow Park all season. The home team even won 2-0. But it still didn’t quite pan out how the gaffer might have wanted.
As a club, Wood aren’t much older than Garrard himself, and it seems their fans still haven’t quite mastered the art of celebrating a goal just yet. Cameras pointed at the home terrace showed supporters reacting to Kane Smith’s opener with all the enthusiasm of someone winning £1 on a £1 scratch card. The club’s social media team then inexplicably posted footage of the wet flannel cheers with the cringeworthy caption: “Did someone scream ‘goal’?”
“Liquidate Boreham Wood” came the disgusted reply from Footy Limbs - a Twitter account dedicated to rating the loudest and most raucous celebrations on the terraces.
Boreham Wood have since deleted the footage out of embarrassment.
Did someone scream ‘own goal’?
Saviour to scapegoat: Is there a way back for Kwame?
It’s easy to forget that Kwame Thomas was being talked about as Wrexham’s key man just a few short months ago.
Fans howled with frustration when we lost the striker to a ruptured achilles in April 2021. And now they are reacting in exactly the same way whenever they see Kwame warming up on the touchline.
So, what the hell has happened?
Kwame’s season-ending injury was sour for so many reasons. Not only did it mess with our momentum and force a change of game plan, it also came at the worst moment, ultimately derailing the team’s final push for the play-offs.
“It's massive. It is unfortunate, it's an accident and it's happened,” said then-manager Dean Keates, finding absolutely no way to sugarcoat it.
At one stage, it was even speculated that Kwame might never play again.
So, it was a delight to see his name reappear on the team sheet after Christmas, with our one-time top scorer taking to the field for his first match in nine months at Altrincham.
Sadly, since then, it has not been the joyous reunion with fans Kwame was hoping for.
In six matches, he’s managed just 91 minutes, mostly off the bench. There have been flashes of the old Kwame - he held up the ball superbly against Grimsby despite being walloped in the face by their defenders - but most of his fleeting cameos have fallen way short of what supporters expect.
Missed headers. Poor decision-making. Misguided runs. And just being generally off the pace. They’re all classic signs of a player who’s still struggling to get back to full fitness.
It’s true that some players throw in the towel when they’ve gotten a raw deal, and others will stop performing after the slightest criticism.
But Kwame definitely isn’t one of those. Getting behind him is the answer, because he may still have a lot more to offer yet.
Giant-Killing week
Football fans are probably sick of hearing about Wrexham these days. But to be frank, that’s nothing new.
Every FA Cup weekend, TV viewers are asked to sit through the same clip of a long-haired Mickey Thomas doing his little run-up on a muddy Racecourse field and whomping the ball into the top corner.
The BBC has a habit of replaying that free-kick over and over and over again. It’s one of the most famous goals in cup history and anyone halfway interested in football comes across it eventually. But whilst the Arsenal win in 1992 remains our best-known cup scalp, it’s just a single chapter in a long history of David v Goliath stories featuring Wrexham AFC (see Richard Partington’s ‘The Giant-Killers’ book for proof).
This week marks the anniversary of two particularly tasty triumphs.
The first is the 3-1 FA Cup win at Birmingham City in 1997: A stunning fifth-round upset that saw us battle back from a Steve Bruce opener to progress to the quarter-final - which by contrast is a game that nobody in Wrexham is permitted to speak of.
Secondly, it’s been 17 years since our gloriously entertaining 5-3 LDV Vans Northern Final First Leg victory at Oldham’s Boundary Park in 2005 where Juan Ugarte - the Spaniard who stunk of goals - scored yet another hat-trick. A 1-0 victory in the Second Leg booked our spot at the Millennium Stadium to play Southend United in the final.
And we all know how that one finished.