Getting the last word in
Football is often described as a game of fine margins. But that doesn’t really do justice to the fate that befell poor old Coventry City on Sunday afternoon.
If Haji Wright had just clipped his toenails before the fixture at Wembley on the weekend, it would be the Sky Blues playing in the FA Cup final against Man City next month.
But VAR - the most problematic tech invention since Skynet and one that’s been sullying football’s history books since its implementation - struck again. Inevitably.
Ok, yes. We have to move with the times. We couldn’t continue to stand on crumbling terraces watching grown men two-foot one another across frozen pitches forever. Things had to evolve. And the reinvention of football hasn’t all been bad. More substitutions and goal-line Hawk-Eye have been smart and welcome additions designed to serve a faster, fitter breed of athletes. But without trying to sound like the flat-cap wearing whinger in the pub who wears the same smelly coat every single week, it does feel like some laws are just eking excitement out of the sport like a well-juiced lemon.
VAR is one. But the latest big squeeze by the FA has squashed replays out of their once-proud domestic cup competition - guaranteeing that Premier League clubs get to put their feet up more often during a regular season, whilst the rest of us are starved of opportunities to play some of the most lucrative and memorable matches we’ll ever experience.
The response has been damning and deafening. But not loud enough from where we’re sitting. Amid all the uproar, Wrexham AFC have kept schtum.
The regime entrusted by RR McReynolds to steer us down Hollywood Boulevard has done so much right. I mean, back to back promotions, for God’s sake. Things have never been better for most of us.
But if we’re happy to boast about our brilliant set-up and milk the success, we also have to be honest enough with ourselves to admit when the club has dropped a clanger.
Watching Wrexham AFC ignore the FA’s appalling decision - and spending the week snooping through CCTV footage of the promotion party to see how many banning orders they could hand out instead - has been grim. If we ever doubted the WST still had a role to play in the evolution of Wrexham AFC - and many of us did - then their efforts in speaking up on the matter and echoing the fans’ voice when the club would not shows it still holds value as an organisation.
The whole FA Cup / banning order episode has been a slightly unsavoury end to what has been another mouth-watering season. But fortunately, there’s still been plenty of tasty stuff to take in on the field.
Even though Wrexham’s top brass refused to denounce the FA’s most confusing since appointing Steve McClaren as England manager, the players did at least make a statement themselves with a 3-0 thumping at Crewe last weekend.
Smashing some League Two play-off members after a week of celebrations post-promotion is mighty impressive whichever way you spin it, and now we move on to Stockport - a dead rubber which our Quasi-Mancunian friends have spent the past week attempting to turn into a cup final.
County midfielder Antoni Sarcevic and his pals have been spotted parading around on Magic Buses belting out Stockport County’s club anthem “Fuck You Wrexham” at top volume with pie-eyed glee, and whilst it might seem a tad excessive trying to reinvigorate a rivalry which they have clearly already “won” - they beat us 5-0 this season and pipped us to the title - you have to give the Hatters kudos for injecting a bit of adrenaline into what could easily have amounted to a routine kickabout.
It’s incredible to think this was once being billed as the biggie of the year, and now what we’ve got effectively amounts to a friendly - but probably without the usual niceties.
We’re both up and all is well. But it’d feel good for us to beat them and get the last word in. No matter what the occasion, you can always play for pride and integrity.
Those values are important to people in Wrexham. That’s worth remembering. Even as things change around us.