He’s not a serial killer - he’s a Wrexham supporter
The Reds have got a killer instinct this season - but not quite in the same way Brookside suggested...
The Reds Room
Mr Moore is acting strangely.
Making loud noises. Lugging a big suitcase up the stairs. Putting a padlock on his door.
It’s not the sort of behaviour you want to see from a new roommate so soon after handing over a set of keys and welcoming him indoors.
But this is exactly the predicament facing Brookside character Sinbad during a mysterious episode of the Scouse soap in 1998.
What is Mr Moore up to? Why is he carrying around a red-stained saw? Why is he asking where he can source some good-quality stain remover?
There’s only one solution, apparently. This guy is a murderer who is using Sinbad’s spare room to chop up his victims and dispose of the evidence.
Curiosity killed the cat, and all that, but Sinbad cannot help himself. He ventures up the stairs of his own house and breaks into his new lodger’s room.
It is indeed, soaked blood-red from top to bottom. But not in the way he might have feared.
Sitting in the rosy glow is a stack of paper sheets, and Sinbad plucks one from the pile: A football programme titled The Robins Review for a game against Bolton Wanderers.
“He’s not a serial killer!” Sinbad honks with realisation. “He’s a Wrexham supporter!”
Within seconds Mr Moore returns, catches Sinbad in the act, and is visibly hurt by the break-in.
“Usually when I move into somewhere new, I wait until I pack my collection. [But] I felt I was among kindred spirits,” he sighs.
“I thought you might be interested. I even thought about inviting you down to The Racecourse ground.”
This little clip has been doing the rounds again online recently. Originally it was beamed out to thousands of viewers on a November afternoon in the late nineties, making Mr Moore - a peculiar, obsessive man who collected Wrexham memorabilia and went to watch the reserves on weekday nights, even if he sounded more Lancastrian than Welsh - the most far-reaching televisual depiction of a Red.
Brookie - in a humorous little segment - poked fun at the fact Wrexham fans had to keep their true love hidden in the shadows, even if it meant being suspected as sinister for doing so.
How times have changed.
Fast-forward 24 years, and many of the town’s real 135,000 inhabitants are now getting screen-time in front of a global audience - with every one of us spending each Thursday evening watching Welcome to Wrexham clicking and jabbing our fingers at the monitor like Leo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
There’s so-and-so! Haha, go on lad… I know him, too! Is that me, there? Hang on, go back... Nah, just another guy in a Wrexham top… When’s Bootlegger coming on?
Through the prism of Disney +, the whole world is getting a more well-rounded portrait of what your average Reds fan looks like: Proud and loud and passionate. Sometimes a little drunk. Maybe, admittedly, a tad strange. The average supporter’s thirst for a Saturday afternoon round these parts does tend to teeter on the tightrope between sanity and madness. Many followers of other clubs would confess to having the same ailment.
Still, as unhealthy as this obsession with kicking around a bag of air can be, it never feels that way when your team has conjured up a killer instinct of their own.
The Dragons really are showing no mercy right now…
Digger Dagger Down
If there’s one mantra to live by as a Wrexham fan - it’s getting suitably tanked up before you go to Dagenham & Redbridge away.
Victoria Road Stadium sits in the insipid surroundings of East London suburbia where everyone sounds like Danny Dyer, with pre-game tourist attractions largely limited to vegetable stalls, offies, Dixie Chicken and a pub called The Pipe Major.
The only thing worse than the match itself - which often ends in whimpering defeat - is having to spend 90 minutes with “Digger Dagger” dancing in your peripheral vision from the hoisted flag at the opposite end of the ground.
Still, I’m sure this feeling is mutual. D&R fans probably don’t find too much to love about Wrexham when they trek up north for the reverse fixture - furrowing their brows in confusion at the Welsh twang pinging around The Turf before having to watch their beloved Digger Daggers lose or draw.
We don’t tend to do well at Dagenham (no wins there since 2018). And they don’t fare much better here (no wins since 2018 either). And neither side seemed prepared to shake up the status quo last Tuesday - with 17 Barking-mad souls braving the 420-mile round trip on a school night and being rewarded with a good hiding.
After about three voices of dissent in a crowd of nearly 10,000 did just enough to unsettle the minute’s silence and send mouths drooling at The Daily Mail and The Express - who feverishly pumped out sensational headlines to rile up their readers - Parky’s F***y F***ing F*******ers put on their best display of the season to pummel D&R 4-1.
Both the Pele Mullin and Ollie The Billionaire Bulldozer proved so mesmerisingly unplayable that the evening ended with a debate among the crowd as to whom the real Man of the Match was - with one fan claiming he saw Ollie rallying the audience to cheer his name when Pele’s rang out over the tannoy instead.
It’s a far cry from summer when the arguments are now all about who should be kept on the field, rather than who should be taken off.
Surviving a Dragon in a Shrimp costume
Southend United haven’t found a way to beat Wrexham for 32 years.
Granted, we haven’t bumped into each other on too many occasions during the past three decades - passing between divisions like ships in the night before our graceless nosedive into non-league.
The most notable recent encounter was, of course, lifting the LDV Vans trophy in our nation’s capital - a glorious day that concluded with playful glee as Sir Alex watched his son somersault in front of the Red Wall before taking mental note to get a contract out to our on-loan keeper Ben Foster ASAP.
Buoyed by that long-standing record and terrific form, 600+ Reds ventured past a maximum-capacity London and into Essex expecting another three points.
So, almost inevitably, Southend went in front and even more inevitably, it was one of our own players that did it for them.
The Dragon in a Shrimp costume Jake Hyde struck the ball home against his parent club - with the lino allowing him to revel in delight for several seconds before cruelly opting to stick his flag in the air.
Perhaps it was a sign of the way things are going for us right now that the goal was chalked off. Those calls never go your way when you’re scrapping around near the bottom.
And it got us a precious point. 0-0 it ended, and whilst this was not the most successful Shrimping trip we’ve ever had, we’ll take it.
Given that Hyde had come seasick-inducingly close to capsizing the Red Ship in the Mulberry Harbour, only for a dilly-dallying linesman’s decision to keep our boat upright, we’re happy to settle for a day of no big catches this time around.
On to Torquay next: Perfect timing given this week’s documentary ep is all about Rob and Ryan’s first trip to Y Cae Ras for the same fixture last season.
The Seagulls swooped down and pinched a point from us that day like a bird plucking a chip from an unsuspecting tourist’s polystyrene tray on Aberystwyth pier. But they’re not quite flying right yet this season, hovering just above the relegation zone after nine matches.
If we keep our wits about us this time, it might prove to be a much better day out.