When Wrexham last visited the New Meadow nearly 16 years ago, our faint-hearted players arrived waving a big white flag that screamed: “We surrender! Show us mercy! We don’t want to fight!”
Shrewsbury, of course, had absolutely no interest in taking pity on their downtrodden neighbours and promptly inflicted the coup de grace on our 87-year-old Football League membership with glee. It wasn’t so much a quick mercy kill but a death by a thousand cuts: A long, gruelling 3-0 defeat that left Pat’s Coaches solemnly carrying us back over the border in a stretcher, covered by a thin sheet to hide the fatal injuries - an exit so sombre it could have been soundtracked by a bugle call.
There was no coming back for us after that. Wrexham were dead and buried.
It was embarrassing, frankly. And it didn’t seem like it was possible to witness a more humiliating display of desperate flag-waving in Shropshire ever again. Yet, last Sunday, Shrewsbury managed it.
Oof, it was bad. And it had started so brightly for them, too.
Locals excitedly parked their tractors in Betton Strange, slipped on their Stone Island wellies, marched through the mud singing anti-Wrexham songs, and when they saw the Red Wall forming in front of them, they decided the moment was right: It was time to show Wrexham what they were truly up against.
A tangle of arms snatched at a sheet of blue and amber fabric and up it went: Proudly unfurled for the away fans to see.
Unfortunately, they got it all wrong. Shrews fans had hoisted the flag backwards - so all Reds fans could read was “POLAS”. Other banners in the ground had been hung correctly - but given they featured snort-inducing phrases like “Turn it up to 11” and “Breathe on ‘em Salop”, they probably should have flipped these the other way around, too.
That sloppiness was a sign of things to come.
Shrewsbury - save for a brief dalliance with the promotion picture in 2018 - have remained moored in the lower reaches of League One for yonks, as if they’ve been waiting for us to catch up with them so they could go toe-to-toe with their abhorred foes once again. The magic of the FA Cup brought us together sooner than anyone might have thought. Too soon, as it happened. Salop weren’t ready for their big day and they completely fluffed their lines: Two or three times from less than five yards.
Everything went wrong, and their wastefulness was greeted with the same degree of compassion they had shown us when we were down on our knees back in 2008.
Salop fans had to sit through a defeat that included a deflected goal, a fist-pumping tribal roar from Pele Mullin, a cheeky wink in a post-match interview from Twinkle-Toes Elliott Lee, and relentless, gobby reminders they were going out of the cup from winger James McClean. There were so many rub-it-in-in-your-face moments, you almost felt sorry for them. But then you remember 2008. And you realise it was our turn to revel in the schadenfreude. Even the Wrexham admin on social media couldn’t resist getting involved - a tweet which has generated another furious debate on whether Wrexham AFC are a club you ought to back or berate.
All that digital sabre-rattling will die down in a few days. But the history books will remain unchanged forever. Shrewsbury 0-1 Wrexham. What a day.
The fourth round always comes with the same wishlist each year: A very big cheese, please, or a minnow at home. And on Monday evening we discovered we had received neither. But it doesn’t matter. It’ll be big and it’ll be loud and it’ll be another mighty day out for the Red Army.
We’re not waving the white flag at anyone, anymore. That’s for sure.
Off to Ewood Park it is.
UTST.
Superb as always mate. Can't wait to play Polas next year