'You sound petrified of Wrexham'
Our Red Hollywood limo has turned a corner onto a street filled with both waving flags and flinging shit. Put your belts on - it's getting intense out there.
First impressions
Seven seconds.
That’s how long it takes for human beings to form an opinion.
Apparently, within this tiny timeframe, we figure out everything we need to know about a particular person, place, or object to confidently develop a viewpoint.
There may be something in this theory.
From the moment Gary Lineker and his BBC chums began gazing up at an unmasked Deadpool with wide eyes and besotted glee last Sunday evening, the football world was posting its reactions.
In front of an audience of millions, Reynolds doubled down on his commitment to the Red mission as a “multi-decade” project, and the online response was instant. Some of it gushing adoration. The rest, toxic bile.
Hollywood club or Horrible club? All it took was about seven seconds for people to pick their side.
Social media was utterly swamped with sweet and sour sentiments about Wrexham AFC just in time for our gigantic FA Cup fourth round match with Sheffield United. But around 10,000 of us were insulated from the digital debate inside a matchday bubble so bouncy it felt like the Tech End was wobbling on its axis.
This was a crowd far too consumed by the occasion to make a judgement after second seconds.
After seven minutes, though, things had changed.
Many of us suddenly had a hypothesis for the night ahead. And it wasn’t good.
The scenario was as follows: The non-league underdogs had lost one defender - with another centre-back signalling he also needed to come off - and trailed 1-0 to opponents who sat more than 70 league places higher.
Destination: Disaster.
Lady Luck was seemingly uninterested in visiting North Wales for the weekend. And on paper, the opposition seemed simply too good.
Working down the Sheff Utd squad list felt like wading through the crowd at an old friend’s wedding: A sea of familiar faces, even if we did need to rack our brains a bit to remember some of the names.
There was Rhian Brewster - the England U21 international who popped up for Liverpool a couple of times. And there was Oliver Norwood and John Egan - who both seem to have been plying their trade in the top half of UK football since time immemorial.
And, of course, there was Oli McBurnie: The striker who once played under Parky at Bradford and was loaned out twice to FC Flintshire Seals in 2015. It’s true that the Blues over the border get excited about the most underwhelming of footballers and will happily tuck any player into a Tesco Kit who has the ability to thump the ball like Peter Kay on those old John Smith’s adverts. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and their description of McBurnie as a “talent to watch” has since been justified.
Of course, it was Sod’s Law that McBurnie would strike first against us, bundling in a corner after 90 seconds.
1-0 Sheffield. It could only get worse.
Or could it? The game settled down, the time ticked away, and somehow Wrexham were still in it. Then, we were the better team. Then, we had a man advantage. Then, we were 3-2 up in stoppage time - with Red shirts pin-balling around the ground as Pele put us ahead with mere minutes to go.
But Sheff Utd still survived.
The aforementioned familiar names all played their parts. Brewster’s contribution was limited to consoling a red-carded team-mate, spitting on the floor, and threatening the Paddock, but Norwood and Egan both grabbed goals. The Blades captain got so excited by his equaliser, in fact, that he tried to perform a double “shhhh/I can’t hear you!” celebration and ended up looking like a magician who’d cocked up a Disappearing Pencil Trick and got the stationery stuck somewhere in his Eustachian tube.
Sheff Utd’s followers - perhaps a little frightened at the prospect of being dumped out the famous old trophy by a non-league team - had stood gawping in anxious silence for long stretches of the game, and many of the 1,100 had already departed for the Peak District before Egan’s equaliser. The remaining Blades were suddenly roused into a frenzy by a 95th minute goal to secure a replay: Pockets of figures hopping away in a whack-a-mole-style scene that felt reminiscent of those fragmented Spurs fans celebrating an unlikely comeback at the Emirates in 2008.
And speaking of Spurs… Quite the draw on Monday, wasn’t it? Kudos must be paid towards Alex Scott and Jermaine Jenas for picking out a tie so exciting it almost managed to brighten up an episode of The One Show.
Of course, that mouth-watering Wrexham vs Tottenham game may never actually happen. Beating Sheffield in a rematch on their own turf three days after a league game at Alty is going to be a huge ask (even if we do have a new debutant ready to plug the gaping hole in our back line).
Perhaps we’ll go to Bramall Lane and get a bit of luck. Perhaps we’ll get pummelled. It’ll either be the glorious, feel-good, giant-killing tale the world deserves to see. Or it’ll be a dose of schadenfreude for the new villains of football.
You’ve already made your mind up about what we deserve, haven’t you?
Wrexham’s current reputation in national football was perhaps best summarised in a FiveLive interaction on Sunday evening, in which a Notts County fan - who seemed particularly thick-skulled even for a night-time football phone-in contributor - declared Wrexham couldn’t win a match without a Ben Tozer throw.
On and on and on he droned, before he was eventually cut off by the host.
“You sound like you’re absolutely petrified of Wrexham,” stated the presenter.
Seems like we’ve come a long way since the days where our manager felt compelled to plaster the tunnel in fire wallpaper to give Y Cae Ras an intimidating edge.
Our Red Hollywood limo has turned a corner now onto a busier street - one filled with waving flags and flinging shit aplenty.
In all likelihood, there’s plenty more of that to come.
But even if the engine failed and the journey sputtered to a halt right here, right now, it was already worth it…