Night Out
Dominic Shearer, devoted Bolton fan, goes to the big Racecourse pre-season friendly…
When the pre-season fixtures were announced a buzz of excitement could be felt around our Salford offices because I have the dubious ‘good fortune‘ to work with an exiled Wrexham fan and there, in black and white, it read Wednesday 28th July 7pm - the Wanderers away to Wrexham. There was no escape!
A quick McDonalds then myself and Danny - my fellow White - accompanied by the Robin-in- Exile, made the short trip down the M56 to the Racecourse. First impressions? Well, parking is the Big Issue at The Reebok £5.00 a throw - extortionate! But we need not have worried, for as at all away grounds those thoughtful DIYers at B&Q provide plentiful free parking within easy walking distance of the stadium. What of the Racecourse? The parallels with the Reebok’s development are too uncanny to bypass. Your team is consolidating, you’re looking to expand your fan base with redevelopments to take you into the 21st Century - so you play for too long in a half built Stadium - it’s what passes for sound club management!
Back to the story…a beautiful new stand, nowhere near ready for the start of the season to our right, no floodlights available. A hundred or so Bolton fans had made the trip to watch the Trotters versus The Robins. Pre-season heaven!? A good Wrexham crowd was treated to long spells of half decent football. Our very own reggae boy and Jamaican international Ricardo Gardner was extremely glad no cameras(?) were around to record the open-goal - donkey - easier to score than miss of this or any other millennium. The home team were never out of it though and produced some good flank play and, as with every other team in Christendom, found it fairly easy to prise open our too often lightweight central midfield. Luckily, you seem to lack firepower to give that final push and it was a superb volley from Per Frandsen that sealed it for us. It could have been by a few more but good goal keeping by Kevin ‘chubby’ Dearden kept it at 1-0 to the Whites.
I always enjoy the drive to North Wales(!!) and there were edible pasties and coffee at half-time so a good time was had by all. Good luck for the forthcoming season. Keep on rockin!
NB: Footnote to this generous contribution: Dominic made a guest appearance on the Red Passion page of ITV Teletext (p.478) on Thursday, 5th August 1999 as the subject of the story about the Bolton fan who was so looking forward to the pre-season friendly that he drove all the way to Wrexham two weeks in advance just to make sure he knew where the ground was!!!
Night Out
Cwmbran man Mark Sly goes to a very big soccer encounter involving his home-town club…
The amazing thing around my home-town after the draw was made was the complete lack of cup fever despite drawing one of the most popular and famous teams in Europe.
There are a few reasons for this lack of enthusiasm. No-one actually supports Cwmbran Town as the shocking LOW crowds show. Cwmbran is apparently the sixth biggest town in the Principality but the club averages around 150. The trouble is that the rugby fans support Pontypool or Newport and the soccer fans predominantly support Cardiff City with the others praying for a Newport County revival. The town also has hordes of Man U and Liverpool SKY/pub supporters who would break out into a cold sweat if they ever thought they might actually have to watch a game live in the flesh. The club did not help themselves by charging highly inflated prices for a game that was obviously going to be one-sided. Also the fact that the game had to be switched to Ninian Park for safety reasons which was out of the club’s control and was being shown live on BBC Wales affected home-town interest.
As I was driving to the ground I was amazed by Celtic’s following. The streets were littered with the green and white hooped supporters who genuinely seemed determined to enjoy the day out. I was thinking these are real supporters as they were prepared to take on an eight-hour journey on a Thursday night for a game against non-league, inferior opposition. Take the couple of lads I got talking to in the pub prior to the game. They had travelled down that day, were going to drive to Carmathen after the match to stay with a friend who was studying there and then had to drive back the next day as one was working the Friday night-shift. This is pure fanaticism which can only be admired. In the ground itself it was just a mass of green and white and Scottish accents with a smattering of Cwmbranians, with Celtic making up at least 90% of the 9,000 attendance.
As for the game itself it was totally predictable with a massive chasm in class between the two sides. From the moment Eyal Berkovic scored with a terrific volley after two minutes it was one-way traffic with Celtic rampant and playing some wonderfully attractive football. To their credit Cwmbran’s beleaguered players never gave up but further goals by Larsson(2), Viduka, Brattback and Teibilly completed the rout. The score was if anything flattering to Cwmbran as only the woodwork, some careless finishing and a gutsy display from the home keeper, O’Hagan, kept the score respectable. I know it is difficult to judge because of the standard of the opposition but Henrik Larsson is truly a world class player with some of his skill and touches breathtaking. With such a striker how were Celtic seriously considering breaking the bank this summer for an overrated, past-it, attitude-merchant like Alan Shearer?
Despite the one-sided nature of the match the evening was highly enjoyable mainly due to the passionate singing and support of the Celtic fans. The difference in class hopefully brings closer the time when the three Nationwide teams can play in Europe, as at least they would have provided decent if ultimately unsuccessful opposition for a brilliant Celtic team who hopefully can wrestle the title from their universally disliked Glasgow rivals this season. (Before somebody writes in accusing me of bias I am not a Catholic; it is just that Rangers have always been my most hated team and I don’t think I am alone in this view!)
The biggest disappointment was the pitiful attendance
from the people of Cwmbran who missed out on a highly entertaining evening.
Day Out
Mark Williams (the one from Ruthin) takes his daughter to the Racecourse…
Faced with the problems of having to occupy my children, I decided on a cunning plan during the long hot summer holidays. ‘How about going to see a Wrexham match with me?'’ I yelled. Puzzled looks and a little bit of indifference. ‘I’ll buy you some sweets.’ Yeah, OK.
I phoned the club to check out the family tickets offer. I enquired politely but got a ‘a true Wrexham fan would already know that’ answer from the club secretary. Low marks for club PR, although £14 for adult and child to sit in the Family Stand was excellent value. Top marks. We took our seats early to take in the atmosphere (distinctly lacking for this particular match). My daughter thought that the music that was played was cool. A little bit of Chemical Brothers and Stereophonics, and Blur and the Wiseguys (no flash-in-the-pan samba music here). Top marks. Cue Jackson Five music - ‘Rockin’ Robin’ - and on comes our fat feathered friend and his wife. This bit went down particularly well with my daughter, but she was a bit put out that the bird’s helpers couldn’t throw sweets as far as the Family Stand.
An uneventful first-half only cheered when Wrexham hit the woodwork on a rare sortie on the Pirates’ goal. At half-time we went for a drink: £1.20 for a coke - a bit steep. They also strangely removed the cap for us. I find out later from the Red Passion Ceefax page that this happens for security reasons. I was more cynical - and thought it was so you had to drink it faster. Low marks. My daughter used the Ladies toilet, which was in a really bad state. It really gave her a bad impression. How do you explain that to a child? Low marks. A mind-blowing and exciting second half followed. It had everything, with our new knight in shining armour, blond bombshell Craig Faulconbridge, in fine form (this lad is great). His goal in the last few minutes sent us home all buzzing. Top marks.
We bought a baseball cap in the club shop for 50p
(bargain). And very helpful staff who made us welcome (top marks). Overall a good day out:
not too expensive and with a bit of finetuning could have been even smoother.
Night Out
Mark Williams (the one from Wrexham) takes a quiet journey down to Cardiff…
Since our Welsh Cup win in 1995 we have held the title of the number one club in Wales with our league status. Now that Cardiff got promoted last season we will now have to prove it.
Due to the rugby international on the Saturday the game was switched to a Friday night. This surely confirms that football is the second sport in Wales. The switch did not help the away support either with the majority of the fans, including myself, having to take a day off work to get to the game. Can someone at Cardiff or Wrexham please tell me why the game was not played on the Sunday instead?
The journey started at two thirty with my work mate Paul driving and Tim made up the trio. Unlike the majority of away trips this one is restricted to a large number of twisty roads that tends to make the trip a long and boring one. Fortunately, witnessed two of the strangest overtaking manoeuvres to keep us amused. The first happened after we just passed Oswestry when this car going in the other direction started to overtake. At first we all thought it was a Jeep or a 4x4 but when we got closer we realised it was a hearse. Yes, a hearse! It must have been doing around 80 mph but thankfully it had no passengers. The second one came about when we were approaching Hereford when this Robin Reliant had the nerve to overtake this XR3i convertible. After the XR3i was passed the Robin still continued at high speeds and at one point it reached around 80 mph, although it was going down hill at the time!
At around six o’clock we came off the M4 and headed down to Ninian Park. The first thing that you saw was the Millennium Stadium, impressive or what? Apparently, the bars are fitted with this system that can pour twelve pints in eight seconds and is aptly called the ‘Joy Machine.’ I can’t wait for the football to be played there. After the car was parked in the Athletics Stadium it was a case of making our way to the ground. Once we paid the £12 for a ticket we made our way to our seats and for some reason the three of us were not sitting next to each other. I don’t know how Cardiff allocate their seats because Paul was in Row A, Tim was in Row K and I was in Row L? Answers on a Postcard.
After their promotion and the win at Oxford, Cardiff were full of confidence and they started the game brightly. Most of Cardiff’s attacking moves came through Andy Legg. Our defence found it difficult to cope with his long throws and Cardiff went close in the first five minutes with headers. Gradually, we began to get a hold on the game but some decent build up work was let down by the final ball. Karl Connolly played the game out on the left but I thought it would have been a good tactic to switch him to the right. Although Legg was impressive going forward he didn’t look that good at defending. Phillips played out on the right before his injury but is no winger. We could have done with either Chalk or Gibson.
Cardiff took the lead ten minutes before half-time. Legg’s cross from the left was headed back by their lanky number ten for Bowen to score with a diving header. The goal was a poor one to concede as both players had free headers in the box. That was it for the first half and the referee blew up for half-time. We started the second-half a lot better and almost scored within the first minute. We had a corner on the right and the ball ended up with Carey on the left edge of the box. He curled an excellent shot to the top corner only for Hallworth to pull off a good save. Our domination continued and this led to the equaliser after ten minutes. A corner from the left was only partially cleared to Danny Williams. He crossed the ball back to Carey who headed it onto Stevens. He showed excellent technique with an overhead kick and the ball ended up in the back of the net. What a goal - Hallworth didn’t move. I couldn’t believe it at first and it did look a lot better on TV; 1-1 and it was what we deserved.
Our momentum continued and we created some more chances after the goal. The turning point was Gareth Owen’s sending off. The second booking was harsh but there was no need for Gareth to body check the man as the ball was going out of play. With being down to ten men all we could do was defend and we brought on Ryan for Faulconbridge and later Lowe for Stevens. We held out to full-time with good defending and woeful finishing from Cardiff.
I would have settled for a draw before the game and with a bit of good luck and the Cardiff strikers firing blanks we escaped with one.