Anderlecht and Ashcroft

SIMPLY A RED - PART 3

Nostalgia Unlimited by David Williams

The seventies were a mixture of many highs, and just a few lows. We started to compete with the best, even in the early days. If the atmosphere of the Zurich, Hadjuk Split and Anderlecht ties ever returns to the Racecourse, what a lift it would be for the team. They were great nights, but with battling performances that deserved our support, equalled only by the emergence of a young team that could beat Jack Charlton’s Middlesborough, thrash a good Crystal Palace team away, and deservedly win at First Division Southampton. There was a lot of hair around in those days, (Billy Ashcroft, Mickey Thomas and Dave Fogg to name but three of many). Joey, of course, didn’t believe in such over-the-top, nancified preening, but his hair almost covered his ears for a short time. He was our version of Guardian-reading Graham Le Saux - all of his tattoos were spelt right! (I once saw Joey score from thirty yards for Liverpool against Bristol City, and it confirmed at that moment why the fans of every club he’s ever played for worship him. Because he epitomised the fight and determination of John Neal’s teams wherever he was; and he always knew we were there)

We flattered to deceive for a couple of seasons after that, but I was sure that we would do it in 1977. It was another vintage year, with Graham Whittle and Billy Ashcroft knocking in everything that Bobby Shinton put their way. I was on holiday in soggy Cornwall when the news came through - Chesterfield 0 -Wrexham 6! (Ashcroft 4, Shinton 2.) How we could have done with just one of those goals a couple of years ago. Then, on the following Wednesday night in 1976, Wrexham went to Tottenham, and won 3-2. This was it! I now knew that Division 2 beckoned and the huge crowds that attended those games at the Racecourse at the end of the season knew it too for a while - Brighton, Crystal Palace, and Mansfield: all 20,000 and more. The worst moment of the season was not the Mansfield result on the Saturday, but the    sickening last minute goal by Rachid Harkouk for Crystal Palace that clutched at the throat of every voice on the previous Wednesday night. We had fought back from 2-0 down to 2-2; with Graham Whittle’s unstoppable long-range shot swerving its way into the net - preserved for ever on the grainy film of the 1978 ‘Season To Remember’ video.

We were in Division 2 for just a few minutes; and didn’t it hurt when it was taken from us? The game against Mansfield is less clear in my memory, although Gareth Davis hit the post at close range near to the end of the game, and could have equalised and sent us up. OK, so what’s another season in Division 3? It will be our turn next time. And it was - but the departure of John Neal to Middlesborough, along with Bill Ashcroft, put a dampener on the start of the following season.

I know that John Neal left a sound and solid foundation for Arfon Griffiths in 1977, but it was Arfon who signed Dai Davies and Dixie McNeil early in the season, and it was Arfon who had a serious sheepskin coat for the after match interviews. He got the best out of players who we sometimes forget - John Roberts, John Lyons, Alan Hill, Wayne Cegelski, and all of the others who made that season so special. But now we are in the video age, and there is some sort of record of much of what Wrexham have, or have not achieved over the past twenty years. Maybe that is why the images of the Sixties and Seventies remain longer in the memory. And maybe attendances are diminished because - ‘I do keep in touch with them! You can see the goals on HTV; why bother going?’  RP