The first part of Mark Williams’ review of Wrexham’s Year 1999…

JANUARY: DON’T MENTION PNE!
The first game of the New Year saw Wrexham overcome Scunthorpe United in the FA Cup Third Round in a thrilling 4-3 win at the Racecourse, thanks mainly to a Karl Connolly hat trick. This was followed up with a 2-1 win at Hull in the AWS. Our first league encounter of the New Year saw us thrashed 4-0 at Reading. Our first away victory of the season came at Colchester United. The score ended 3-1 with the goals coming from loan signings Jeff Whitley and Carl Griffiths, plus an own goal. It was back to the cup again with two home ties. A 3-2 win against Chesterfield in the AWS was followed by a 1-1 draw with Huddersfield in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup. Then came Preston, lost 5-0 at home etc etc, enough said, I’m depressed enough as it is with our current position!

FEBRUARY: IT’S FUN TO PLAY AWAY
Away wins at Macclesfield, Luton, Stoke and a home draw against York saw Wrexham move seven places up the table during the month. Our FA Cup run ended at Huddersfield through a deflected Ben Thornley goal, final score 2-1. We did progress in the other cup competitions, 2-1 at Lincoln in the AWS and 1-0 at Newtown in the WPC. The big talking point of the month was the on-off transfer of Carl Griffiths. He scored 4 goals in 5 games and everybody thought he was going to sign but in the end he moved to Port Vale for £100k (He is now back at Leyton Orient and scored three against Chester). We did sign Tommy Wright on loan from Man City until the end of the season and he made his debut at Stoke.

MARCH: INS AND OUTS
In this month the strangest thing happened - we signed three, yes three players and Stuart Elliott on loan. The signings were Michael Ryan (Man Utd), Danny Williams (Liverpool) and Paul Barrett (Newcastle). Our league form started off well as we won 2-0 at Northampton, which was our 5th league away win on the trot. Our form them dipped with successive draws against Chesterfield, Blackpool and Burnley. The Burnley game was so bad that the highlight was Rockin Robin getting married at half time. The final league game of the month saw us go down 3-0 at Millwall. Our Wembley dream finally ended when we went out 5-2 on aggregate to Wigan in the AWS Northern Area Final, although the second half performance in the home leg was one of the best we have seen for a while. David Brammer left for Port Vale, which led to one fan publicly stating that he would withdraw his sponsorship from the club. Craig Skinner left for York and they actually paid money for him. Mad.

APRIL: RELEGATION IN SIGHT
Although we collected eight points during the month it still left us close to the relegation zone. It started off with a 1-0 win at home to Bristol Rovers but despite a good performance at Walsall we went down 1-0 with Elliott shown the red card. Two poor home performances against Wycombe and Oldham saw us go down 2-0 in both games, but a last minute goal by Connolly earned us a point at Notts County in a 1-1 draw. We finished the month off strongly with a 2-1 win at home to Gillingham and an excellent 1-1 draw at league winners Fulham. On the cup front, we beat Cardiff 3-1 in the 1st Leg of the WPC semi-final at the Racecourse.

MAY: THREE POINTS, FOUR PLACES
Only one point from the final three games left us extremely close to Division Three. Our last home league game of the season saw us go down 2-0 against Wigan. This was followed by a 1-0 defeat against relegated Lincoln City and left us needing three points at play-off chasing Bournemouth on the final day of the season. We drew that game 0-0 but the one point was enough to see us safe by three points and four places. A 2-1 defeat at Cardiff in the second leg of the FAW still meant us progressing to the final 4-3 on aggregate. The last game of the season saw us host the glamorous Premier Cup Final against LOW Champions Barry Town. This game summed our season up pretty well as the effort and tactics were non-existent as Barry deservedly won 2-1 and banked a £100k cheque in the process. Pity, that money could have been used to buy a striker like Griffiths. The retained list was also announced with the biggest shock being Peter Ward leaving the club. Dean Spink was voted player of the season.

JUNE & JULY: TRANSFERS GALORE
Another mad two months in the transfer market saw Kevin Dearden (Brentford), David Lowe (Wigan) and Ian Stevens (Carlisle) all arrive on free transfers. Rush left after not scoring for us during the season although his commercial appeal helped the club off the field. An unusual poor display in the IOM Football Festival saw us finish 5th overall after beating the IOM in the last place play-off. ?RP

In RP16…August to December…and some AMAZING end-of-year stats.