Things could be a lot worse

 

By Gareth Davies

 

Whilst endorsing the editor's view that as a whole Red Passion is far from negative (articles and letters from Gareth Roberts, Dean Rogers, Paul Hughes and Simon Cater illustrate this), reading some of the articles in Issue 19 left me thinking that Wrexham had been relegated to the Nationwide Conference. I'm all for reasoned argument, people being able to have their opinions, and I'm the first to admit that Wrexham FC could improve on many things, but I have to say that some of the comments bordered on the ridiculous, and would have left many wondering whether Wrexham had actually finished 11th in Division Two, beaten Premiership opposition in the FA Cup, and won the FAW Premier Cup for the second time. 

 

It is growing more and more apparent that an increasing number of Wrexham fans have far too big expectations of the club. An example of this would be the comment: "I have always believed that Wrexham should be in the First Division". Why should we? We have spent only four years of our league history out of the bottom two divisions, so why should we be there now, when it is harder than ever to progress? It has been said time and time again that Wrexham is only a small club, but in the world of Sky TV we seem to demand instant success, and we should all know it is not as easy as that. There are clubs who are much bigger than us, who would love to be in our position. Don't forget it was only just over 15 years ago that Brighton were in the top flight.

 

Another comment that brought a wry smile to my face was: "We cannot have a worse season that this one". Perhaps we should ask Chester fans whether they agree with this! We could do a lot worse than finishing 11th in Division Two. It does though show how far we have come when people consider 11th a disappointment. Ten years ago, we would readily have accepted the position we are in now. Things might not be as good as we would like, but they could certainly be worse. Someone else commented: "This season has been a catastrophe". Well, I hate to think what people would be calling it if we had had a season like Chester's! We finished a creditable 11th, with all the sides above us spending big money to get where they are. We beat a good Boro team and we proved that we are still the best team in Wales by convincingly winning the WPC. You might call that a disappointment, but in no way is it a catastrophe.

 

Brian Flynn is doing a good job. Sure, he does things that you or I might not agree with, and his unwillingness to be open about what is going on inside the club can be annoying, but at the end of the day, he, Joey and Kevin have far more experience of running a football club than you or I. As Paul Hughes so brilliantly pointed out in Issue 19, the main reason for the club’s apparent lack of progress is due to the wider changes in football like more and more foreign players coming into the game, meaning that the good British players are being pushed down the leagues. And we, unfortunately, don't have the money to buy them. Things might not be going as well as we would like, but do we really want to risk all that we have, just to get to Division One? The problem is supporters only tend to think of the short-term, but managers and directors and chairmen have to think about the long-term future of the club, and in that respect I think our club is in safe hands.

 

Enough has been said and written over the last couple of months about the disappointing aspects of the season, so I thought I’d like to finish on a positive note with some of my highlights of last year:

So, let's try and be optimistic about the coming season. We won our last five league matches of last season, and the WPC, so we finished on a high. We have also signed four new players already, so let’s make a resolution to get behind the lads especially when we are winning - and even more especially if we are losing. We can make a difference, and perhaps between us all we might actually get somewhere. RP