It's Wrexham that brought me up and it's Wrexham that I'll be buried next to

No.1 - Dean Rogers

A child will offer many excuses for the things it does, but few reasons. A child has many strange and wonderful habits that amuse and entertain, mesmerise, mortify or bewilder those close to them. For the worst and the wierdest, the adult says: "Don't worry, they'll grow out of it." Those more sensitive to the child may console with, "Well, if it keeps them happy".

Well, I haven't grown out of mine and it's still keeping me happy in the way that only supporting a Second Division side can. And when I was asked to write about why I became Cwmbran's only schoolboy Wrexham fan, it was amazing how even now I found more excuses than genuine reasons. The only true answer I could find was that of the wonderfully enlightened eight-year-old: "Because I am, so what?"

I have no connection with Wrexham other than a 20-year-plus love of the football club. I have never lived or even stayed overnight in the town. None of my forebears have, either, to my knowledge. My only visits have been to visit the Racecourse, although homage is a better term for these too infrequent pilgrimages from the cold and dark south. But, as my tongue-tied failures with the Welsh language don't make me any less of a Welshman, so my failure to be born within the sound of the Kop doesn't make me less of a Red...and I've got the tie to prove it.

The tie came about after my first live viewing of the Reds in the dismal spring

of 1983. I'd already been an avid supporter since 1976, but I'd had to wait until the worst Wrexham side anyone can remember met the best Newport County team any could recall for my first taste of the promised land.

Wrexham lost 4-0. Steady Eddie was sent off for saving a penalty too exuberantly and afterwards I hung around the car park with my Dad, waiting to see if I could tell someone that it didn't matter because I still loved them. Steady Eddie emerged first from the (no doubt) freezing Sunday league-style Somerton Park showers, and so amused was he by my tale that he went back and got the whole shower of them to sign my programme and a director came out and gave me his club tie.

That's what's different about Wrexham. Support Scousepool, Man United or one of the other big-boy clubs and they'd have expected fans to hang around even after a 4-0 thumping. Wrexham make you feel special and that's why they're special.

It started when I was six. My Dad didn't like football. Serious injury had ended his promising rugby career and he found watching club rugby frustrating. So, no distractions there for the young South Walian, except when the family gathered together to watch the international matches. The only important law ever laid down by my Dad was explained: "The team in red is good. The team in white is bad. Red good...white bad. If the reds are playing you support the reds. If the reds aren't playing then you support whoever is playing against the whites." A simple law from simple times.

Like any small boy I knew little about geography, and what I did know was highly abstract. I knew that I was Welsh and that Wales wasn't England. Therefore, as Wrexham were the only Welsh team that played in red, the choice was obvious. Besides, no-one in Cwmbran talked about supporting Newport in 1976. Cardiff was full of thugs who made Wales play their home games in Liverpool. The school bully was a Cardiff fan, Swansea, even during a brief spell of popularity under Toshack, always still wore white.

Investigation found that Wrexham were the oldest Welsh team, and certainly the best. On our old atlas the town was only 9cms from Cwmbran. The smallest sign was all I needed. One clip of Mickey Thomas on the news was all it really took.

Defeat from the jaws of victory in the promotion battle against Crystal Palace taught me that life wasn't fair (along with the sure knowledge that something about Terry Venables was dodgy) and at the same time taught me the lesson that every bitter and twisted cynic knows to be true...I WAS RIGHT. The glorious season that followed just confirmed what I already knew and I was Cwmbran's answer to the chosen one.

My first Wrexham shirt arrived shortly after in the post. Wrexham regularly appeared on Match of the Day, and supporters of Cardiff and Newport were clearly envious. They were also less than kosher because when it suited them they seemed to also support Liverpool, Man United, Leeds or, God help us, Spurs. They swapped teams more often than their Pannini stickers. I was better than this. The fanatic's familiar persecution complex was already taking root.

My distant love affair could be fed by only distant offerings. Finding a Wrexham bag for school, and a Wrexham scarf, was like finding the Holy Grail. Any Wrexham badge being offered in a shop was a discovery to keep me happy for weeks. To be honest, it still is. Still on show in my old room is a plaque with the old Reds' badge in the centre. Precious.

The rarity value made all this feel more important. So did the look on people's faces when they first found out about my passion. Even when times got really bad, it seemed even more important that I stick with the Reds. The rewards when they came would be even more precious. And the occasional rewards were truly to be treasured.

Radio Wales was like a life-support machine to a young Cwmbran Red. I still get flashbacks now and again. Alongside the Palace tragedy are happier memories. Idwal Roblins' classic "John Muldoon for a place in Europe" during a Welsh Cup semi-final second leg in the early eighties puts Wolstenholme to shame. The great midnight comeback against Porto ranks as a great night in any lifetime. My Mum, by now an honorary Red, had slumped off to bed leaving me to the headphones at 3-0, only to be woken by manic screaming an hour later thanks to the subtle boot of Barry Horne!

And after we beat Arsenal during my first year in teaching, covering two display boards in my West London classroom with newspaper cuttings and finally setting "Where is Wrexham?" for geography homework was as good as six years teaching got.

At university in Nottingham, as well as meeting middle-class people for the first time, I met others similar to me. Three others with the same forbidden passions for unfashionable "lower division" clubs soon became firm friends. I envied them their having grown up near their heroes, but as their heroes - first Lincoln, then Darlington, and then Colchester - went out of the league in successive seasons, I knew again that there was something special about Wrexham.

Now I live in Twickenham of all places, and still support whoever is playing against the whites. My time at Nottingham led to my being unfaithful with Stuart Pearce and Brian Clough's mob, and even on occasions with Notts County, but only because they reminded me of Wrexham. But it's Wrexham that brought me up and it's Wrexham that I'll be buried next to.

I've never lived there and I never will. When I go to watch the Reds, be it at Wrexham, Luton or Wycombe, Fulham, Brentford or Wembley (I'm dreaming now) I still don't quite fit in. I'm still a Cwmbran Red and I always will be. My love for Wrexham can never be the same as anyone else's, but I wouldn't want it to be either. None of this makes me any less a Red. I am a Wrexham fan, so what?

No-one understands a visionary. An observer seeing Picasso put down his brush and say "Perfect" would probably have looked hard and tried to understand. But if they stared for long the patterns would fall into place and they'd declare him a visionary (except for his Blue period obviously - what was that about?) So next time you hear a South Walian accent shouting for the Reds don't be afraid to stare. After a while, all will make sense.

Jim Steel, Nick Hornby and a near-religious experience

Dafydd Williams goes back to his childhood…

Sing to the tune, The Red Flag:

"Oh to be a Wrexham fan"

It's a funny old game, life. To me politics and football are inextricably linked. Christ, if you were brought up in North Wales there wasn't much else.

In the shadow of Liverpool and the North West conurbations a young 'Gog' had to look out for himself. While others were sporting Keegan Afros, some of us secretly modelled Dixie McNeil partings and Billy Ashcroft ginger wigs.

Years later we would bow at the shrine of the great Jim Steel; when he scored that goal against Roma I had the closest thing that I can describe to a religious experience.

European football had come to the Racecourse and I am revealing my age now when I say that the first game I ever saw was in the old stand which used to be cinema seats and every time you stood up to celebrate a goal you weren't sure whether you would be plummetting to the ground below.

I forget now whether it was Preston North End or Leicester City. I know it was a sunny Saturday, crisp and clean like those September days of years ago and I also remember Frank Worthington was playing for them. I know some of the greats were playing for Wrexham but then my memory blurs.

Time passes and the little introverted youngster loses interest...I was to return to the terraces in the early eighties and one of the best games was when we were in the Second Division and we beat Newcastle United 4-2 and Keegan and his Afro was playing for Newcastle. I think he came on in the second half.

I remember standing on the Mold Road in trainers and a Parka with a fur-lined hood and my back being featured on Wales Today. Fame at last

Now I return to Wrexham infrequently but when I do and the Robins are at home, I find a perch way up in the lofty stand and watch, listen and learn.

To me and many others, Wrexham is a part of their history, a part of their growing up, a part of that father-son experience Nick Hornby writes about.

That's where the politics comes in. But that's another story.