Wrexham:

A Celtic fortress full of beautiful red seats

Rugby at the Racecourse? They should do it again - quickly. I don’t just mean: give the Racecourse a World Cup fixture (which they’ve actually got). I mean more: give the Racecourse even more unglamorous ‘A’ internationals and maybe even the odd unsexy full international. I can’t say that I’m a rugby union expert, but I really lapped up the atmosphere and passion of Wales ‘A’ v England ‘A’. On the pitch Wales won 35-32, but away from the pitch there were also interesting things going on.

For a start the new Paddock seats were looking totally and utterly beautiful: red, shiny and BRAND NEW. After all the waiting, there were seats at last. To be honest they looked spankingly good - so heavenly in fact that they were reasonably full. And then there was the crowd. I didn’t see an attendance figure, but I know that in general rugby union is very bad at advertising the size of gates. Why? Anyway the Racecourse looked pleasantly full - a bit like it did for the Man City game on Boxing Day (but without the pale blue and, of course, without that lovely Jamie Pollock moaning all the time).

The Racecourse looked fullish (the Turf balcony, by the way, was overflowing for the duration of the game). The ground also looked lovely and red. The colour of the Paddock seats helped in this sense, but it’s got to be said that the amount of Wales replica kit-wearers was staggering. Everyone - or so it appeared - was sporting a Welsh top (or waving a Welsh flag or wearing a Welsh scarf). And for the first time at a Racecourse sporting encounter I heard Welsh being spoken nearly everywhere I went. It was a totally fresh and new Racecourse clientele. I saw very few Wrexham football regulars; I must have spotted one Wrexham top all night (a yellow away one, for the record). Oh, and totally unsurprisingly, you could pay to get in if you wanted to (‘all-ticket matches’ are very rarely all-ticket in reality).

If there were less Wrexham tops than usual, there were far more kids and - obviously - far more people who didn’t hail from North Wales. Someone told me that the WRU had handed out more than 2,000 kiddies complementary tickets - and it showed. The mass of children wasn’t outrageously evident - no horrible and concerted infantile squeals, as you hear at some events - but as you wandered along the Kop terraces, you could not help but notice the number of track-suited teenagers: most, no doubt, on school outings.

You could also hear the echo of Valleys accents. Pre-match, many South Walians made a point of telling the Red Passion salesman on duty that they were Cardiff City fans. Others just said: ’Hey mate, this is rugby - put that soccer magazine away!’ But the Red Passion salesman wasn’t the only representative of the ‘other game’. Wrexham supporters were doubling up as programme sellers - on all the key perimeter corners.

There was also an interesting contrast between this rugby union ‘A’ game and the soccer ‘B’ game (Wales v Northern Ireland) played at the same venue in February - both essentially second-string international games. I use the word ‘contrast’ advisedly. There was a marked difference between the two occasions - although both, in theory, had the same status. First there were probably six times as many people at the rugby game as there were at the soccer. Second, the atmospheres were totally different: electric in April, dismal in February (so much so that an HTV reporter and cameraman were circling the Racecourse in pursuit of a pre-World Cup ‘buzz’. And third, the Wales-England game seemed to matter; the Wales-Northern Ireland encounter seemed to matter to no-one at all.

Some aspects of the game interested me - even though I’m more a league than union man. The line-out jumping, for example, was frankly amazing. Certain jumpers seemed to get piggy-backs or lift-ups to help them win the ball. Is this legal - or am I totally out of touch with union tactics? After 21 minutes there was also a spot of high-octane aggro - no rugby match would be a rugby match without one. This had a certain something to the encounter. I also recognised a few names: the boy king Arwel Thomas (obviously) and the bizarrely-named Steve Ojomoh (obviously - but account only of his name). I also loved the bilingual ‘feel’ to everything: the programme and PA announcements, in particular.

The match programme might have cost £2 - rip-off city - but even so it was a good night. The ‘A’ game also strengthened two serious personal convictions. When the Mold Road side of the ground is finished, I believe that the Racecourse will be a neat, compact and fairly imposing stadium - if there are enough people inside who want to create an atmosphere. I also feel that the Welsh rugby fans set a brilliant example to Wrexham fans. Why not sing about Wales and Welshness - and create a fierce patriotic fervour - instead of constantly ridiculing England and Englishness?

The rugby fans established an imposing bull-ring atmosphere; there was passion and pride and full-throttle Welshness. If Wrexham supporters copied Wales fans, Fortress Racecourse - a truly Celtic Fortress - could become a reality once again.

Peter Davies