Smith: Wrexham owners sacked the wrong men

By Gareth Bicknell, Daily Post

24 April 2008

DENIS SMITH says he would have loved the opportunity to try and keep Wrexham in the league with the money his successors have spent.

Wrexham’s relegation from the Football League was confirmed by Tuesday’s 2-0 defeat at Hereford United, 15 months after Smith was sacked from the Racecourse hotseat.

Smith also blasted the club’s owners Neville Dickens and Geoff Moss for getting rid of the wrong people back in January 2007, saying the Dragons should now be in the running for promotion.

Back then the club had just come out of administration and Smith’s side were in the lower half of League Two, but under his successors Brian Carey and Brian Little, Wales’ oldest professional football club nosedived and fought a constant battle for league survival.

Under Carey and Little 12 players have signed for the club, while a further 15 separate loan arrivals have been secured in various attempts to freshen up the squad for the fight to stay in the league. During that time only six players left the Dragons, and Wrexham currently have a huge squad of 37 players.

And Smith yesterday said he would have relished the chance to spend that amount of money on players, hinting he would have hoped to have the club much higher up the league.

“I would have liked to have the opportunity to have that money to see what I could have done with it,” he said yesterday. “With the backing they’ve had – they’ve had something like 39 players this season – that’s something you dream of as a manager. With that kind of backing, you would expect them to be in the promotion play-offs.”

Smith’s assistant Kevin Russell was also sacked at the same time as the manager, while shortly afterwards Darren Ferguson was allowed to leave. Ferguson and Russell now lead the successful coaching team that has led Peterborough United to promotion into League One for next season.

“They let Kevin go as well, and he’s proved what he could have done through what he’s done at Peterborough,” said Smith. “Okay, they got rid of me, but at least Kevin had had five years with me, which would have been better than what they went with. Also to lose Ferguson as a player was a major blow – but people make decisions which they think are right at the time.

“There were certain people they didn’t want at the club for whatever reason, and if you own a club you can make those decisions.”

Smith said Wrexham relegation was a huge blow – not only for everybody connected with the club but also for Welsh football.

He said: “It’s very disappointing. I had five years at Wrexham, we had a promotion and we won the LDV Vans Trophy. The people of Wrexham have been great to me, and to see the fans suffering through this – and they are suffering – it’s a great blow, to them and to Welsh football.

“There are only three full-time, professional League clubs in Wales, two in the south and one in the north, but now there’s not one in the north, and you want to have a league team.

“But also, Wrexham have been producing players who have gone on to play for Wales – players like Mark Jones, Chris Llewellyn, Steve Evans. Then there’s players who are in the Wales under-21 squad like Mike Williams and Neil Taylor.

“There are a lot of lads there who have come through at Wrexham, and if Wrexham lose that because they’ve gone down and they can’t afford to keep producing players, it will be a great shame.”

Smith pointed to Jones and Evans as examples of players still at the club from his reign who should have been too good to have played in a side which has dropped out of the league.

He said: “Mark Jones was on fire when I was there – people moaned about him playing on the right but I gave him freedom to roam and he scored goals, which has dried up now. Then there’s Steve Evans – I remember taking him from non-league and the day I signed him I said he’d play international football, and people thought I was crackers.

“If they want to continue around the international stage they’ll probably have to leave,” said Smith. “Hopefully Wrexham will bounce back straight away, but that’s easy to say and hard to do – the standard is high.

“But it’s not the end. The team Wrexham played on Tuesday, Hereford, have proved you can bounce back. If they get promoted this season their manager Graham Turner deserves the manager-of-the-season award. Carlisle are another one – they could go into the Championship next season.

Little has fielded young sides in Wrexham’s last two games to give them more experience, but Smith says he will not be able to rely on youth next season.

He said: “You need to get a balance. If he’s going to rely on youngsters to take them back up they won’t go up. I think those kids are good, don’t get me wrong –I gave a lot of them their league debuts. But there are too many ex-pros and the like down there and they’ll be too much for the youngsters.”

Smith said he expected Wrexham’s fans to rally round the Dragons after relegation.

“When Wrexham were in trouble the fans reacted fantastically, and I would hope they would do the same again,” he said. “A lot of Conference clubs will arrive at Wrexham Football Clubs and they’ll be amazed – it’ll be like Wembley for them.

“Wrexham have got to get the crowds in and keep the atmosphere. Of course, they’ve got to keep the money coming in as well, because you can’t get players in without money.”