Thanks again to Rory Sheehan who will be providing match reports and feature articles
Wrexham 3 Northwich Victoria 3
This was an astonishing game of football packed full of incident, controversy, dreadful refereeing, and atrocious defending. Reflecting on the near 100 minutes of action and trying to make sense of it could drive you mad, especially Wrexham’s defensive play at set-pieces.
The ‘local’ visitors were Northwich Victoria, homeless, in dire straits financially, and propping up the rest of the BSP. Their most notable players were ex-Chester man Lee Steele and ex-Wrexham midfielder Matty Crowell who got a warm reception from the Racecourse faithful – to begin with.
Wrexham made just a couple of changes for the game, with Steve Evans replacing the suspended Ashley Westwood and Nathan Woolfe returning to midfield. Dean Saunders was absent from the touchline for personal reasons. New signing, UEFA Cup winner Christian Gyan was on the bench.
The Dragons were the dominant side in a first-half of few chances. Nathan Woolfe clipped a free-kick against the bar and Crowell was, somewhat predictably, booked. The only hint of what was to come in the second-half was the ‘Vics’ ‘gamesmanship’, and the officials non-existent control over their time-wasting via set-pieces, throw-ins, goal-kick’s and ‘injuries’.
It was only on the hour mark that the first goal was scored. It came from the visitors as the tall Mat Bailey headed home unmarked from a poorly defended corner. The goal, against the run of play, should have set alarm bells ringing in the Wrexham back four.
Minutes later one of Wrexham’s defenders was given the chance to redeem himself. A free-kick from Jon Brown was headed at goal by Louis. ‘Vics’ goalkeeper Ryan Clarke palmed it away but his defence failed to clear and Steve Evans was on hand to scramble the ball in for the equaliser.
Ryan Flynn replaced Woolfe as Wrexham at last began to show some urgency in trying to win the game. With just over 10 minutes to go and after a couple more chances another free-kick from Brown was saved by Clarke. Again the goalkeeper only pushed it out to a Wrexham player, Marc Williams being on hand to give Wrexham the lead.
With 8 minutes to go Northwich won another corner after a series of throw-ins had moved them towards the Wrexham area. The defence failed to learn their lesson from earlier on as a mad scramble saw the ball eventually poked home by ‘Vics’ centre-half Steve Robinson on the goal-line. It was the sort of horror defending we’d been accustomed to prior to the arrival of Saunders.
Just two minutes later shell-shocked Wrexham foolishly conceded another corner, as totally unmarked, substitute Mat Bailey headed his second goal of the night to give the away side the lead again. Wrexham fans couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
Trying to hold on to an against all odds victory, ‘Vics’ became even more cynical in their fouling and time-wasting, but would be made to pay for it when 7 minutes of stoppage-time was signalled on the electronic board.
Patrick Suffo soon joined the action in place of Fairhurst as Wrexham looked to avoid an embarrassing defeat. Into time added on Vics were finally caught out by the referee when Marc Williams was sent sprawling in the area. Jefferson Louis stepped up to take the resulting penalty but saw his effort saved by Clarke.
The Racecourse faithful were fearing the worst when incredibly, Mat Bailey blatantly handled the ball in his own area from a Wrexham corner – giving Wrexham another chance from a spot-kick. This time Suffo took it, and made no mistake in equalising, taking the game to 3-3 in the 94th minute.
It didn’t quite end there either. With seconds to go Louis was through on goal at an angle but his effort went agonisingly wide of the far post and after nearly 100 minutes of play, the game finally ended.
Despite the excitement, the late drama, the end result feels like a defeat, a home draw against the BSP’s bottom club is real setback in our quest for the play-offs and doesn’t reflect well on the squad’s ability to cope when the going gets tough.
Without making excuses for Northwich’s cynicism (they’re desperate to stay up after all), and the shockingly poor officiating, Wrexham should have been able to rise above it and stamp their authority on the game.
Instead a glaring lack of defensive composure in the absence of Westwood, poor goalkeeping, and a physically lacking, youthfully naïve midfield were unfortunately exposed.
It’s not hard to imagine Dean Saunders fuming when he eventually gets to see the video of the game, much like most Wrexham fans during the last half hour of the action itself…
Buckley and District Reds AGM will be held on the 11th February 8pm at Buckley Cricket club - All welcome
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