Thanks again to Rory Sheehan who will be providing match reports and feature articles
Wrexham 5 Stevenage 0
Wrexham began life in non-league’s Blue Square Premier with a 5-0 blitz of fellow promotion hopefuls Stevenage Borough. The scoreline suggests a battering but for two thirds of the game the contest had been a tight affair spoiled by over-zealous officials.
Following relegation from the Football League pre-season had come and gone with impressive results and a turnover in players. Brian Little’s new signings had made us tight at the back, though we still looked weak in the middle and light up front.
The new-look team lined-up with Simon Spender and Levi Mackin the longest-serving players. Nat Brown, Simon Brown, Jefferson Louis, Shaun Whalley, Darran Kempson and Tom Kearney all made their debuts. Gavin Ward, Sam Aiston and Carl Tremarco completed the line-up.
This opener to the season was the first real test and for the opening 20 minutes we were generally on the back foot as Stevenage looked more comfortable in possession.
The nerves were settled after a free-kick was awarded for a foul on Mackin in front of the penalty area. New captain Tom Kearney’s shot took a deflection off the wall and crept into the back of the net, having wrong-footed Ashley Bayes in the Stevenage goal.
The game was still even however and made somewhat stop-start by a referee seemingly intent on preventing the game from flowing. Our next best chance came with half-time approaching, a Darran Kempson header over the bar when it looked like he might score. Stevenage put pressure on with a string of corners but we held out to half-time.
The game’s real turning point came quarter of an hour into the second-half when Stevenage’s star forward Steve Morison was red-carded for a dangerous challenge on Darran Kempson. Down to 10 men, Stevenage started to lose their discipline and fold mentally.
Shortly after Wrexham won a corner which was met with a powerful header from Jefferson Louis, the new forward already off the mark for the season, putting us 2-0 up. The goal was timely as just minutes later we were reduced to 10 men ourselves.
Midfielder Levi Mackin was shown a second yellow, followed by the red card, somewhat harshly for an apparent lunge on a Stevenage player.
The dismissal proved not to be a setback as we soon scored again on the counter-attack, which may just be our biggest weapon this season. Sam Aiston played in another new forward signing, Shaun Whalley to chip the advancing Bayes for 3-0. Stevenage’s players began arguing and blaming each other and it was clear they had crumbled.
By now Brian Little had started making substitutions with new signing Christian Smith, a central midfielder on a short-term deal, getting in on the act. He made it 4-0 with a great strike from a Kearney corner.
Stevenage then gifted us the 5th with the sort of suicidal defending the Racecourse faithful have been accustomed to from the home team in recent years! It left substitute striker Marc Williams free to tap into an empty goal for his first of the season.
Williams almost doubled his tally when more defensive blundering by the away side left him free to challenge Bayes for a high ball. Never the tallest on the field, Marc won the header with Bayes virtually rooted to the ground due to the excess weight he seems to be carrying (!)
The final whistle sounded with nearly 5,000 Wrexham fans leaving the Racecourse in joyous mood having not felt this good in a long, long time.
The scoreline may be a bit misleading – this was never a thrashing until the last 25 minutes, but it has sent out a message to the rest of the BSP and eased just a few doubts.
There are still weaknesses in the squad, and the team, that need to be addressed before we can start thinking of promotion, and Brian Little has urged caution. However, that the Nat Brown / Darran Kempson pairing in central defence has tightened us up immensely at the back is great progress from last season’s all too frequent comical defending.
The next test is our Setanta TV debut at York City on Thursday night…
Categories :
Archives