The seemingly never-ending soap opera that surrounds Wrexham Football Club took another turn for the bizarre on a day rife with such rumour that the match seemed almost irrelevant. With the departure of Brian Little confirmed at 1 p.m. and a welter of speculation about training ground bust-ups and the nature of the previous week swirling round, the Torquay game was played almost in the background.
Bearing that in mind it's perhaps appropriate that it's difficult to know what conclusions to draw from the game. On the one hand there was more spirit than we've seen from the side in a while as they played in a manner which suggested the miserable defeat in midweek actually
hurt them, and they ended their run of poor results by holding a team which had won its last four games. On the other hand there was still a lack of passing quality which the increased energy could not totally disguise, and had it not been for a series of good saves by Gavin Ward the result would have been very different.
Remarkably it was Brian Little's selection that took the field, not that of the men who were in charge on the day, Brian Carey and Martin Foyle. And what a selection it was! Big names like skipper Tom Kearney, the Conference's top scorer Jeff Louis, Steve Evans, Michael Proctor and Sam Aiston were out, and in their place the Williams brothers both made their first starts, Carl Tremarco played his first Wrexham game as a
Substitutions:
Wrexham
Louis for Whalley 57
Baynes forMarc Williams 75
N Taylor for Spender 84
(UNUSED SUBS: S Evans, Fleming)
Torquay
D'Sane for Beynon 33
Thompson for Green 65
(UNUSED SUBS: Carayol, Stevens, Adams)
Yellow Cards:
Wrexham
Mackin
Torquay United
Woods
Red Cards:
-
midfielder and, in a move which dismayed the home supporters, Christian Smith and Levi Mackin were paired in midfield.
There was a lot of endeavour in the first half but no cutting edge, and as it wore on it was The Gulls who threatened more. Having said that, nearly half an hour had passed before the first serious effort on goal, as Tim Sills fed Chris Hargreaves on the edge of the box, his shot hitting the right post and rebounding kindly to Simon Spender. Moments later another shot from similar range tested Ward, Matt Green's shot being well parried round the post.
The breakthrough came soon afterwards, and it was a result of a defensive error by Darran Kempson. Kempson's recent performances, not to mention his reaction to the crowd's dissatisfaction at Grays, have hardly enamoured himself to the Racecourse faithful, and this costly error hardly helped their mood. He misjudged a straightforward Nicholson ball over the top of the defence, letting Sills run clear on goal and although he didn't get hold of his shot properly it had enough to it to cross the line.
Minutes later a similar scenario was enacted, with Kempson culpable once more. Again he missed a straightforward header clear from a free kick into the box and Sills, from point blank range, met the ball with a downward header. Ward did brilliantly to get a hand to it but the ball would still have spun over the line had Simon Spender not rescued the situation with an acrobatic clearance.
While the score was nil-nil Wrexham's lack of creativity was not a terrible problem as they sought to sort themselves out at the back and get back onto an even keel. The goal changed everything though, their problem being whether they had the firepower to claw the deficit back. Fortunately their first serious effort on goal brought the equaliser and eased the tension. Appropriately it was a goal born not of craft but graft. Marc Williams and Simon Brown had worked tirelessly throughout the first half and it was sheer perseverance which allowed them to link for the goal. Williams battled in midfield to get the ball and fed a nice pass into the edge of the box, Brown's pace and determination took him past the last defender and as the huge keeper Bevan hurled himself at his feet he lunged, hitting the ball past him into the ground and up into the top left corner.
Wrexham rode their luck in injury time, having to survive a three on two break which saw D'Sane's shot saved by Ward's feet and Hargreaves forced to shoot over from six yards by a challenge from Kempson when Sills crossed the ball back in.
The second half was a non-event, which considering Wrexham's uncompetitive recent performances was a step forwards. Torquay ought to have taken the lead three minutes after the restart when Wrexham's defence once more were undone by a long ball over the top, but D'Sane's lob was superbly tipped over by Ward, and frankly that was it in terms of goalscoring opportunities. A worrying incident at the end, when Simon Spender hit the deck hard under a challenge from the innocent Tyrone Thompson, left a sour taste in the mouth as it seemed he might have suffered a serious injury, but even that turned out to be a dislocated elbow which, while distressing, certainly shouldn't keep him out for as long as was first feared. It seemed an appropriate note on which to end a match which ultimately amounted to little. The real action happened off the pitch.
