No Chester Derby Next Season?

So were we premature anticipating a renewal of hostilities with our chums from over the border?

There's a real chance Chester could be offered a reprieve after they were relegated to The Conference; in fact, reading between the lines it seems a very likely outcome.

The issue is the financial disaster which has overcome Darlington. It's sounding horribly like The Quakers will go under, or at the very least won't be able to satisfy the Football League that they have a route out of administration planned in time to be included in League Two next season.

Their meltdown perhaps isn't an immense surprise considering the way they were catapulted outside their comfort zone by former owner George Reynolds, with their pursuit of Faustino Asprilla and Paul Gascoigne and the building of their white elephant of a stadium. It now looks like they'll pay the ultimate price.

Should they go out of business the highest level a phoenix club woud be allowed to start in would be the Conference North; should they survive, time is running short to avoid demotion anyway, as the Football League will be keen to avoid starting the season with another basket case on their hands after starting the last season with three sides suffering a massive handicap.

Mind you, two of those sides still managed to finish above Chester, who suffered the most abject of campaigns. As they might well have to start next season ten points behind the rest of the field anyway, the Football League would be saddled with an uncompetitive team anyway!

Of course, no story involving Stephen Vaughan would be complete without a bizarre plot twist. I'm not sure what to say about the possibility of Vaughan buying The Quakers. Suffice to say it would be a shock if something as odd as that didn't happen at some point.

Tremarco On His Way

So Carl Tremarco has been farmed out on loan to Darlington. I'm torn over this one, to be honest.

When Sam Williamson was brought in I was rather surprised, as I felt the left back position was hardly one which required reinforcement; after all we already had Tremarco and Neil Taylor, both of whom done well for us.

However, having seen Williamson I soon got it; there might have been no urgent requirement to bring in a left back, but if you can get one as good as Williamson you don't want to let the opportunity pass. It's an argument Brian Little used when signing yet another centre back last Summer in Darran Kempson, although it didn't look like a particularly clever piece of reasoning as the season wore on.

Tremarco's a good, determined full and the fact that it's a league club which has picked him up reflects that. I was surprised when he signed for us in the Summer as I felt he was good enough to hold out for a deal with a Football League club, and I suspect he would never have got into that position if he hadn't suffered so badly with injuries over his career.

However, his last game, at Kidderminster, saw him blamed publicly by Dean Saunders for allowing too many crosses to come in from that side of the pitch, and now he appears to have paid the price for perhaps being a little too buccaneering in his approach.

Mental Strength Required

We needed mental strength when things looked pointless, but funnily enough, we need it just as much now, when some good performances have given us genuine momentum for the first time this season.

The win against MK Dons felt like a high point we couldn't possibly rival this season, but last Saturday we went and did it. MK Dons were two games into the sort of blip in form that even the best sides suffer when they were beaten by us, but Darlington arrived at The Racecourse on a roll. Having dropped just two points in their last fifteen. And we hammered them!

While commentating on the game I couldn't help drawing attention to the notes I was keeping throughout the game. I split the page in half and write Wrexham's chances on one side and the opposition's on the other. Our side was covered in ink, theirs had just three entries, and one of those was a rather trivial incident when Gavin Ward had to rush out of the box to make a clearance! Ward has now kept clean sheets against the top two sides in the division and only had to make one save in the process, albeit a superb one!

But we need to stay strong now. The Darlington match was the first in what looks like a very nasty stretch of games, and the side mustn't fear them. There's no suggestion that they will; Brian Little has wisely put together a squad packed with character, as the footage inside our changing room on ITV's “Championship Goals” show last Sunday showed.

The brawl in the Bradford game was further evidence of our spirit, and there was a similar reaction when Neil Roberts was being kicked from pillar to post last Saturday.

Furthermore, we're one of the form side of the division, so why should we fear anyone?

The important thing is to not worry if the gap to safety widens. Climbing off the bottom's a patient game. We have to focus on what we're doing; if we can keep grinding out results and accumulating points, even if a lot of them are through draws, we'll catch some of the teams above us eventually. After all, they're down there for a reason; they're not much good!

So no matter how the next few games go, we have to keep focussed on doing our part of the bargain, and not worry about the results of other sides. If we can get through this little run of games in decent shape there's a much more promising look to our end of season run-in. We've only played one of the other sides in the bottom seven at home, so there are plenty of opportunities to claw back any deficits.

Brian Little after the Darlington game

Missed Chances Prove Costly For Carey

It's a basic fact of football life that if you don't take chances you get punished, and Wrexham started the season paying the price for failing to take that lesson on board.While constant pressure in the second half yielded nothing but a series of missed opportunities, Julian Joachim showed Wrexham's terrific travelling army what they were missing up front as he gave a typical example of his finishing power, putting the game out of reach with a superb second Darlington goal which left the away fans green with envy.

The first half started cagily. Darlington enjoyed more possession, but what danger there was occurred in their penalty area. A Neil Roberts flick from Anthony Williams' kick sent the industrious Chris Llewellyn round the back of the Darlington defence and his pull-back evaded the keeper and was agonisingly just out of reach of Michael Proctor. Then Eifion Williams went close to marking his debut with a goal; a long throw was headed to the edge of the area and Mark Jones' powerful but off-target shot was deflected goalwards by the debutant. Unfortunately it flew straight at the keeper; a yard either side and he would have had no chance, as Williams' head-in-hands reaction indicated.

At the other end Shaun Pejic and Richard Hope were looking rock-solid against the awkward pairing of Tommy Wright and Pawel Abbott. Early on Pejic had to leave the pitch after being whacked in the face and Wright would eventually be booked for using his elbow once too often, but they were unable to unsettle the defensive duo, with Hope terrific in the air.As the half looked to be petering out Darlington's only attacking moment of note had come when a corner was headed back into the goalmouth by Steve Foster to his fellow centre-back Ian Miller, but in trying to force the ball through the crowd he could only deflect it weakly to Anthony Williams.

However, the docile nature of the game was shattered in the 38th minute: Keith McBride broke play up in the centre of the pitch and as Abbott got behind Hope on the right, the midfielder ran into the box. When Abbott cross, McBride nipped undetected between Simon Spender and Pejic and glanced an unmarked header past Williams from ten yards.Wrexham responded well, and within a minute came the first controversial moment of the game. Llewellyn again got round Austin and once more delivered a cross which cut out the keeper. Eifion Williams rose six yards out and looked certain to head the ball into the net until Tim Ryan shoved him in the back but referee Keith Evans, taking charge of his first Football League game, waved away the vociferous calls for a penalty and thus spared himself the necessity of delivering a red card-temporarily.

Rather than dwell on the decision, Wrexham started the second half at a high tempo. A fine piece of patient play down the left ended in Valentine crossing for Proctor to head just over the bar from ten yards before a second controversial decision denied the Dragons. A long ball over the top sent the onside Llewellyn clear on goal, but the linesman erroneously flagged for Proctor who, though offside, was not interfering with play. As Proctor had kept up with Llewellyn to leave both Wrexham players facing the keeper, a goal would surely have accrued.

Nonetheless, the game appeared to take a decisive turn in Wrexham's favour in the 62nd minute. Another flick-on by Roberts, who caused constant problems in the air and typically bore his rough treatment without complaint, sent Proctor clear but as he rounded the onrushing Andy Oakes the keeper scythed him down a yard outside the box. Pandemonium ensued as players clustered round. Oakes was eventually shown an inevitable red card but the referee then had to sort out some argy-bargy between Valentine and Ryan, the Wrexham man lucky to survive as he had already been booked. And all this time nobody seemed to be clear on whether a penalty had been given or not! Eventually the game was ready for resumption and Proctor's well-placed free kick looked destined for the top left corner until David Stockdale, the replacement keeper, leapt high to paw it clear, making a fine save which he had no right to manage considering his sudden entry into the fray.

The red card seemed to galvanise Darlington if anything, and Dave Penney's decision to leave two men up front and send Joachim into attack from his original post on the wing worked wonders. Foster ought to have done better than slash a shot over from fifteen yards before, with eighteen minutes left, Wrexham went further behind.

The goal was a fine effort by Joachim who ran at pace at Hope before lashing an unstoppable drive into the top right corner, Williams rooted to the spot for the second time.The game was not lost yet though. Matty Done, just on before the goal, stretched Darlington's defence and although the creative Jones went off after failing to shake off a blow to the knee-he still looked uncomfortable as he was leaving the ground-Wrexham created enough chances in the closing minutes to at least salvage a point from the game.

First Llewellyn latched onto a through ball and rolled an enticing cross-shot which just eluded Roberts and went a foot wide of the far post. Then Llewellyn whipped in a free kick which landed perfectly on Danny Williams' head six yards out, but inexplicably the midfielder planted his free header back across goal and narrowly wide.Next it was the unlikely figure of Pejic to come close to scoring, powering a header from a Done corner towards the bottom left corner of the goal only to be denied by a second fine save from the sub goalie.

Even as time ran out Wrexham still had time for two more chances, both squandered by Proctor. In the last minute he ran clear but, with Marc Williams unmarked in the middle, played a poor ball to him which was intercepted by the lone defender, and then when a corner was nodded down to him by Hope, he headed straight at the keeper from six yards.The final whistle blew to delight of the home fans, but Wrexham were left to rue their missed chances; ring any bells?

Referee: Keith Evans

Attendance: 4,408

Misc: Wrexham's first defeat at Darlington's new ground; Eifion Williams and Richard Hope's Wrexham debuts; Keith Evans' first game as a Football League referee