The travelling replica of The Turf is pretty fun, lots of Welsh accents in the crowd and the drinks come in a souvenir cup (and maybe I’m just out of practice drinking gin but the Dragon Juice has a bit of a kick to it).
Pity they’re serving Garage Project rather than Brains. Or maybe not….
Two kiwi connections - Tom McNab played for them in the 50s!
Just looked up Tom McNab on Wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_McNab He won the Welsh Cup with Wrexham and the Chatham Cup twice with Eastern Suburbs in the 1960's. Started off in Scottish football. Five full All Whites caps.
Before people make comments about playing out, it's pre season and the time to develop ways of playing out and improving systems so that players make better decisions.
Pre-season- I remember convincing myself after a Qld v Nix game that we’d lost Costa, but that was fine as we had Sean Lovemore and he’d shown a lot more off the bench than Costa had for the Roar…
but most of the playing out errors today have just been inexplicably poor execution rather than bad decisions...Bullion
Before people make comments about playing out, it's pre season and the time to develop ways of playing out and improving systems so that players make better decisions.
lovemore was aesthetically an extremely exciting player to watch, for the first 10 minutes you saw of him...martinb
Pre-season- I remember convincing myself after a Qld v Nix game that we’d lost Costa, but that was fine as we had Sean Lovemore and he’d shown a lot more off the bench than Costa had for the Roar…
It's been a very enjoyable watch so far, if this how we are going to lineup and play this season there could be a very unlikely chief redemption arc in the making.
It's been a very enjoyable watch so far, if this how we are going to lineup and play this season there could be a very unlikely chief redemption arc in the making.
Honestly not that impressed by Wrexham, look pretty meh
They're certainly no Watford - who attracted a lot of attention with their rapid rise from the old Fourth Div. to the First with a promotion almost every season in th late 70's - early 80's. They toured NZ to play the All Whites pre-World Cup in 1982 weeks after gaining promotion to the First Div. Wrexham have no one of the class of Watford's future England international strikers Barnes and Blissett. That All Whites side were entirely amateur and did pretty well vs. Watford. Back when the All Whites were all amateurs (semi-pro at best, the handful who played in Australia) they usually did okay against English first and second tier sides. An amateur Auckland rep side beat top tier Stoke City (Geoff Hurst, Gordon Banks) 3-1 in 1973. Christchurch United drew 2-2 with a strong England B in 1978 at English Park Memory lane: https://www.rsssf.org/tablesn/nz-intres-det80.html An amateur NZ with most players playing in our national league beat Div. 3 Reading (fielding guest players George Best and Martin Peters) at Reading. Reading won Div. 3 the next season and stayed in the second tier for many years after that. Went down only 3-2 to Div. 2 Portsmouth on that same tour. Beaten by three goals by strong top tier Newcastle (Beardsley, Waddle) and Leicester (Lineker, Alan Smith) sides.
Oct 29 1984, Reading, Elm Park, 3890
Reading 1-2 New Zealand
(Stuart Beavon 68' - Grant Turner 24', Colin Walker 59')
Reading (England):
Alan Judge, Steve Richardson, Martin Hicks (Stuart Beavon), Colin
Duncan, Ken Price, Dean Horrix, Trevor Senior, Lawrie Sanchez,
David Crown, Martin Peters, George Best.
Coach: n/a
New Zealand:
Clint Gosling, Ricki Herbert, Keith Garland, Allan Boath [c], John
Leijh (Martin Felton), Grant Turner, Peter Simonsen (Steve Sumner),
Raymond Harris (Keith Mackay), William McClure, Colin Walker, Kevin
Birch (Steve Wooddin).
Coach: Allan Jones.
Big call I know but I reckon that Hughes has the potential to be better than Surman. Not just from this game either. Another centre back who impresses me in local football is Dylan Gardiner. Hope he gets a run in the second half
I do hope though that we get an experienced import centre back as a mentor to work around these young defenders.
Despite looking scrapier we've held our own defensively and looked to be pretty positive. And created a bit. Happy with that. Especially missing so many senior players and imports. Pretty chuffed really.
They're bigger, stronger, technically tighter. You can see the difference. And they're missing a bit up front. But pretty good job from the youngsters matching up.
And our two Japanese guys mixing it pretty well in midfield. Getting outmuscled but battling and getting a bit of possession to work with.