You Don't Go Away?!

My first 'proper' Wrexham away game (ive been to a few pre-season friendly games away, and a couple of reserve games), Notts County on Saturday, a long time coming!

250 away supporters, in what must have been Notts County's best stand, apparently their fans have argued to have the away end as their kop end, its huge with great acoustics. Sounds familiar...

Familiar faces sat all-around, the strange overly-passionate (with smelly breath) guy with the tash and cap who always sits near/next to me in the Mold Road Stand was spotted, as were many others from my usual Mold Road position... good to see friendly faces!

Notts County fans were SILENT, and I mean silent! When they scored there was barely a decibel raised, okay Steve Evans gifted their goal early on, but still, silence. In this silence I got to hear the 'real' Wrexham songs (not just "wrexham, wrexham" or "we love you Wrexham we do" etc), and also see just how fickle football fans can be.

From "Brian Careys Red Army" and "We don't care if he's got red hair, Brian Brian Carey". Notts score, cue "Brians lost his job, Brian Brians lost his job", and "Joey Jones' Red Army",chants clearly audible by the bench! Silvio Spann smacks a 25 yard screamer into the top corner and we're back to "Brian Careys Red Army". I then heard the Notts County fans, ah, they were applauding a substitution... All was going well, the Wrexham fans in good voice until the 90th minute... Spann gets sent off for flooring ex-Wrexham Hector Sam just outside the area, Sam was surely poised to score, so no real complaints... As the wall was lining up I said out loud, "look at the right hand side of the wall, looks dodgy, he's gonna hit it right"... he did, straight in! Cue "We want Carey out!" repeated, oh and lots of fans storming out of the ground, the Notts fans waving us all goodbye, as is customary of either set of fans in such a circumstance as a late winner goes in. Gutted! Losing like that, with just us 250 fans in a fuck-off huge stand in shocked silence, with the other 3 sides of the stadium hurling abuse and jumping for joy with their late winner, is a very lonely place.

I'm a Carey fan, I desperately want him to string two or three wins together and get a settled team out (currently making Benitez' rotation look stable!), and creep up the league, with maybe a cup shock at Peterborough (not essential), and all will be turned round... though I fear, defeat at home on Sunday against rivals Shrewsbury could spell a complete turn on the manager/players/owners from aforementioned 'hardcore'.

Highlight: Stadium announcement just before half time; "If there is a grade 1-4 referee in the stands, please report to reception", I turned my attention to the referee who was limping badly, holding his hamstring and signalling to the sidelines! The announcement came over several times "this is a serious call, any qualified referees in the ground please report to reception immediately". This is surely not allowed? Calling a fan from either set of fans, to referee a league match blatantly involving their team isnt allowed, is it?