In each edition of Red Passion we will ask one lucky/unlucky person to reflect on their first-ever visit to watch a Wrexham home match...

Racecourse Virgins No.3

Lesley Baxter

Lesley Baxter comes from a small village in West Yorkshire and attended the recent Wrexham-Walsall encounter at the Racecourse...

On the day of my visit to the Racecourse, Wrexham, the gate was 3,842, and as my son and I had never been to Wrexham before, but had travelled quite a long way to get there (for a football match!!!), we definitely felt that we were responsible for the '2' on the end.

For the past 30 years, I had always understood that my last experience of a football match had been at Odsal Stadium, near Bradford in Yorkshire, on a hot summer's day in May, but clearly that had been rugby, and not football at all!!!

This last statement will give you some indication as to how much I know about the game of football (not a lot!!!). That being said, I tried to approach my visit to the Racecourse with an open mind.

I asked all the usual questions: Why is it called the Racecourse? Who is the red furry creature? And why does no-one sit at the other side of the pitch? But you all know the answers to these questions.

I found the atmosphere friendly and welcoming, and really enjoyed listening to the lilt of Welsh voices around us. That made me feel a long way from home, in another country in fact!

The number of men in their sixties and older in the crowd brought home the realisation that they had probably been supporting this same team for the best part of 50 years!! That's an awful lot of flasks of hot tea drunk during a lot of cold half-times. We bought our tea there and it was OK.

We had good seats in the stand near the centre line and I am sure that if I supported Wrexham regularly I should find myself a favourite seat, just like you do in a pub or at the theatre.

The game provided some excitement: three goals, two substitutions, a couple of near-injuries and a glimpse of a stretcher - all the things I had seen on TV, but never before in real life (How much more of a virgin can you be?)

Two things surprised me: the number of times the players went for the ball head first, and the number of times a Wrexham player sent the ball into an area of the field where there was just no-one there to take it up and move it on. They seemed to play a very defensive game when I had always understood that football was all about attack (in order to get past the other team and score a goal). That aspect of the afternoon rather disappointed me.

However, the weather was kind and Wrexham won - two crucial factors in any assessment of an outdoor sporting experience.

I will not say that I shall go again, as that is unlikely in the extreme, but I did enjoy my day in Wales and wish the team every success during the remainder of the season.