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Brian Carey has delayed any comeback until the New Year

Wrexham’s veteran Cork defender has won few medals but his intelligence and dignity have earned him admirers.

On Thursday evening Brian Carey visited the leading knee surgeon Dai Rees for a scan on the leg that has been causing him trouble and threatening his career. Six weeks ago the 36-year-old Corkman had an operation to clean up his knee joint, but his recuperation wasn’t going as planned and Carey has now delayed all thoughts of a comeback until the new year.

The frustration is all too apparent. Carey is a former captain and figure of inspiration at a club that is in the grip of administration. They have had 10 points deducted in League One as a consequence and have had to prematurely blood several young players. You could throw up many adjectives to describe Carey’s 13-year association with Wrexham, but dull would not be one of them.

He first arrived at the Racecourse Ground in 1991 on loan from Manchester United, where he watched Eric Cantona train but couldn’t force his way into Alex Ferguson’s first-team plans. United had signed him in the summer of 1989 from Cork City, where his final game coincided with Gary Lineker’s debut for Tottenham at Musgrave Park. Two years at Leicester followed before he settled at Wrexham in the summer of 1996.

He didn’t have to stay at Old Trafford to experience high times. During his first stint at Wrexham, in January 1992, Arsenal visited the Racecourse Ground for an FA Cup third-round tie. Arsenal had won the league the previous season, Wrexham had had a near escape from dropping out of the Football League, and their 2-1 victory was one of the greatest shocks the competition has known.

“That was an amazing, amazing day,” he says. “Every time the Cup comes round the whole thing gets dragged out again. I don’t think we’ll ever see something like that happening again — the champions and league leaders being beaten by a fourth division team. Nowadays they’d probably only be fielding teams of reserves or kids and you still wouldn’t get near them.”

There have been other good years — a run to the FA Cup quarter-final in 1997, a promotion season in 2002-03 — and three caps for Ireland under Jack Charlton will be cherished, but success hasn’t defined Carey’s career. In an era when the pendulum of power and wealth has oscillated between players and clubs, Carey has conducted himself at all times with dignity and a determination never to take anything for granted. He brought to football not just a desire to play, but a curiosity as to what went on around him.

“I remember other people helping me at the start and when I started to get older I thought I might be able to help the young players. I’ve always looked at football, at some of the things that go on, and it can be a bad industry to work in. It’s ruthless and you come across some chairmen who are egomaniacs.”

What he has seen are things that are not unique to Wrexham’s footballers and are tolerated by all players in the lower reaches of the game. Like finding no ice in the ice machine because the bill hasn’t been paid. Another time he remembers the team bus not turning up because the driver hadn’t received his fee. Unlike others, though, such things galvanised Carey into action.

He is the Wrexham players’ representative in the PFA union, an important role at such a critical time in the club’s history. He has also taken his coaching badges, trains a team of under-13s two nights a week, as well as turning up for games on Sunday mornings. He has completed a PFA-sponsored sports science degree at Crewe University, which involved two intensive days a week over three years.

Carey doesn’t know what he will do when he finishes playing. If he regains his fitness he would like to continue on the pitch next season. What almost certainly won’t happen, however, is that the FAI will approach him to tap into the knowledge and expertise he has gained during his career. It isn’t just playing talent that is lost to Ireland through its dependency on English football but, as in the case of Carey, potential administrators and tutors of the future.

Brian Carey

For the last two years things haven’t been run with the club’s interests at heart

As for the plight of Wrexham, there are salutary lessons for Irish football supporters there as well. For those Shamrock Rovers fans who believe the completion of a new stadium would be an elixir for all of the club’s ills, a glance at Wrexham’s predicament should cause them to think again. An old brewing town with a population of 40,000, the raw materials for a successful club are all present — a 15,000-capacity stadium that hosts international football and rugby games, as well as fine training facilities.

Wrexham’s problems, says Carey, are purely down to bad club management. They estimate that they will have to double their home gates for the club to break even but, without proper promotion or marketing, the fans continue to drift away. “For the last two years things haven’t been run with the club’s interests at heart,” says Carey. “In fact it hasn’t been run properly for years.”

The present situation stems from two years ago, when long-time owner Pryce Griffiths sold his stake to a developer, Mark Guterman. Guterman was well received until one inquisitive fan, Lyndsay Jones, started asking questions. Guterman previously had made an unsuccessful bid to buy Manchester City before gaining control of Chester, Wrexham’s bitter rivals. Guterman’s tenure at Chester ended with the club going into administration.

After Jones’ probings it was discovered that Guterman was acting as a front for Alexander Hamilton, who made no secret of his motivation for buying the club. For an outlay of £360,000 Hamilton acquired the club and the freehold to the ground and has said he will evict the club next summer if he doesn’t receive a substantial offer to buy the club and ground. As a site for development, the Racecourse Ground could net Hamilton in excess of £20m.

Though Hamilton claims that a new ground for the club had always been planned, outraged supporters see him as nothing more than an asset-stripper committed only to lining his own pockets. A supporters’ trust (WST) was established to raise enough funds to buy the club, and the hope is that Hamilton may be able to strike a deal with Andy Smith, a developer and former Liberal Democrat councillor, who could lead the club out of administration and who has promised the trust a major role in the running of the club.

“What we need is an owner who has the club at heart,” says Carey. “The great thing about it is Wrexham has a great structure off the pitch. The stadium is the best in north Wales, the training ground is the envy of lots of clubs and the school of excellence is run very professionally. If a new owner comes in and taps into it, there’s so much potential there.”

If the good days eventually return for Wrexham, Carey knows he probably won’t be around to see them. You can be sure, though, that his part in regaining them will be proudly and warmly acknowledged.