Valentine: Home is where my heart lies
By Mark Currie, Daily Post
20 December 2006
WREXHAM
defender Ryan Valentine hopes the visiting fans will not give him too hard a
time when he comes up against his former Darlington team-mates this weekend.
The former Wales under-21 international spent four years with the north east of
England club after being released by Premiership outfit Everton.
Ironically, he captained the Quakers on the last occasion the two sides met, a
1-1 draw in the final game of last season.
But the Chirk-born 24-year-old said the lure of joining his hometown club during
the close season had proved irresistible.
“As a young lad you want to try and forge a career at the highest level, so it
was a disappointment to leave Everton,” he said. “But then I decided that I
needed to be playing first-team football and Darlington gave me that chance.
“I had to start somewhere and it was the right place for me to get some league
games under my belt. I was there for four years and I played near enough 200
games for them, so hopefully their fans accept that I always did my best while I
was there and I hope, too, that they will understand why I needed to come here.
“Darlington offered me a new contract, not in any detail, but as soon as I heard
Wrexham were interested in signing me I knew it was time to come home. I’d
rather play for my hometown club than stay in the North East and it was an easy
decision to make.”
And, although the Dragons have thus far failed to make the sort of impact on
League Two that Valentine had anticipated, he insisted there were no regrets.
“We have been struggling a bit, although there are reasons for that which have
been well-documented, but it’s still home and that’s important to me,” he added.
“Everyone here is looking forward to Saturday because I think we have only lost
one game in the league at the Racecourse this season, and hopefully we can keep
that run going against Darlington.
“I’ve still got a few mates up there and I was on the phone to one of them this
morning. He said they’ve had a bit of a bad run recently, losing three or four
on the bounce, so we’ll be looking to pick up all three points.
“As long as we win that’s the main thing, but it would be nice to get a goal and
if it was the winner it would be even more special,” he added.
Meanwhile it has been confirmed that Dragons midfielder Mark Jones will have a
cartilage operation after missing the last two league matches. He is expected to
be sidelined for around six weeks.