Chester v Wrexham – Steve Hill on a fierce cross-border rivalry
One of British football’s oldest rivalries remains as fierce as ever
GROESO I Gymru. Welcome to Wales. Words that will be all too familiar to long-suffering Chester fans as the convoy of coaches slowly wends its way each season from the Deva Stadium to the Racecourse via a route that even the most aberrant satnav would struggle to conjure up.
Ever since the reformed Chester FC returned to the National League and resumed hostilities with cross-border rivals Wrexham, the match has been designated a so-called ‘Bubble’ fixture, currently the only one in British football. As such, a voucher has to be bought in advance – at a premium – which gets you onto a coach at a ludicrously early time.
Despite police outriders stopping the traffic and a helicopter hovering above, the coaches arrive at the ground some time later, at which point you are given a match ticket and directed towards the turnstiles, by now sapped of the will to live.
From ground to ground is 13 miles by car, or 15 minutes on the train, yet it’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve listened to an entire Premier League match during the journey.
It’s the kind of arrangement that would be more suited to transporting murderers between prisons rather than taking Non-League football fans to a nearby stadium, the vast majority of whom are responsible adults with absolutely no desire to run at strangers with their arms outstretched.
And if the early kick-offs are to discourage drinking, I was once sat next to a fan who had been in a city centre hostelry since 8am and – with no toilets on board – was regretting having four pints of swill for breakfast. Even worse, I randomly had the same driver two years running, and had to listen to the same endless cock and bull story, word for word.
To be honest, I would rather take my chances in Wrexham’s roughest alehouse in full replica kit than go through that again.
Of course, the Wrexham fans are subjected to the same fresh hell each season. In fact it’s the exact same coaches, drivers and drivel that they will have to endure next Saturday, although there is some concession to normality in the form of a 3pm kickoff. And of course they have the bonus of getting out of Wrexham for an afternoon.
“We share your pain,” says longtime Wrexham fan Chris Maxwell. “It’s a laughably over-the-top way to try and ‘control’ a relatively small football crowd and it has taken the edge off a great derby. I have joined the slow, arduous convoy from Wrexham to Chester before. On the plus side, the views are nice on the way home to Wales, but I won’t be doing it again.”
Nobody can deny that the fixture has had a hint of trouble in the past, but these draconian measures are in danger of destroying what is traditionally the big game of the season for both clubs.
As Maxwell says: “This is still the one we look for first when the fixtures come out in the summer, though the atmosphere at recent derbies has been somewhat muted thanks to the ‘bubble’ arrangements discouraging travelling fans.”
Boycotting the bubble is becoming increasingly prevalent, to the extent that Chester’s away following of 550 this season represents the lowest turnout in the fixture’s history.
Being live on BT Sport may have provided an easier option for a few stragglers, but to put it into perspective, we took more to York. And while talk of ‘civil liberties’ borders on the hysterical, there is a sizeable number of fans who simply will not attend the game while the bubble restrictions remain in place.
It’s a sad state of affairs for a fixture that once drew an astonishing 19,000 crowd in the 1970s. One of the great derbies in British football, the cross-border rivalry gives it added spice, as does the superiority complex enjoyed by Wrexham fans, presumably due to their European exploits, FA Cup giant killings, larger support and international stadium. Which made it all the sweeter when Chester’s reformed ‘pub team’ turned them over 2-0 at their place at the first attempt.
Due to the proximity of the two clubs, numerous players have appeared for both sides over the years, not least Chester cult hero Gary ‘Psycho’ Bennett, who memorably knocked the Goats out of the FA Cup at a snowbound Racecourse before annoyingly going on to score dozens of goals for them.
Indeed the current Chester side is something of a Wrexham tribute act, with Johnny Hunt, Blaine Hudson and Elliott Durrell having all seen the light at the end of Bumper’s Lane.
But of all the players to cross the border, few are more contentious
From ground to ground is 13 miles yet by car, or 15 minutes on the train, it’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve listened to an entire Premier League match during the journey. It’s the kind of arrangement that would be more suited to transporting murderers between prisons rather than taking NonLeague football fans to a nearby stadium, the vast majority of whom responsible adults with absolutely are no desire to run at strangers with their arms outstretched.