Sad farewells to be said to top Wrexham AFC players

Leader Live

22-05-2025

Some familiar names left the club last week. The announcement of the retained list brought an end to some distinguished Wrexham careers, and we lost some good friends to boot.
That's the inevitable nature of football. It's a competitive sport, so tough decisions have to be made. That doesn't mean they're the wrong decisions, but the price of success is losing people we'll miss.
Jordan Davies is part of the fabric of the modern club. He is both a wonderful ambassador for the club and a genuine talent.
The most recent Wrexham-born player to score a hat-trick, which he did with aplomb at Halifax, he served us superbly and it was a shame that our League Two season coincided with him picking up an injury.
That hampered his chances of enjoying continuity in the first eleven, and ultimately led to this season's loan to Grimsby.
I know this is a little left field, but I can't help looking back to our defeat at Accrington in November last season and wondering whether that was a key moment for Davies.
By that point our squad was packed full of exceptionally strong central midfielders. He was competing with the likes of Elliott Lee and Andy Cannon for an attacking role and an injury at the start of the season had set him back.
International call-ups for James McClean and Jacob Mendy meant Davies was unexpectedly shifted across to his old position of left wing back. It was an opportunity for him to find a new place in Parkinson's plans vying for both that position and a midfield slot.
Unfortunately, it didn't go well although the blame did not lie at Davies' door. It was one of those days where the whole team struggled. Accrington had an extremely well thought-out plan to counteract us and as a result it was difficult for anybody to shine.
It was the first and last time Parkinson used Davies as a left wing back. I can't help wondering: if the side hadn't suffered a collective malfunction whether he might have carved out a different path to remain at The Racecourse. Instead, somewhat surprisingly, that turned out to be his final league start for us.
Mark Howard, of course, has been a remarkable servant to the club, not least with his reaction to being replaced by Ben Foster and then Arthur Okonkwo.
His reaction, accepting whatever the manager felt was best for the club, was incredibly humble and his ability to be ready at a moment's notice to step in and perform with quality was invaluable.
He was right to point out that he's the first goalkeeper to achieve three consecutive professional promotions in Britain because he played such a massive role in keeping those campaigns on track.
It was Steven Fletcher's departure which was the biggest surprise.
He has made a unique contribution to our success. We won more games 1-0 than we ever have done in a previous season, and Fletcher was a massive part of that.
Seven times he came off the bench and scored; five times he came off the bench and scored the winning goal. That's ten points that his goals were responsible for right there.
He ended up equal top scorer, even though he only started in two games all season! No need to check if that's a club record! And yet, he's gone.
Yes, that's a bit surprising. But does his departure tell us something massive about what is to come? Wrexham mean business next year.
If Parkinson feels we can improve the squad by allowing Fletcher to go, it shows the level of ambition we have. We clearly don't intend to replace Fletcher with a seat filler.
We have the budget, we have supportive owners, and we have a plan. We've scaled up successfully three times in three years, and if we are planning to bring in players of the calibre which makes us feel we can let Fletcher go, we're going to be going for it again next season. I think I may have forgotten what consolidate means too!
The truth of the matter is that we are in a position to push on and see what we can make of The Championship, and the departure of so many great servants of the club illustrates this.
Look back to last summer.
Do you honestly feel that the likes of Luke Young and Ben Tozer couldn't have done a job for us in League One?
Of course they could, but Parkinson took tough decisions, and let people go who he knew were valuable.
He drafted in players who would take the places of excellent servants of the club, and it worked.
The players who have been released, many of whom are perfectly capable of playing a role next season, have gone because Parkinson has big plans.
There's no guarantee this bold strategy will work, but thus far, Parkinson's judgement has been remarkably accurate. He has made tough decisions and been vindicated.
He's certainly earned the right to make those decisions again.