Roberts remembers Wrexham's Euro heyday

Apr 16 2008 icWales

WITH Cardiff having reached the FA Cup final and Swansea promoted to the Coca-Cola Championship everything seems rosy in Welsh football – unless you happen to be a Wrexham fan.

The club find themselves rock bottom of League Two and facing the realistic prospect of relegation from the Football League.

If manager Brian Little, as well as the Dragons players and supporters, need inspiration from the tough times ahead they need only look at what Bobby Roberts achieved 24 years ago.

The Dragons were relegated to the old fourth division at the end of the 1982/83 season and, against a backdrop of financial problems, the club lost many of their established players.

But in the 1984/85 season, Roberts gave the fans a taste of continental success as they rubbed shoulders with some of Europe’s elite.

Wrexham had qualified for the European Cup Winners’ Cup through the Welsh Cup and were paired with FC Porto in the first-round draw.

“Porto had a team packed full of internationals and we were really struggling at the time in the old fourth division so nobody gave us any real chance,” Roberts recalled.

“Most of our established and talented players like Joey Jones, Wayne Cegieski and Ian Edwards had already left the club by that stage and we were hard up financially as well.

“But that’s the thing with football – it’s 11 versus 11 on the night and anything can happen.

“We played brilliantly in the first leg of the tie to sneak a 1-0 win at the Racecourse thanks to a goal from Jim Steel in what had been a great team performance.

“We hoped we could get something from the second leg but the task was going to be difficult in Portugal and I don’t think many people thought we could get through.

“I looked at their home record in Europe and it was really impressive.

“They had beaten Aberdeen – who were a really good side under Alex Ferguson - in the semi-finals of the competition the previous season and only lost 2-1 to Juventus in the final.

“Alex was really good actually because he sent me all the information and videos from when they had played them, which helped us in the pre-match planning.”

But things did not look good for the team from North Wales after Porto went 3-0 up in the second leg of the match after 38 minutes at the Estadio das Antas.

“We were three down and I must admit I feared the worse and was worried what the final score would end up being,” Roberts continued.

“They got one goal from the penalty spot, which was bit dodgy, while one of the others was an absolute screamer.

“I remember the weather was terrible. It rained and rained and definitely helped, though the pitch was still in really good condition.

“In the team were some young lads and because of the money situation we had a bench that was just full of apprentices so it was going to be difficult to really change things.

“But Jake King produced a captain’s performance and scored two great goals, which hauled us back into the tie.

“Porto scored again to make it 4-2 to them on the night and 4-3 on aggregate and my heart sank but then a young lad called Barry Horne, who I had signed from Rhyl, scored a fantastic goal to equalise.

“Even then we might have made it 4-4 on the night as Kevin Rogers missed a really good chance. The lads defended brilliantly and held on to go through on away goals.”

Wrexham drew Italian side Roma, who had lost to Liverpool on penalties in the European Cup final the previous season, in the next round.

Roma, who were then managed by Sven-Goran Eriksson, proved difficult opponents and, despite a battling performance, Wrexham slipped to a 3-0 aggregate defeat.

Roberts, who is now a scout with Blue Square Premier side Oxford United after spells scouting for Newcastle and Derby, hopes his former club can get out of trouble.

“It’s sad to see Wrexham in the situation they’re in and they are running out of games to get out of the relegation zone,” the Scot added.

“They have a lot of ground to make up but even if they do go down I’m sure they will be back again – we showed in Europe back then what can be achieved if everyone pulls together.”