Steve Massey tops the list as Wrexham's greatest ever goalscorer in Europe

Fist-pumping fans as he motored down the Paddock touchline in front of a packed-out Racecourse for a European Cup Winners Cup clash, Massey was on a high - a moment the Denton-born striker hasn’t and will never ever forget.

“You won’t believe it but I was watching a video of that game the other day,” said Massey, now living in Truro and back in football in a big way as Cornwall bids to put itself on the footballing map.

“It was my best game for Wrexham.

“I loved the big match atmosphere and it was made for me that night. It was one of those games when everything came so naturally, so instinctively, so instantly.

“I still can’t believe we didn’t win. Their keeper was out of this world. There were so many times I thought Jim Steel had scored but their keeper, who Dixie McNeil had told us before the game was dodgy, kept pulling off save after save.

“He left a mark on me in more ways than one - as I’ve got a scar all the way down my shin from him following through on me.

“But I beat him, a great strike from six yards and it was great watching that celebration again. I think Martin Tyler was the commentator and he said: ‘It’s Massey!’

“If there hadn’t have been fences at the other end of the ground I don’t think I’d have stopped. No-one was going to catch me, I know that!”

Despite Steve Buxton scoring another extra-time equaliser to add to Massey’s strike, the second round tie ended 2-2 after two goals from Real’s £1m Chilean international striker Pato Yanez.

Wrexham, unlike their amazing exploits in Porto two years earlier, bowed out on the away goals rule.

But Massey loved it and has plenty more tales to tell of a European adventure that could so easily have ended in meltdown in Malta.

“I don’t know whether I should say this but it’s a long time ago now. There was me, Barry Horne, Steve Charles and Neil Salathiel lying by the pool in the hotel when this Maltese guy approaches us. ‘What will it cost to let the Malta team win?’ he asked us.

“We couldn’t believe it and told him where to go.

“It spurred us on even more to win out there in Zurrieq but, boy, was it hot. I’ve never played in conditions hotter than that but at least I scored my first goal for Wrexham in a 3-0 win.

“Mike Conroy had been ribbing me about not scoring but said before the game ‘you’re going to get one today’.

“I did and Mike ended up scoring too. Zurrieq weren’t the best but you still have to beat them.”

Massey added another double - including one from the penalty spot - as Wrexham triumphed 4-0 at The Racecourse to register their biggest ever win in Europe, setting up the clash with Zaragoza.

“I don’t know if the Spanish photographers thought we were Liverpool but they followed us everywhere - the airport to the hotel lift,” said Massey. “We had as many watching us training as we would for a normal home game at The Racecourse.

“It was a wonderful experience and Wrexham took a few fans out there - my brother Stuart was on one of the supporters’ coaches and then the game itself was something else.

“As with most grounds in Spain, the dressing rooms are below the pitch so you climb the steps to go out onto the pitch.

“I remember the goose pumps coming up and just seeing and hearing the Spanish crowd. I think there were 25,000 there that night. The lights, the atmosphere, it had everything.

“And we played well, so well to get a goal-less draw out there and we impressed - or annoyed, I don’t know which - the home fans so much that they started twirling white flags and hankies with 10 minutes to go. That was a sign of just how well we’d done.”

Massey’s goal in the second leg took him past Billy Ashcroft’s three goal return to make him the club’s top European marksmen - a record that is unlikely to ever be beaten unless the Reds end up in Welsh football’s top flight in the future.

Massey finished with 15 goals in 44 games that season to add to equally impressive goals-per-game ratios at Stockport County, Bournemouth, Peterborough and Cambridge prior to his North Wales move.

But injury and the arrival of Kevin Russell at The Racecourse saw him quit the Football League to embark on a new adventure in Devon and Cornwall - running holiday camps with his wife, Gail.

“It’s something we’d always talked about doing and we bought our first one in 1989 and kept on adding to the list,” added Massey, who was only 30 when he left Wrexham.

“I wasn’t going there to retire and in the early days I was like that character in Carry On Camping when he did all the jobs. I wasn’t one for sitting in an office. I wanted to get my hands dirty and I still wanted to carry on playing football so I signed semi-pro terms at Truro City, where I was player of the season twice before becoming player manager.”

And there have definitely been more high-de-highs since down south for Massey, who is currently boss at ambitious South West Peninsula League side, Helston Athletic.

“We lost the second game of the season but won 24 on the trot after that and had just scored our 100th league goal of the season before the coronavirus ended it all,” said Massey, now aged 62.

“We have a very talented group of youngsters here. The youth team reached the first round proper of the FA Youth Cup last season - and no team in Cornwall has done that for 60 years!

“Coming back into football with Helston has been great. I’m a football man. I always have been.

“I’d given it up for a few years. Life and business had been good.We’d sold four of the holiday camps and I was going all over the world watching England play cricket.

“It wasn’t until I went to watch a match one night, the floodlights were on as I walked up the steps and it took me back. I’d stopped playing at the age of 34 but football was my life and I wanted to give a bit back.”

Helston is the latest stop off for Massey in a county that isn’t renowned for football.

“We had a success at Truro, league and cup double, FA Vase wins but I had a panache for falling out with the club owners,” added Massey, whose CV also includes twice taking Cornwall to the County FA Championship Finals.

“It was hard first of all,” he added. “Going from being a full-time professional to managing a team for whom football wasn’t the number one priority. I remember playing for Truro first of all and coming out of the showers and asking where the towels where. I quickly got to learn that you had to bring your own,

“Also family and work are the most important parts of your life. As a pro, you had to put work first so I found it difficult when at first, you’d get three or four lads saying ‘I won’t be at training tonight.’

“When I was playing you’d lose on the Saturday and I remember Dixie barking: “Right you lot. We’re in at eight in the morning!”

Massey recalled many fond memories of manager McNeil - including the bit of luck that made him sign for Wrexham.

“I’d just had talks with Dixie and the choice I had was Wrexham or Stockport - and that would mean a chance to move back home,” he said.

“I was in the car with my wife in the car park behind the club when Dixie comes out and asks me to wind down my window.

“I do but then a huge piece of bird poo hits him on the head and starts running down. I was so embarrassed for him but I told him that’s a sign of good luck so you must be a lucky bloke. I’m signing for Wrexham!”

It was liquid of another variety that had Massey laughing again after Halifax had grabbed a last minute winner at The Shay.

“Steve Buxton had got an equaliser for us but Halifax had gone straight back down the other end and scored and we lost 2-1,” added Massey. “Dixie went ballistic. He was red in the face and ranting.

“We all had our heads down. I was taking as long as I could to take off my tie-ups, shin-pads and boots. He was really going for it. ‘Look at me’ he said. ‘I want you to look me in face and tell me why we’ve lost that game’

“No-one said anything. There’s 18 plastic cups of tea on the treatment table and he smashes his fist on the table and all the cups fly in the air but with most of the tea landing on Dixie. He’s dripping wet and we’re biting our lips so we don’t burst out in laughter.

“That was the passion of Dixie McNeil - a manager I really enjoyed playing for and Wrexham were a club I really enjoyed playing for.

“The club didn’t have much money but we had good players and we should have gone on and won promotion that season.

“We were a bit rag-tag and bob tail and would train at a number of places. In fact I remember Mark Hughes coming to train with us a couple of times - he was at Barca or Bayern at the time - and I wondered what he thought of having to trample through the long grass?

“But that was what Wrexham was about. I loved the fans and I think they’ll remember me well - especially those who saw me having a hair cut in town one day.

“I hadn’t long been at the club but needed to tidy up my Roy Race mullet. A couple of fans went past and pointed at me and on Saturday, I get the ball by the Kop and hear the chants ‘Vidal, Vidal’.”

That was nothing compared to the red-faced embarrassment he suffered at Hull after moving from Northampton in a £50,000 deal in 1983.

“I was on good money there but I was living on my own. We’d only just got married and Gail returned to Minehead to run the business we’d set up,” recalled Massey.

“I did a jokey piece with the local paper, with pictures of me doing the ironing and hanging up the washing.

“Then I went into the ground and the boss, Brian Horton it was, shouts: ‘Massey. Get in here now!’

“He threw me a copy of the paper and on one page there was the piece with me - Hull’s new signing doing all the household chores. And on the other page there’s a big piece with Hull KR’s latest signing with pictures of him at the docks pulling in a boat by a rope!

“Horton said I made the club the laughing stock of the town and painted footballers in a bad image. But I didn’t last long there. Cambridge were paying silly money and for the one and only time in my career, I went for the money.

“I got a decent signing on fee, a house rent fee for a year and it set us up for life. In fact I didn’t sell the house we’d been living in before until 15 years later.

“It proved a good decision and so did my next one, signing for Wrexham.

“The prospect of playing in Europe was something that pulled me in and talking about those European games has brought back memories I’ll cherish for ever.”