VINCE O’KEEFE loves to re-live the greatest FA Cup shock of all-time.

O’Keefe, now a top football agent, who once brokered Chris Sutton’s then British record transfer deal from Norwich to Blackburn and has former Reds’ keeper Ben Foster in his player portfolio, says Wrexham will always have a special place in his heart.

The Wrexham keeper, 35 at the time, made sure Wrexham were still in the tie at half-time with a string of fine saves before Mickey Thomas and Steve Watkin struck the goals to beat Arsenal 2-1.

“In a 20 year-playing career, I’ve seen some great players score great goals, Trevor Francis at Birmingham and Simon Garner at Blackburn, but watching Mickey Thomas’ free-kick go in was the greatest feeling I’ve ever had on a football pitch,” said O’Keefe.

“In football you always wait and want something special to happen and Mickey’s free-kick was special – as are my memories of Wrexham. I didn’t need to get special mementos from the game because it’s in your heart where all the memories are.”

O’Keefe reeled off stories of all his former team-mates, saying left-back Phil Hardy should have played at the very top, how Andy Thackeray was the club’s best runner and the day he first saw Karl Connolly play.

“It was in a reserve game at The Racecourse and Karl came with a few of his friends,” O’Keefe recalled. “He scored and the next minute his mates had jumped over the fence and were doing cartwheels on the pitch.

“He’d been playing Sunday League football in Liverpool and it was like the Jamie Vardy story the way he took to professional football.

“I really can’t speak more highly of the club and the fans. They knew that Brian Flynn, Kevin Reeves and Joey Jones were doing something special at the club after the day we beat Arsenal.

“It was the start of the club going in the right direction. But we had some great people in the background there too. Idris Pryce, Brian Prandle and Cliff Sear and I’ve got nothing but admiration for Dixie McNeil, who brought me to the club the season before Brian took over.

“I felt really sorry for Dixie especially after that trip to Maidstone when he eventually said ‘enough was enough’

“We left Wrexham for Crewe on the train at 7am. Then to Euston, across London to Liverpool Street and then to Maidstone before two or three of us got into taxis to the ground.”

They were the bad memories but not as bad as the ones felt by Arsenal.

“I remember Paul Merson knocking on the dressing room door and coming in to shake our hands,” said O’Keefe. “They were all the same and really went up in my expectations that day.

“I’ve met a lot of them since, including the manager George Graham.

“I was at Arsenal where my cousin Steve Ward had to cut short his career through injury. He was very highly thought of and I mentioned his name and George Graham came across and said that losing at Wrexham was the worst day of his career.”

Another Wrexham veteran from that day, Gordon Davies, accused Arsenal of underestimating Flynn’s Reds, who had finished bottom of the Football League the season before.

“I thought they were going to be a lot more professional when they were leading and tighten it up,” said the former Fulham forward Davies, who won the free-kick for Thomas’ goal before laying on Watkin for the winner.

“They treated it as a training match. We’ve got a team of youngsters and two old men and perhaps our desire to win was greater than theirs.

“We had an incredible run in the cup, beating Arsenal and then drawing with West Ham before losing the replay at the Racecourse Ground.

At Fulham, we’d always been bridesmaid and never the bride and never managed to take that one big scalp that we were capable of getting. But at Wrexham, we took Arsenal’s scalp and it was an incredible time.”