WREXHAM’S attention turns towards the FA Cup this weekend and the Reds’ record of making it through to the third round of the competition in the last 50 years is pretty good.

The Reds have featured in 25 second round ties - three of them replays - since 1973 and they’ve won 15 of them.

That first win came in 1973 as Wrexham beat Rotherham 3-0 en route to the quarter-finals that season where Burnley ended John Neal’s Reds’ run in a 1-0 defeat at Turf Moor.

Four years later, Wrexham, now managed by club legend Arfon Griffiths, went all the way to the last-eight again, and that run included a brilliant 2-0 win at Preston in round two where two more Racecourse stalwarts, Dixie McNeil and Gareth Davies, scored.

The Reds’ third time of reaching the quarter-finals came in the 1996/97 season when Steve Watkin, who scored 12 FA Cup goals for his home-town club, scored an extra-time winning penalty in a 3-2 second round replay win over Scunthorpe.

Scunthorpe beat Wrexham 2-0 in 2004 with the Reds reversing that scoreline two years later.

That defeat in 2004 was one of just seven over the past 50 years. The others came against Notts County (3-0 in 1985); Bolton (2-1 in 1987); Swindon (1-0 in 2009); Oxford United (2-1 in 2013); Newport County (4-0 in 2018) and the worst of all, at Worcester City in 1982.

Worcester were one of five non-league teams to come up against Wrexham in second round ties.

Bobby Shinton hit the winner in a 1-0 replay win at Goole Town in 1976 and Watkin’s goal against Telford United in 1991 secured a dream third round tie at home to Arsenal where the same player hit the winner in the Reds’ most famous FA Cup giant-killing act.

The Reds also beat Maidstone (3-1 in 2014) and Farnborough last season where Paul Mullin hit a hat-trick in a 4-1 victory.

Rochdale were knocked out twice by the Reds, 4-1 in 1986 and 2-1 13 years later while there were also victories against Chesterfield (3-2 in 1995), York City (2-1 in 1998) and 1-0 at Brentford in 2011 where Jamie Tolley grabbed the Griffin Park winner.

Last, and by no means least, was the second round win Wrexham fans will remember most fondly - 2-0 at arch rivals Chester in 1997 where Karl Connolly scored both goals.