WREXHAM FOOTBALL CLUB has always had pulling power when it comes to signing players.
The glamour, glitz and big-bucks wages associated with the Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds Reds revolution is not the only contributory factor nowadays when attracting players to The Racecourse.
Wrexham’s reputation is also one of the reasons why players past and present have always been lured in - players like Jon Bowden, who became a fans’ favourite during his four years at the club between 1987 and 1991.
Big budgets were never part and parcel of manager Dixie McNeil’s managerial reign but the £12,500 he paid Port Vale for Bowden turned out to be money well spent.
“It was a bargain,” joked Bowden as he looked back fondly on his Wrexham days that included three Welsh Cup finals, a Division Four play-off final defeat and his biggest honour ever of leading the Reds out at Old Trafford against a Manchester United side he had supported since he was a boy.
That play-off final defeat back in 1989 came at Leyton Orient where Wrexham head to on Saturday afternoon.
Bowden scored Wrexham’s equaliser in a game that ludicrously kicked off at midday on a Sunday!
The O’s hit back to win 2-1 after the home leg - a week earlier - had ended goal-less.
To sum up Wrexham’s wretched run of bad luck in the 1980s, all lucrative play-off finals from the following year onwards would be moved to Wembley Stadium.
“We didn’t have much luck in my time there but we did have good players playing for us and a great blend of experience like Joey Jones, Alan Kennedy and Flynnie (Brian Flynn) and then all the young lads who were coming through,” said Bowden, who scored 26 goals in 197 appearances for the Reds.
“I loved it at Wrexham; had a lot of good times there.
“We had great characters in the dressing room - Graham Cooper, Nige Beaumont and Kevin Russell. It was a good dressing room and that had a lot to do with the players that Dixie McNeil brought in.
“I have nothing but good things to say about Dixie. And it was Dixie who sold it to me to come and sign for Wrexham.
“He was a great manager. He’d kick you up the arse when you needed it and then he knew when to put his arm around your shoulder.
“He’s what a manager should be like. Hard but fair and someone who’d always have a few drinks with the players.”
Bowden recalls a few ‘I can’t say what went on’ nights out during his Wrexham days when he also picked up the nickname ‘Animal’.
“I’d like to think that it was for the way I tackled on the pitch but I think it was more for the Animal character from the Muppets, who had straggly long hair like mine was at the time.”
Bowden’s early form didn’t exactly win over the Reds’ fans but in a Samson-like role reversal, once he chopped off his mullet, he became a much better player.
He added goals to his game in a new left-midfield role and 13 of those game in that season that ended in play-off misery at Brisbane Road on June 3 1989.
“I don’t remember much about the game apart from scoring and them getting a late winner,” added Bowden, who admitted he came close to signing for Leyton Orient that summer.
“They were interested in signing me because one of their players, Alan Comfort I think, was about to move to a bigger club.
“That move never materialised and I stayed at Wrexham where I became captain which was a real honour.
“But to be fair we had 11 captains on the pitch in those days.”
With the club struggling to survive at the time, Bowdon was in the team in McNeil’s last game in charge where a penny-pinching train and taxi trek to Maidstone United in October 1989 proved the last straw for the beleaguered Reds’ boss.
“It was so hard for Dixie but that’s football at lower league levels. Flynnie took over and we struggled.
“We fought off relegation one season and then finished bottom the next in the year that there was no relegation from the Football League.
“Things petered out for me really; I went on a week to week contract because I asked for more money - not much - and when Flynnie wouldn’t have me on the team photo, it was time to go.
“I was on the list but still scored a few goals at the start of the season before Rochdale paid our £10,000 for me and I had a few good years there before retiring in 1994.
Bowden then became a chartered physio at Oldham, Doncaster Rovers and Luton before returning home to Stockport.
“It’s great talking about my days at Wrexham,” added Bowden. “I never really bring up my career with anyone unless they ask.
“But Wrexham brings back memories, like leading Wrexham out in the European game at Old Trafford with Manchester United being my team.
“I also remember winning in Denmark against Lyngby and I’ve got a picture of me and Mark Sertori with a great Dane somewhere in the garage.
“There’s also a memory about Geoff Hunter, who came with me to Wrexham from Port Vale.
“Sadly he died from cancer last year but I remember one tale after we’d been hammered by Blackpool.
“Flynnie was fuming and stood in the dressing room. ‘What more do you need, he said: Defenders: You’ve got Joey Jones - a Welsh international; Midfielders. I played international football for Wales and. strikers, Kevin Reeves is a former England international.
“After he’d calmed down, Geoff, Joey and me headed for a shower and Geoff said: ‘I don’t know about international footballers, we needed International Rescue after that performance!”
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