SAM RICKETTS had no future at Wrexham Football Club - Saturday’s amazing events only rubber-stamped that!

The club’s board - the men who represent the Wrexham supporters - acted swiftly and very bravely - to tell their manager he wasn’t wanted for arguably the biggest game of the season against Newport County in Saturday’s all-Wales FA Cup showdown.

The directors listened and saw the fans’ venomous reaction to news that Ricketts wanted to talk to The Shrews.

A rookie boss who was surprisingly given a chance at this top job at The Racecourse by the same Reds board only four months earlier didn’t show that much loyalty to a club who handed him his first job in the cut-throat world of football management.

How far advanced those talks were before Saturday have yet to surface but the fact that Ricketts wanted to speak to Wrexham’s cross-border rivals speaks volumes for his plans to see out a three-year Racecourse contract.

The fact that The Shrews have head-hunted Ricketts says a lot about the job he has done in a very short space of time at Wrexham.

Ricketts thinks a move to League One is too good to turn down even if the fledgling 37-year-old manager was only coaching kids at Wolves 10 months ago.

It was a difficult position for the board to be put in and you have to feel for them - especially with what happened with Ricketts’ predecessor Dean Keates last season.

Keates left for a dream job on a three-year-deal to manage his home-town club, Walsall. Again his Wrexham loyalties were questioned but that is a much bigger pull than Shrewsbury.

Ricketts has packed his bags and has gone now, leaving Wrexham with some big decisions to make.

So what next?

A straight swap with John Askey, who Shrewsbury sacked last month could be the answer.

But the obvious choice for me and a lot of Wrexham fans would be to put Graham Barrow in temporary charge and bring in someone the experienced former Chester, Rochdale and Wigan manager can work with to keep the Reds’ season alive.

And who better than former Wrexham captain Dennis Lawrence - someone Barrow worked closely with at Wigan and Everton.

Lawrence made Wrexham his second home following his move from Trinidad and Tobago and has extremely strong links with the town.

Some may see that as a quick-fix and that it didn’t work out when Andy Davies and Carl Darlington took over following Keates’ departure.

But fans may just like the thought of a Barrow and Lawrence link-up - and if that’s sorted out quickly, Wrexham can get on with the job on the pitch - just like Shaun Pearson and his band of players did by keeping their FA Cup dream alive on Saturday night.