FOR a club that’s kicked around in the lower leagues and endured a 15-year non-league nightmare, Wrexham fans should feel pretty proud of their exploits in the FA Cup.

They’ve reached the quarter-finals of the famous old competition three times - and it’s the 50th anniversary of that first ever run to the last eight this season.

Dave Smallman was the side’s long-haired, glamour boy at the time - one of many wily old boss John Neal nurtured into his superb sides of the Seventies.

Smallman scored the winners at home to Middlesbrough and then at Southampton as well as netting in the victory over Rotherham and Crystal Palace in rounds two and three.

But it’s an open goal miss from the first round clash against Shrewsbury where he kicks off his FA Cup story.

“I didn’t miss many but I did that day - a far post header into what was an open goal but I put it into the side netting right in front of the Kop,” said Smallman, who scored 51 times in 125 appearances for Wrexham.

“I didn’t sleep for days after that. In fact, I couldn’t sleep if I missed one in training!”

Wrexham were held 1-1 by The Shrews that day but won the replay 1-0 with strike partner, Geoff Davies, grabbing the only goal in a Gay Meadow match that kicked off at 1.45 on a Tuesday afternoon due to electricity cut-backs during the Winter of Discontent.

Smallman, who was in the last year of his teens at the time, saw his luck change at The Racecourse against Rotherham 10 days before Christmas Day where Davies added two more in a 3-0 win.

“They had me down as scoring the other goal,” recalled Smallman. “It was own goal with a lad called Billy Wilkinson scoring it - and that’s a good story.

“We emigrated to Australia, lived in Melbourne and I was playing for a team called Green Gully.

“We played a team call George Cross and Billy was playing for them. We beat them 4-2 and I scored.

“He was living in Melbourne and we became really good mates.”

Life-long friendships were also blossoming back in Wrexham in 1973 as Smallman and his team-mates were being watched by the likes of Liverpool and Everton.

“John Neal brought some great young players into the team,” added Smallman. “Joey and Mickey - or Michael as I call him - were coming through and then there were Billy Ashcroft - he was my best man - and Bob Scott, whose always been a good friend.”

That camaraderie was replicated on the pitch where Mel Sutton scored a belter and Smallman grabbed the second in a 2-0 third round win at Crystal Palace.

“That win shut Malcolm Allison and his fedora up,” said Smallman, who reckons Wrexham’s ruthless pre-season training runs on the Aberystwyth sand dunes paid dividends on what were mud-heap pitches.

“We always kept going; John made sure of that but we could play too!”

If playing on pitches devoid of any grass was a relic of days gone by so was the day Reds director Charles Roberts burst into the dressing room to tell the players he wanted them to dress up as undertakers as a ‘Bury The Boro’ publicity stunt ahead of the clash with Middlesbrough at The Racecourse.

“I didn’t think much of it at the time,” said Smallman. “In those days when you were told what to do, you just did it. Nowadays, it wouldn’t happen at all.

“Jack Charlton was Middlesbrough manager at the time and I’m sure he hadn’t lost a game.

“Graeme Souness was playing for them but we were really good that day and deserved to go through.

“Southampton put us under a lot of pressure at The Dell but Brian Lloyd had a great game and I managed to get the winner again.”

Burnley was a game too far for Wrexham as the Reds’ run ended in a 1-0 defeat at Turf Moor.

“I remember putting Arfon (Griffiths) through and he missed it while they scored with a shot that deflected in off Dave Fogg.”

Smallman, now aged 70 and living in Coedpoeth, played one more FA Cup tie for Wrexham before Everton signed him for a cut-price £76,000 in 1975.

“It was £76,000 Everton paid for me,” added Smallman. “There was talk of it being more but I think Wrexham needed the cash.

“I was at Everton for five years and I was injured for four years and three months of that time.

“I look back at my career and think I was lucky to play for the two clubs I support. Those years at Wrexham from 1969 to 1975 were at a time when the club were establishing themselves.”

Wrexham only had to wait another three years for another memorable FA Cup run.

The Reds, for whom Dixie McNeil scored 11 goals in nine ties, beat Burton, Preston, Bristol City, Newcastle and Blyth Spartans with those last three games all being settled in replays.

Arsenal ended the Reds’ Wembley dreams in a 3-2 Racecourse defeat while it was Division Two rivals Chesterfield who did that to Brian Flynn’s side in 1997.

Midfielder Bryan Hughes, who went on to become Reds manager in 2019, was one of the heroes of that run, scoring six times as Wrexham beat Colwyn Bay, Scunthorpe, West Ham, Peterborough and Birmingham City.

A place in the fifth round has eluded Wrexham in the 21st century.

Fingers crossed, that could all change at Ewood Park on Monday night....