ANOTHER football season is drawing to a close and for Wrexham AFC it was an anti-climactic finish in the end.

After a 46-game battle at the top of the table the Reds' secured a play-off place only to fall at the first hurdle with a disappointing home defeat to Eastleigh.

You could argue about incidents during that game which didn't go Wrexham's way but the truth was that on the night, and over the course of the season, they fell short.

Now fans are conducting their own post-mortems on what went wrong, as no doubt the board, management and playing staff are too.

There has not been such a roller coaster season at the Racecourse in a long time.

Three different managers, a 5-1 win against promotion rivals on Boxing Day, followed by a five-game goalless and losing streak in January, and the joy of securing a play-off place only for it to be extinguished so swiftly last Thursday - there is so much to dissect.

Beginning the campaign with a rookie manager in Sam Ricketts, the season soon caught fire and the Reds' looked like genuine title contenders.

Such a start was unexpected and almost too good to be true, underlined when Shrewsbury poached Ricketts in December.

After a few weeks searching for his successor the board settled on appointing his assistant, veteran Graham Barrow, but despite a promising start, form dipped alarmingly and he soon realised the job wasn't for him.

What was extraordinary was for Barrow to be wheeled out for a 'Meet the Manager' event after he had already told the board he wanted to step down.

His eventual replacement, Bryan Hughes, was also a left-field choice even taking into account he started a very successful playing career with the Reds in the 1990s.

Despite a lack of managerial experience he more than steadied the ship towards the end of the season with the hand he was dealt, and guaranteed that play-off place.

It now remains to be seen what lessons will be learned from this season, but one thing can be said for certain and that is those behind the scenes are trying their best.

One of the less edifying aspects of the campaign, particularly when things were not going well, was the abuse directed towards members of the board, particularly as individuals.

Fair criticism is fine but on social media these last few months it has gone beyond that, sometimes becoming personal and vitriolic.

These are people working hard for the club for nothing, fitting in the running of Wrexham AFC around their own full-time work and family life. It is a thankless task at the best of times and even more so when high-pressure decisions are forced on you - such as trying to find the right manager after the previous two walked out on the club within a calendar year.

Not every decision will be the right one and these are not people drawing executive six-figure annual salaries from the role. They are doing it for nothing, for the love and good of the club.

They could walk away - and many in their position possibly would in the circumstances - but would anyone dishing out the abuse be quick to volunteer their services to replace them? Somehow I doubt it.

Roll on next season...

The Leader:

What will become of town's police station?

CONFIRMATION the future of Mold’s police station building on King Street is under review isn’t greatly surprising.

Like the former town station at Bodhyfryd in Wrexham, which is due to be knocked down soon and replaced with a Lidl store and coffee drive-thru, it was built for a different time, but is now showing signs of its age.

I had a chat with both North Wales Police Chief Constable Carl Foulkes and Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones last week when the announcement was made.

Both were absolutely adamant Mold will continue to be well policed, and there would likely be a base elsewhere in the town for officers on the beat.

But as Mr Foulkes explained, the nature of policing is changing, with online crime becoming more of a problem than anti-social behaviour on the street, which is falling.

There is no longer a need for these large buildings which are of their time and used to house greater numbers of staff before the widespread use of computers.

While some might think that is sad, another example of how our way of life is evolving, I don’t think we are losing a great deal aesthetically.

The Mr Jones, who spent many years working in the old Wrexham station, has made no secret at his lack of fondness for the old building and isn’t sorry to see it go.

When you look around the new state-of-the-art eastern division HQ in Llay, which serves Wrexham and Flintshire, you can understand why - it has absolutely everything.

Both police chiefs stressed the Mold station building isn’t going anywhere imminently, but with it being located so close the heart of the town centre, it will be interesting to see what does become of it eventually.