RYAN REYNOLDS will always get the red carpet treatment when rolling out Wrexham’s most famous Canadians but Reds fans shouldn’t forget the best supporting role played by Don Ferguson.

Ferguson turned up in Wrexham between Christmas Day and New’s Year Day in 1985 as beleaguered boss Dixie McNeil searched high and low to solve the club’s goalkeeping crisis.

The starry-eyed Ottawa-born shot-stopper arrived in North Wales via Luton where he was hoping the roads of north London would be paved with gold.

Instead it was Crispin Lane where Ferguson made his money - well £30 a week - plus an unexpected bonus when he played in the Wrexham versus Chester cross-border derby at Sealand Road.

Home office red-tape denied him a Kenilworth Road contract when Luton, with their infamous plastic pitch, were mixing it with the big boys in the top flight.

“I’d paid my own way to fly over from Canada to try and make it in England and I ended up at Luton Town,” said Ferguson.

“They were in Division One - the days of Ricky Hill, Mick Harford and Andy Dibble, who I’m sure Wrexham fans are familiar with.”

Dibble, a promotion winner with Wrexham in 2003, was, at the time, number two to Les Sealey at Luton.

But an injury to Dibble in a match celebrating Luton’s centenary in October 1985 gave Ferguson his chance.

“It was in the October and they had a match to celebrate the club’s 100th year anniversary,” added Ferguson.

“At that time one keeper would play and there’d be just one sub and no keepers on the bench.

“So I’m sat in the crowd and this is my real Roy of the Rovers moment.

“I look up and Andy Dibble’s holding his hamstring in the warm up. Our other keeper Les Sealey had left and gone home.

“One of the apprentices runs up the stairs and says ‘Don, you’re going to have to come down’.

“Being Canadian they tried to take the mickey out of me and I told him to get lost

“He ran back up again and said ‘Don, you’re going to come down and sit on the bench!’.

“I walked down and the goalkeeper’s uniform was waiting for me.

“I got dressed and went down the tunnel and I could hear all the fans saying ‘who’s that?’

“It was kind of funny. I did the quickest warm up you’ve ever seen in your life and David Pleat, the Luton manager, said ‘Don, you’re on!

“It wasn’t even a full clap from the home crowd, just a sparse applause.

“John Barnes scored a free kick for Watford against me and I remember Mitchell Thomas, who was on the post, turning round and saying what a shot that was.

“I made three or four really good saves and we got a goal and tied it 1-1.

“After the game David said to me: ‘Well done son, you’re one of us now and you’ll train with the first team’.”

But the big dream never materialised.

“We were trying to get a work permit in England but couldn’t get one,” said Ferguson. “But for some reason they were giving them in Wales and I don’t know how that worked.

“They said they wanted me to go to Wrexham and get some some games in.

“I arrived just before New Year and Mike Keen was the keeper at the time and in one game, the ball goes up and he wrenches his back on the post.

“So I was in the team and made my debut in a 3-2 defeat at Crewe.”

Ferguson went on to make 22 appearances as Wrexham finished 13th in Division Four.

“I loved it in Wrexham and it was a great time in my life,” added Ferguson. “There was pub called the Four Dogs and I lived right behind it. Mrs Mannion was the landlady and she was awesome.”

“I was on £30 a week but my digs and food were all paid for.

“I remember the Chester game. I was getting pelted with coins but I picked them all up so I had a bonus that week!

“As for the players, Barry Horne was a pretty young guy. Stevie Charles was there and Jackie Keay too.

“Jackie was awesome. He said you stay on your line and I’ll clear everything and he was unbelievable in the air.

“Mark Morris was my back up keeper and I talk to him every once in a while.”

Ferguson also recalls frustrating Nicky Hencher and Shaun Cunnington in a shooting training session as well as picking up tips from ex-Welsh international Dai Davies.

“I remember for the cup games they bought in Dai Davies. One night, it was a miserable night, raining and sleet and Dixie asked to me to stand behind the goal.

“I didn’t hear a lot he was saying so he could have been speaking in Welsh for all I know!”

Davies played in all Wrexham’s Welsh Cup ties that led a final victory over Kidderminster and the passport to another European Cup Winners Cup adventure.

Ferguson missed out on that and a new Racecourse deal.

“I thought I’d done well and I was after a contract and went to see Dixie at the end of the season,” he added.

“He said I’d done really well but that they were looking for an experienced keeper.”

With no chance of a work permit at Luton, Ferguson returned home but that stint playing for Wrexham was enough to earn an international call-up.

“The silver lining of leaving Wrexham was the 1986 World Cup and for the first time Canada had qualified,” he said.

“Because I was playing at a higher level than most in Canada I got my chance and that was my ambition when moving to England to get my opportunity to be a regular Canadian goalkeeper.

“And I ended up being called into the squad in Vancouver and played 11 games for Canada and a lot of B internationals too.

“I also missed out on the Olympic squad the year before I came out to England.

“The first round was all amateur and we had trained from 1981 to prepare.

“We’d qualified but they brought all the professionals in and I went from first team to third string. So while all the first team went to LA, I was in the taxi squad waiting in Vancouver.”

Ferguson ended up playing for Ottawa where ex-Wrexham defender Mike Williams also played alongside him for a season.

Now aged 61, Ferguson still has his enthusiasm for the game and is goalkeeper coach at Guelph United.

“I’m working with the university as goalkeeping coach - the team is like a sixth tier one in England,” he added.

“I coach the U21 team and also the Para team - a cerebral palsy team.

“I had a couple of goalkeepers with inverted hands and inverted feet and to see them dive across the goal making saves always brings a smile to my face.

“It’s been very rewarding.”