When Spencer Harris first reached out to the Welsh Assembly in 2017 for financial help to restore Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground as an international venue, the then board member, at a time when the fans were running the club, chose a novel way to illustrate the disparity between north and south.
Armed with no more than a map of Wales highlighting the M4 motorway that links the port cities of Cardiff and Swansea on the south coast with England, he explained to the Senedd (Parliament) how all international sport in the country was played below this major artery.
Harris and a couple of his fellow Wrexham board members then reinforced their point by shining a light on where the nation’s major museums were located. A handful could be found outside the south, he admitted, but none in north east Wales.
Considering how the previous government census in 2011 had 687,000 people living in north Wales compared to 2.5 million down south, an element of levelling-up was clearly in order.
Eight years on from Harris and his colleagues first planting the seed in the Senedd, work is now underway on a new Kop stand that will be the cornerstone of a wider Wrexham Gateway Project, partly funded by the Welsh Government.
The scheme is seen as a welcome step in the right direction, just don’t expect this investment to fully appease those in Wrexham who still feel they’re on the rough end of a north-south divide that will this week be played out on the football field for the first time in a generation, as Cardiff City travel to the SToK Cae Ras in the Carabao Cup fourth round.
Work is underway on Wrexham’s new Kop stand (Robbie Jay Barratt/Getty Images)
“The north-south element is massive,” says Tomi Caws, a lifelong Wrexham fan and host of the Men in Blazers-sponsored vlog series This Week in Wrexham. “If you’re from north Wales, it doesn’t matter what your political party is, you feel hard done by compared to south Wales and the capital, in particular.
“We are the poor relations. Whether that’s all the international games being played down south — it was an eight-hour round trip for the recent Belgium (World Cup) qualifier (in Cardiff) — or even how the Welsh media used to ignore us in favour of Cardiff and Swansea.
“Now, we’re the darlings of the Welsh media thanks to Rob (McElhenney) and Ryan (Reynolds). But it’s not so long ago that we’d joke about how Wrexham might beat, say, Hull City to move into the League One play-offs, but the big story of the day in the Welsh media would be how Cardiff’s game in League Two had been postponed.
“It’s a long time since we played each other, but I’d imagine that north-south rivalry will be there in the League Cup. It was a big part of games against Cardiff when I was growing up. Welsh pride was always at stake.”
This is a historic week amid the shifting landscape of Welsh football. Three Welsh clubs are through to the last 16 of the League Cup for the first time, with Swansea due to host Manchester City on Wednesday, 24 hours after Wrexham and Cardiff do battle for the first time since a March 2004 FAW Premier Cup tie.
We have to go even further back, to November 2001, for the last time Cardiff travelled to north Wales for a league fixture, with Cardiff winning 3-1 in the third tier.
After that, the two old foes were on very different trajectories, with Wrexham dropping out of the Football League in 2008 and only returning 15 years later, while Cardiff enjoyed two stints in the Premier League and reached both the FA Cup and League Cup finals.
Cardiff fans celebrate reaching the 2008 FA Cup final at Wembley (Nick Potts/Getty Images)
Now, though, the north has risen again, as Wrexham clinched a third consecutive promotion and Cardiff were relegated to League One, meaning the capital’s club heads into Tuesday’s tie a division below their hosts.
“Wrexham disappeared from view for years,” says lifelong Cardiff fan Gwilym Boore. “I do admire their supporters for how they fought to save the club, but the bottom line is they disappeared from view.
“Now, though, things have turned around and it’s quite jarring. They got owners from absolutely nowhere who have barely put a toe wrong. I was in Chicago a year or so ago, visiting a few bars and talking to the locals. We’d say where we’re from and they’d all want to talk Wrexham.
“In contrast, I was in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan watching Wales last month. You mention Wales there and they immediately ask about the greatest living Welshman, Gareth Bale. But, in America, you say you’re Welsh and straight away they ask, ‘What do you think about Wrexham?’.
“I go to watch Wales with a small group of friends. Eight of us, split between Cardiff and Wrexham. Initially, I was pleased for the Wrexham lads when they started getting success again. Now, when they lose, I have a bit of a titter. That shows it has become more of a rivalry again.”
No one has managed as many Wrexham-Cardiff games as Brian Flynn. Twenty-two, to be precise.
Some resonate more than others, be it the elation of Wrexham winning the 1995 Welsh Cup to bring European football back to The Racecourse for one final time, or the misery of two five-goal hammerings his side suffered at Ninian Park.
But what stands out most for this son of Port Talbot is the passion on display when the two clubs met, not least that shown by Flynn’s first team coach — and great friend — Joey Jones, the first Welshman to lift the European Cup, who sadly passed away in August.
“A big part of the rivalry surrounding this fixture is a desire to be Wales’ top team,” explains Flynn, Wrexham manager between 1989 and 2001. “This was something we always drummed into the players.
“Joey, especially. He’d take over in the team talk. I couldn’t get a word in! He wanted to be number one so much, top of the list in Wales. I’d be saying, ‘Just relax a bit, Joey’. But being the best in Wales meant everything to Joey.”
Wrexham’s Gary Bennett after the 1995 Welsh Cup final vs Cardiff (Steve Morton/Getty Images)
Wrexham ruled the roost in Wales for seven seasons during Flynn’s tenure, with Swansea being the nation’s highest-placed team in the other five.
Cardiff, however, prevailed in the 1992-93 season when battling Wrexham for promotion from the basement division, City eventually finishing top and Flynn’s side runners-up.
“Nathan Blake was the difference between the two teams when Cardiff went up as champions,” he says about that epic double-promotion campaign. “But we got our own back a couple of years later in the Welsh Cup final.
“Gary Bennett scored both goals for us (in a 2-1 win at Cardiff Arms Park) in an incredible game.”
This desire to be top dog in Wales is something the last manager to take Cardiff to The Racecourse for a league fixture fully appreciates. Alan Cork, the former Wimbledon and Sheffield United striker, spent 16 months in charge at Ninian Park after previously being at the helm of bitter rivals Swansea.
“You don’t want to be on the losing side,” says the 66-year-old. “These games matter. The big thing about the Welsh is that they are very vocal. So, expect to be told exactly what they think.
“I found that out at Swansea. The old ground (Vetch Field) was opposite the prison. A lot of the Welsh prisoners would see me and be shouting, ‘F*** off you English so and so’ out the window. Though they didn’t say ‘so and so’.
“I was manager of Swansea and these were Swansea fans who just didn’t like the English.”
The Cardiff side managed by Cork, who beat Wrexham in November 2001, had a distinct Welsh flavour, with Rhys Weston, Danny Gabbidon, Robert Earnshaw, Jason Bowen and Andy Legg in the starting XI. Another three Welshmen were on the bench in what was a deliberate ploy.
“I’d be desperate to beat a team like Wrexham with such a high profile if I were still Cardiff manager,” adds Cork about a cup tie being shown live on TV in both the UK and the U.S. “You want to quieten them down a bit.”
Former Cardiff boss Alan Cork says he’d be desperate to beat Wrexham (Ker Robertson/Getty)
For Wrexham fan Caws, that 2001 defeat marked a changing of the guard in Welsh football, as Cardiff usurped their rivals from the north.
“We were the best team in Wales when I was growing up,” he says. “We’d be up pushing for what is now the League One play-offs, while Cardiff and Swansea were almost yo-yo clubs (between the third and fourth tiers).
“Losing that last league meeting 3-1 sticks out for me. I was only 15 at the time, but I could sense Cardiff had gone past us, which is exactly what happened, as they started to move up the leagues and we went in a different direction.
“It’s why I’ll always have a bit of needle towards Cardiff, as I can remember how it felt that day in 2001. It’s why I wanted Cardiff to stay up (last season). First, to have three Welsh clubs in the same division would have taken me back to my childhood.
“Second, I wanted to beat them and show there’s been another changing of the guard, like back in 2001.”
Cardiff supporter Boore is also looking forward to the resumption of hostilities, even if he admits the distance between the two can take the edge off things compared to other rivalries.
“I can’t remember ever being distraught at losing to Wrexham,” he says. “Not like Swansea. It’s four hours to Wrexham, for a start. And not the easiest journey. You have to go via England just to get there.
“Whereas Bristol is just over the border for us. That’s why a lot of the vim and vitriol goes towards Bristol City rather than Wrexham. Having said that, it’s a really good cup fixture.
“It could get punchy between the supporters back in the day. Even at international games, there was trouble once in Brussels. That’s come to an end, thankfully. Now, it’s more of a rivalry where you can have a bit of fun.
“I was at the Eisteddfod in Wrexham over the summer. There were so many Wrexham shirts on show and I did enjoy winding a few up by asking, ‘So, who did you used to support then?’. They didn’t like that.”
Wrexham fan Caws laughs at this story, but turns deadly serious when talk switches to Tuesday’s cup tie. “I’m hoping Nathan Broadhead, a north Walian, will send us through.”