10 years ago today, Newport County AFC beat Wrexham 2-0 in the Blue Square Bet Premier Play-off final to secure a return to the football league.
Today marks 10 years to the day that Newport County AFC faced Wrexham in an all-Welsh affair at Wembley Stadium to see who would secure their place in the football league, gaining promotion from the Blue Square Bet Premier.
Goals from Christian Jolley in the 86th minute and Aaron O’Connor in the 94th ensured Justin Edinburgh’s Exiles secured promotion after a long 25 years out of the league football.
The Exiles were reformed back in 1989. David Hando was a crucial figure in keeping Newport County going after the club was liquidated in February of 1989. The club pushed and progressed over the years in between, reaching Wembley once the year before in 2012, playing York coming out the wrong side of a 2-0 loss.
2013 was County’s year though, as 16,346 gathered at Wembley Stadium to experience the all-Welsh affair, the first of its kind. Newport County had already played Wrexham twice this season at this point, losing 3-0 and drawing 1-1 in the reverse fixture, the odds were mostly in Wrexham’s favour.
It was a fantastic day for County, creating memories, you can be sure will last a lifetime, from the atmosphere created by the travelling Exiles, the football on the pitch, the sun in the sky, to the iconic commentary voice of Tim Thraves, it made for a perfect day all round in County’s venture back into league football.
We spoke to Lenny Pidgeley, Newport County’s goalkeeper in that game, and he said:
"I knew the squad was good enough to get promoted from the league, and felt positive we were going to compete going up. We knew it was going to be a tough game due to their league form that season, with them finishing 2nd & us 3rd, but we were just looking forward to it."
Lenny said he made no research on anybody else’s penalty’s, "Just to go with my gut, but I did think we would get a chance to win & we obviously took it."
Lenny’s feeling after the win was firstly relief, because it was over, it was a long season with plenty of postponed games. Having to play 3/4 games a week and then it all boiling down to that 90 mins of football at Wembley.
We also spoke to County fan Marc Peplow on the emotions he encountered around the fixture, and this is what he had to say about it all:
“I think losing in 2012 didn’t hurt as much as it could’ve. We understood how tough York would be to break down. Even at 10 years old I didn’t expect too much. However, there was a ‘feel-good’ factor about the club. We’d stayed up quite well, we’d got our Wembley experience, and we’d brought in one or two good free agents, a significant one being David Pipe. I’ll be honest I didn’t know much about Scadding at the time, forgive me I was 10! But I remember the next pre-season having a positive feel, a positive feel in which we countered on during that first month of the season.Beating Wrexham was a ‘what if?’ feeling for me, as we’d struggled against them for a while beforehand. I do remember feeling overwhelmed whenever I thought to myself that we ‘could’ be a football league team by the end of the day.I think it was when Lenny went down, I started to worry, with no disrespect to Alan Julian who had covered well for Lenny throughout the season, but Lenny was having a good game and kept it 0-0 at times. Wrexham were on top for a good part of the game. They were a strong team; it was hard to be comfortable when they broke into our half.And then Elation. Pure elation. I cried, which admittedly is a common occurrence for me at Wembley, but it felt so impossible that it had happened. In school I’d get stick supporting a 5th tier football club, and that win just made it all worthwhile. We went through everything, we took it on the chin, we had to work for what we wanted to achieve through many a hurdle, but in the end, we got our day in the sun, and that was our day in the sun."
Club Chairman, David Hando summed up the occasion with 2 poignant words, words that are remembered and recited around Newport County to this day...“Mission Accomplished” - David Hando BEM.
Newport County AFC’s team v Wrexham:
Manager: Justin Edinburgh
Lenny Pidgeley (GK), David Pipe (captain) Ismail Yakubu, Tony James, Byron Anthony, Andy Sandell, Lee Minshull, Alex Gilbey, Michael Flynn, Christian Jolley, Danny Crow
Substitutions – Alan Julian (GK), Scott Donnelly, Andrew Hughes, Robbie Willmott, Aaron O’Connor