A FOND FAREWELL
Over the next fortnight we’ll pay a daily tribute to one of the players who are leaving Wrexham AFC this month.

It’s rare for a player to make a professional debut like Neve Adams did.

The closing stages of a local derby, fresh off the bench, and Rosie Hughes feeds a nice ball to her in space on the left side of the box. The angle for a shot isn’t great, but Adams keeps her cool and clearly has a picture in her head of exactly what she wants to do. She lets the ball roll across her, takes a hopping little stutter step as it does so to set herself perfectly, and as the ball rolls onto her left foot she dispatches a perfect finish across the goalkeeper and inside the far post. The keeper lies sprawled on the pitch, utterly defeated, as a gaggle of powerless defenders arrive too late in the goalmouth to be greeted by the ball bouncing back off the net. Adams calmly trots back to the half way line as if dispatching such pure, clinical first time strikes is routine for her.

The one factor which spoils the fairy tale is the scoreline. The game was already gone as we were 4-1 down. When people use the phrase “consolation goal” they are merely illustrating that they don’t understand the mentality of football players, coaches and fans. We can’t be consoled by narrowing the margin of a heavy loss to a local rival.

Still, it was a brilliant moment at the end of the one truly poor performance we put in throughout the entire season.

Adams continued to show she had potential as, all left foot, she was utilised regularly as a substitute in the first half of the season. Her directness was coupled with an ability to deliver sharp, early service into the box.

However, the pattern changed decisively for her in late November. She made her first start in the 11-0 Welsh Cup win at NFA and completed the full ninety minutes, looking consistently threatening in a deeply one-sided game. It was our 11th game of the season and she had been named in the match day squad for every one of them. That pattern ended the following weekend at Swansea and, although she was back on the bench for the next five games, coming on twice in cup ties, it would turn out to be the end of her Wrexham career.

It probably didn’t help that the first of those substitute appearances was in a game which turned against Wrexham immediately after her introduction. The Adran Trophy quarter-final against Aberystwyth was certainly not straight-forward when she replaced Hannah Snape midway through the second half. We led 1-0 but Town were putting up a terrific fight. The alteration coincided with the visitors pushing the quick, direct and physical Lily Moralee-Hughes up onto the right flank and a youthful left side of our defence, composed of Adams and Leah Burke, suddenly looked vulnerable. Moralee-Hughes scored five minutes after Adams’ introduction and continued to look extremely threatening, although Burke adjusted to the threat and used her pace to nullify it as the game wore on.

That’s not to point the finger at either of the young defenders, but perhaps it can be seen as a turning point in the context of Adams being released. She seemed to be ahead of Burke in the pecking order previously: often they both featured on the bench together, but if one was absent it would be Burke, and the three times Jenny Sugarman had only used one of them as a substitute, it had been Adams. That pattern changed the weekend before the Aberystwyth game, which was the first time either of them was given a start in a match against opposition likely to stretch us.

It was a sign that Burke had overtaken her in seniority, and a substitute appearance in our next match, against Penybont, would turn out to be Adams’ last for us.

She has undoubtedly been unfortunate: one for the future, she found herself in competition for a place with a homegrown player who supplanted her and, ultimately, Burke was not retained either. No doubt the desire to give Evie Holt an opportunity once she regains fitness was also a factor as the Welsh youth international is also a left-sided player. It was a shame, as Adams never let us down and, at Park Hall, she gave a shingin moment in the midst of a rare disappointment.