As the tenth goal of the match went in and the fans erupted into their now regular joyful celebration of the remarkable, for some reason I looked down at the other end of the pitch.

There was Ben Foster, wheeling away in celebration, running a delighted circle on his own. Isolation is the lot of the goalkeeper, but there was something particularly poignant in his delighted reaction: I think I looked to him to see his relief after a rough ride.

Little did I know that it was the last time I’d see him on the pitch.

That circuit he ran turned out to be his lap of honour at the SToK Cae Ras. He’ll always be remembered as one of the club’s greats, despite the statistics!

In total he played a mere 35 games for us, in two chunks separated by the longest gap between appearances a Wrexham player has ever managed, and he’d be the first to admit that he’d prefer to concede fewer than the 52 goals that went past him, and add to the 9 clean sheets he kept.

His value has been expressed in deeds, not numbers, though. When there were crunch moments, he was there. When there was glory to be had, and a player was needed to stand up and be counted, he was there.

He played, after all, at The Millennium Stadium in 2005, when we played in our first cup final under the jurisdiction of the FA. Over two hours he was unbeaten, achieving surely the most precious of those clean sheets as we took the trophy home.

He also saved some penalty last season, I believe.

I accept that he’s not found the form he’d want to at the start of the season: the man himself has declared that to be the case, and he’s a greater authority on goalkeeping than I am!

I can’t help wondering if the existence of the transfer window made him come to that conclusion, though. If we could draft a goalkeeper in any time, perhaps he’d let things settle, get some good training sessions in. perhaps let Mark Howard step ahead of him, and then see where he was.

Instead, Foster did the decent thing and stepped away from the game he loves to help the club out. His personality is another reason why he’s a club legend.

Maybe it’s the optimist in me, but perhaps it would have been ideal for him to let the disappointment of Saturday pass before making his decision with a clear head.

There were certainly poor moments in that game which involved him, but they weren’t all his fault. Ben Tozer’s back pass which hit the post while Foster slipped and scrambled looked bad, and surely would have felt mortifying for a professional with such high standards. But Tozer would be the first, as he fits into the same category, to hold his hands up and say it was his fault.

There have been goals he is right to be unhappy with, of course. Throughout his splendid career his enormous wingspan has allowed him to make saves others couldn’t, but it didn’t rescue him from a lack of foot movement when a shot flew past him last Saturday.

It’s a reasonable rule of thumb to say that a side is defending well if it restricts the opposition to shots from outside the box, because you don’t expect your goalkeeper to be beaten too often from distance.

I don’t think it totally holds true in Foster’s case though. Would he have expected to save some of those shots in his pomp? Absolutely. However, the defending in front of him in both the MK Dons and Swindon Town games was for from secure.

We allowed good players to pick their spot from the edge of the box with too little pressure on them, and often obscured Foster’s view in the process.

Take a look at the goal which Dan Kemp scored past him in the first half. I’m sure it’s one of the goals Foster is unhappy with himself over, but Kemp wasn’t pressured into rushing his shot, and two defenders stood between him and Foster, blocking the goalkeeper’s view until the ball was already whistling towards the corner, coming into his sight about ten yards out.

There are also goals like MK Dons’ fifth. Could he have stood up longer and made it difficult for the striker, with Eoghan O’Connell making a good recovery run to attempt to put pressure on? Yes, definitely. But was it Foster’s fault that we allowed MK Dons to slice through our defence so easily, leaving him exposed? You know the answer to that one.

Subtracting the number of goals a keeper has conceded from the Xg of shots on target measures his efficacy against the quality of shots faced. By that measure, Foster is second bottom of League Two goalies this season, having conceded 3.8 goals more than he ought to have done.

His goals prevented rate – saves he made which he ought not to have done, if you will – is rather more respectable, reflecting the fact that there have been games this season when he has looked good. He made another penalty save at AFC Wimbledon, and a superb subsequent stop from the same player. His command of the penalty area in that game was excellent, as it was against Walsall.

Foster deserves a better lap of honour than the private one he carried out last Saturday.

Let’s stick him on an open-top bus and drive him round town one last time! I’d be happy to see that happen next week, but if it’s too short notice I’m sure he’ll join us in May for our promotion celebrations! He’s certainly earned his spot, despite the numbers.