Well, sort of!

While the erection of a temporary stand where the Kop once stood is an emergency measure, it will give an exciting glimpse of what we can expect when we are finally allowed to replace it with a permanent, 5,500-capacity home for our growing fan base.

Seeing the structure towering above the goal last Saturday was an early Christmas present. Seeing it full this Saturday will be a thrill. There’ll be no nice quiet 45 minutes for opposing goalkeepers: they’ll be playing in front of a baying horde of Wrexham fans for the whole match now, and their defenders will now find themselves penned in on all four sides as they look to resist our onslaughts.

I must admit that the thing which propelled me into an exciting dream of what is to come was the sheer size of the thing. It’s the height of the back row of the Macron Stand (apart from the raised section in the middle, of course).

Why am I so excited by that? Because the actual, permanent Kop Stand which will eventually be built there will have a capacity over twice as large as the temporary one we’ve erected. Imagine the impact that will have on the stadium, and the players.

The new stand will be a massive landmark in the ownership of Rob and Ryan. After over 15 years of dereliction, the Crispin Lane end will be restored and we will have a complete stadium again. A 3-sided ground can never be satisfactory, but we have done the best we can with it and can now anticipate a time when the Stok Cae Ras is whole again.

As always, it’s not just about the football though: it’s about the memories.

My dad used to tell of the heaving mass of fans on the Kop as we set a stadium record for the visit of the Busby Babes in 1957. I’m ancient enough to remember sitting in the Yale stand in 1980 and looking at the heaving Kop as 30,000 squeezed themselves in for a World Cup qualifier aganst the USSR (although oddly, my main memory of the match, apart from the fact that I was seated next to Colin Jones, a Welsh boxer who challenged for the welterweight world title, was the amount of litter on High Street the next morning!)

I was even lucky enough to be on the Kop for the glorious thrashing of Spain by Mike England’s Wales team. The image of the iconic Mark Hughes scissors-kick goal will always be remembered from the vantage point of the cameras on the Mold Road, but for me there’s another version etched into my memory: of Hughes leaping in the air and then smashing the ball straight towards my face. Luckily, the net spared me a pair of black eyes and a lifetime of corrective dental work!

Big terraces brought their own, terrible risks, of course. While I never experienced the terror of a crush at The Racecourse, I was close to sustaining a life-altering injury while cheering Wales on from behind the goal.

We were playing Czechoslovakia – why are so many of my memories from games against countries which don’t exist anymore? – and Ian Rush scored at the Kop end to spark wild celebrations.

The problem was, my left arm was resting on the back of the crush barrier, and when the surge of a packed crowd shoved me forwards, that was where my arm remained! As the pressure of the crowd attempted to separate me from my arm, which was pinned against the very structure which was supposed to protect you from such mishaps, I could feel my joints start to separate and the twisting of the squiggly bits inside (I never said I was a doctor!)

Somehow, I managed to wrest my arm free, just in the nick of time. If I’d failed to do so, I never would have gone on to become the greatest goalkeeper of all time.

It’ll be fantastic to see fans on all four sides of the ground for a Welsh derby. Since the Kop showed itself off in all its glorious, baked by the sun and pulsing with energy, for the dramatic final day clash with Boston United 16 years ago, it has been open just once: for the pitiable 5-0 drubbing by Aston Villa in the League Cup the following season, when hopes for a bumper crowd led to its reopening, but a meagre crowd turned out to give the old girl its final send-off.

Things are different now, and Saturday is a significant marker in the uplifting journey we are currently enjoying.