Apart from making a contribution to Wrexham’s culture and economy, by the 1960s we started to see a Polish influence on the Wrexham side.

Ray Mielczarek played nearly a hundred games for us at centre back between 1964 and 1968. He moved on to Huddersfield and Rotherham and won one Welsh cap in 1971.

By the second half of the 1970s we had a couple of players whose roots were embedded in Wrexham’s prominent Polish community. Eddie Niezwiecki was an outstanding goalkeeper who was remarkably unfortunate not to earn caps for Wales. He stepped up from the youth team to be on the bench for our run to the quarter-finals of the European Cup Winners Cup in 1975-76 but didn’t make his debut for two more seasons. He would establish himself as back-up to Dai Davies as we enjoyed the unprecedented successes of that 1977-78 campaign, making twenty appearances including the FA Cup quarter final against Arsenal.

He played in both legs of a Welsh Cup final defeat to Shrewsbury the following season and became first choice in the 1981-2 season. He was in goal for the sensational FA Cup win at Nottingham Forest and subsequent trilogy against Chelsea that season, and was outstanding throughout, but couldn’t rescue us from relegation despite earning the player of the year award. He’d clearly added to the respect Chelsea manager John Neal had developed for him when he’d named him on the bench for that European run, as he left us to sign for the London team.

Wayne Cegielski broke into the team at roughly the same time as Niedzwiecki and was a reliable option at centre back through our first stint in the second tier. He was a versatile player, also able to play at full back, but his most memorable shift in position came when he famously had to go in goal at West Ham after Davies was sent off. He put in a fine performance and repelled the Hammers as we came back from the controversial first half goal which led to Davies’ dismissal to earn a 1-1 draw!

In more recent times another player from the Polish diaspora who made a significant contribution to the club was Adrian Cieslewicz, who appeared for us in our early days in the National League: a dashing winger who was Faroese, strictly speaking, but only because his father, also a professional footballer, had been playing in the Faroe Islands when Adrian was born.

He joined us from Manchester City youth set up and became a valuable attacking option, his extreme pace making him very useful down the right flank, while occasionally starting up front. A pattern soon emerged where his impact off the bench became increasingly crucial. We saw this most clearly in our 2013 FA Trophy triumph when he influenced a home leg of the semi-final against Gainsborough Trinity after coming on after an hour with the scores level. Within five minutes he’d scored and an injury time assist meant we had a 3-1 lead, which we just about managed to defend in the second leg. He was similarly impressive in the final, and the only reason his constantly threatening performance didn’t lead to a goal which would have avoided the need for extra time and penalties was the excellence of Grimsby goalkeeper James McKeown.

Our most recent player of Polish extraction is Dawid Szczepaniak. He came through Wrexham’s youth system and was a back-up goalkeeper who had one rather memorable, if peculiar, experience of first team action. He was selected in the first round of the Tunnocks Caramel Wafers Challenge Cup – you know, the one where we represented England in a Scottish competition – as Bryan Hughes selected a youthful team to face Ayr United. Szczepaniak did well enough in the game, which ended in a 1-1 draw, and we were victorious in the penalty shoot-out, resulting in an over-zealous celebration which he was quietly reprimanded for!