That was a good week.

It didn’t start well, but that was purely due to circumstances beyond Wrexham’s control.

It’s a consequence of our rapid rise and snowballing newsworthiness that, in a world of fake news, we’re suddenly easy play for the sort of lazy, malicious clickbait which an astonishing amount of people seem to uncritically accept as truth these days.

The stupid story which did the rounds last week was that Phil Parkinson’s job was in danger. Despite the facts of the situation, despite Shaun Harvey’s blunt dismissal of the rumour, it stuck in the public discourse.

The other element of this nonsense which gained traction and was taken as fact by the gullible majority was that Steven Gerrard was lined up as Parkinson’s replacement.

Of course he was. His salary would completely blow our wage structure to pieces, he’s never shown any interest in managing below top flight level, and he has absolutely no connection to Wrexham whatsoever. His managerial reputation isn’t fully convincing either, but none of that mattered. They were facts, and that’s just not what this sort of narrative is about.

The key thing is he’s famous. The lazy, untrue line about Wrexham which is pushed ad nauseum by the million clickbait sites out there is as follows: we are FC Hollywood, splashing out on a succession of celebrity signings to make sure the glamour quotient is always sky high.

The truth is a million miles from that. This has always been about community, not celebrity. Rob and Ryan celebrate our working-class values, not the champagne and gold watch culture which is common at big clubs around the world.

We’re based on well scouted recruitment, not chasing after star names. The well-known players we’ve all brought in have had a role to play and have fulfilled them.

Ben Foster showed there was still some gas left in the tank, and put in a performance for the ages in our National League title showdown against Notts County.

Steven Fletcher gave us two years of remarkable match-winning cameos from the bench.

Jay Rodriguez helped to get us over the line and into The Championship.

So, the whole story was rubbish, based on nothing. Still, if lies stick, they take on a relevance of sorts.

None of it was true, but it was having an effect. Within the club things were unchanged, but the atmosphere surrounding us was suddenly being dictated by this artificial narrative.

We needed a good week, and we got one. A tough trip to Norwich, then an opportunity to reach the last sixteen of a major cup competition represented a couple of immense challenges.

We rose to both tasks.

The win at Carrow Road was magnificent. This was the closest Parkinson has been able to get, so far, to putting the side he has been imaging all Summer onto the pitch. The need to make extensive alterations to his squad and to recruit throughout the transfer window made it impossible to put his intended eleven onto the pitch until last Saturday. A massive array of injuries didn’t help either: we’ve already had thirteen players miss games this season through injury.

The result was a fabulous performance. The final score was both deeply gratifying and incredibly flattering for Norwich, who could easily have been buried under an avalanche of goals. Their keeper, Vladan Kovačević, is a high quality player, destined for the Premier League, and he showed it. Without him, there would have been an incredible scoreline.

We embedded the box midfield I’d suggested we’d look to utilise last week, and it worked an absolute treat. Our three debutantes, plus Ben Sheaf who made his first Wrexham start, all showed what they have to offer. It was fantastic.

Parkinson explained, when promising as full a rotation of his side as possible for the Reading game, that with a Saturday-Tuesday-Friday schedule facing us next week, it was important to get as many members of his squad as he could up to speed.

We managed to get twenty-two of our twenty-three fit players out on the pitch, Conor Coady being the exception. Twenty-one of them started a game too, and of the duo who didn’t, Coady had been in the eleven for three of our last four games, while Ryan Hardie started the last three.

In terms of getting his squad up to speed, mission accomplished.

In terms of results, mission accomplished. Four wins out of five isn’t too shabby.

And in terms of taking the team forwards, and establishing our Championship credentials, let’s put it this way:  Steven Gerrard has probably started looking elsewhere.