Arthur Okonkwo saves Wrexham fans from FA Cup humiliation for their half-time Nottingham Forest chants with the score reading 2-0.
Following 3 hours of end-to-end FA Cup action, Wrexham have successfully inflicted a Cup upset on Nottingham Forest. For the home crowd gathered at Racecourse, it was surely a long night filled with a rollercoaster of emotions.
Right from the last weekend to when the team lineups were announced, it was expected to be a tough ask for Wrexham to dominate Nottingham Forest. However, to everyone’s surprise Phil Parkinson’s men stood on business from the get go.
Keeping a Premier League side away from your goal is a daunting task, but Wrexham managed to deny Forest an early first half opening. In fact, after frustrating Sean Dyche’s men Liberato Cacace and Ollie Rathbone rubbed salt to the wounds by slotting a goal each past Nottingham Forest’s No. 1 Matz Sels.
Now, it’s never wise to get carried away when your team is winning and the game is still going on.
Still, fans are fans and Wrexham’s success story is fresh in everyone’s minds. Only a couple of seasons back, the same home crowd were rooting for Wrexham marching to the football league, so, they are well within rights for any further glory coming their way.
Wrexham fans mocked Nottingham Forest with half-time chants
In celebrating a 2-0 lead around the half-time, the Racecourse faithful completely went into banter mode. As pointed out by journalist Richard Sutcliffe, Wrexham fans chanted: “Are you County in disguise?”
There can be two meanings of these “County” chants. The Dragons faithful could either be referring to Nottingham Forest’s local 4th tier neighbours Notts County or Wrexham’s bitter Welsh rivals Newport County.
In any case, both of them are languishing in League Two as things stand. Newport County could well, fall down to non-league status but the main point is this banter must have triggered the visitors ego during the fifteen minute break between the halves.
For the second 45 mins, Nottingham Forest had gotten more than enough humiliations on their plate to fuel their FA Cup motivations. From that moment, the balance of the showdown was exactly 50-50.
Wrexham had a strong 2-0 lead they couldn’t afford to lose. Else, the Welsh side would get heavy taunts the very next day for getting too noisy before seeing out the tie.
Same way, the Forest players had their Premier League pride on the line while earlier, they wouldn’t earn praises for steamrolling past a Championship team Wrexham.
Sean Dyche’s visiting crew got a goal back with half an hour still left to play. Dragons captain Dominic Hyam appeared to have put the tie to bed at 3-1, but FA Cup football isn’t over at just minute 74.
Fifteen more minutes which easily becomes twenty with injury time, were yet to come. In hindsight, the game’s ending was anxious to witness from Wrexham’s point of view.
Arthur Okonkwo saves Wrexham fans from FA Cup humiliation
Soon, Nottingham Forest brought the tie to 3-3 despite Wrexham being in the driving seat for more than 50 minutes. After that extra time came and went, ensuring Wrexham still had a penalty shootout to avoid being a laughing stock for the fans’ half-time chants.
There was also a looming possibility of Nottingham Forest players celebrating wildly in the home crowd’s faces in the aftermath of a potential Wrexham defeat.
All thanks to the ever reliable Arthur Okonkwo, such fears remained fears only. By denying 2 spot-picks from hitting the target, the future Wrexham legend added another masterpiece to his Reds career.
Arthur Okonkwo is very nearly closing on the club’s top-5 all time goalkeepers tally, and his FA Cup heroics vs Nottingham Forest also deserve a special mention.
