Leaving aside the record crowd, the last-gasp winner and even the post-match celebrations with Hollywood stars Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, Wrexham AFC Women’s final game of the regular season was always going to be a big day for Phoebe Davies.
The 28-year-old had started her career with the original Wrexham Ladies team which shut down in 2016, before moving on to fellow north Wales clubs Rhyl and The New Saints. She returned to the new version of Wrexham, who play in the Welsh league’s second tier, last October, only to suffer a knee injury that would keep her out for six months.
Her starting XI comeback in late March coincided with the visit of Connah’s Quay Nomads (who were one place behind Wrexham in second), helping to attract a 9,511 crowd to the Racecourse Ground for the team’s final home fixture of the season. It lent a surreal air to a day she had waited a long time to arrive.
“The injury was so frustrating,” says Davies, a former Liverpool and Everton junior. “It happened in my third game, I literally just twisted my knee. At first, I thought I could run it off but, eventually, I had to go back to the physio.
“They said, ‘It could take six days or six months’. They just didn’t know. All I could do was build back up my fitness. I did that, then…
