This weekend, Wrexham head coach Jenny Sugarman will lead her team out at the Rock for the first time.
Sugarman took charge of the team in the summer, but their permanent home has been undergoing some refurbishment – meaning that most of their home fixtures have been played at nearby Buckley Town.
“We’ve been using [the Rock] as a training base still,” Sugarman tells SheKicks.net. “We’ve been able to utilise the pitches and changing rooms and the very much evolving inside space! Each week, each day, there’s some different workmen in here doing upgrades, whether it’s painting rooms, installing wifi, all the things that are going to make it a much more usable space for us.
“Buckley have been a good host for us and, we’ve enjoyed playing there, but it’s going to feel very different having our own home ground. “
Some of the longer serving Wrexham players are, of course, well used to playing at the Rock, but it will be a new experience for some of the new recruits as they face Swansea City on Sunday – including Sugarman and her coaching staff.
But she says they’re well prepared for that.
“Part of what we’ve done already this season is about making sure we show up with our every game energy and no matter where we walk out on that day, so that’s something that we want to maintain and continue for this weekend.
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“Yes, it will feel a little bit different. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing from a perspective of the excitement that goes with that, but I think the major thing for us is how the atmosphere can be created by being much more local, the supporters being able to access the games a lot more. being a home for us and a team within the Wrexham wider club.”
“Our team are starting to be really cohesive”
Any enquiries as to how Sugarman is taking to life at Wrexham are answered indirectly by the way she refers to the club’s main stadium – using the Welsh “Cae Ras” rather than the English “Racecourse”.
“I don’t speak Welsh,” she’s quick to point out. “I’m trying to pick up a few words, but having worked my entire career in England, I think it’s an important part of what we do, to really buy into the club and the local area.”
Wrexham are currently second in the Genero Adran Premier, with an identical record to leaders and defending champions Cardiff City, who are ahead on goal difference. It’s a great start, but Sugarman’s standards are high.
“I’m competitive. I’m ambitious. I want to win every week. We expect to win every week. We prepare to win every week. Will we win every week? No, probably not. But we’ve got to make sure that we’re doing what we can. We are happy to be where we are currently.
“We’ve had a couple of games where we didn’t pick up maximum points, but in both of those, we understand why. We understand where we’re at in the journey. We continue to believe that each week and each block of games, we will get better.
“And we’re seeing a team that’s starting to be really cohesive, players that are getting used to play with each other, players that are adapting to perhaps different demands or different styles of play or different expectations from the strategies that we’re utilising – but a team that’s showing to be really flexible, which is something that I’m really pleased to see.”
Jenny Sugarman: Everyone plays their part in this team
And that flexibility is noticeable within the squad, with plenty of rotation for cup matches, but also a changing set of subtitutes depending on the match’s requirements, which demonstrates the strength in depth Sugarman has to call upon.
“What we’ve got is different players for different moments and different strategies and we’ve been really, really pleased both from a tactical perspective but from a physical perspective the way that our finishers have impacted games, the way they’ve come in and either helped us see something out or raised the level, or helped us change shape, change strategy, those sorts of things.
“We have a core group of players that play most weeks, but then we’ve also got a group of players that we can flex around with. I’m a big believer that you pick a lot of your line-up based on who’s playing well at the moment, who’s training well, who’s showing themselves to be ready for the game at the weekend, but also what opportunities we have, what skill sets are best.”
As an example, she points to forward Faye Knox, who signed for the club only six weeks ago, and made a real impact in the weekend’s Bute Energy Welsh Cup match when she scored three against NFA.
“Everybody is playing their part in this team, whether that’s some of the young players that are in the senior environment for the first time, or whether that’s some of our more senior players or more experienced or players that are coming from different previous clubs – we’ve got a real variety in our skill sets and that means that we can perhaps keep the opposition guessing a little bit as well.”
