[caption id="attachment_67139" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Brian Carey playing for Ireland in 1994."]
Within hours of the announcement last Monday week that Cork native Brian Carey was leaving Wrexham to become Dean Saunders' assistant-manager at Doncaster Rovers, one of the Welsh club's fan message boards already had an 11-page thread running about the departure. Nearly twenty-one years after first arriving at the Racecourse Ground on loan from Manchester United, 14 years after moving there permanently from Leicester City, it was heartening to see the majority of Wrexham fans marked the occasion by praising Carey's contribution to the club and wishing him well in the Championship with his new employers.
"Would just like to say when I first started watching Wrexham as a young lad, I'll forever remember Brian Carey giving his all as a key squad member and always setting an example," wrote Celyn Newport Red. "Mr. Carey has always given his all for Wrexham and I thank him for this... I hope Brian has the most successful career from now on. For every gram of effort he`s given Wrexham, he deserves a ton in credit."
Soccer fans in Ireland have a curious habit of developing bizarre affinities for English and Scottish clubs through associations with individual players. Since Carey was first part of a Wrexham team that shocked Arsenal in the FA Cup (back in the early 1990s when that was a serious competition), we have had a grá for the Welsh outfit. And they've been fascinating to follow as they shuttled between the lower divisions, dramatically avoiding relegation from the league proper during Carey's stint in the managerial hot seat before finally slipping off-Broadway and into the forgotten land of the Conference.
Through all of the dramas that turned into crises this past decade and a half, the one constant has been the presence of the tall man from Togher Road. He manned the defensive ramparts in one era; he stalked the sidelines in another. He put in hours with the youths and schoolboys team behind the scenes at the club and generally did whatever he could to assist the cause. At the conclusion of Wrexham's victory over Grimsby last Saturday, Carey accompanied the players who went to thank the travelling fans at one end of the ground for their support. Some of those standing to applaud knew then it was highly likely their favorite Irish import was saying goodbye for good this time around.
When the offer to move up three divisions in one fell swoop comes along, any professional must take it. And whatever else he's been, Carey has been the consummate pro. From the days when he captained a reserves' team at United that included some youngsters destined to write their names across the history of the English game, he has garnered a reputation for being one of those who wrings every drop from the talent he's been given. It seems like a couple of lifetimes ago since he was a gangling centre-half on a Cork City team defeated in the 1989 FAI Cup final by Derry City. His performances during that run caught Alex Ferguson's eye (this was when United still shopped kind of local) but perhaps most impressive was how Carey built himself a career after Old Trafford.
The football world is full of players who failed to graduate from the United youth and reserve ranks and struggled to recover from the blow of never making it at the biggest club of all. Devastated by the rejection, the vast majority of them never amount to anything. In contrast, Carey put everything he learned at Old Trafford to good use, going on to play over 400 first-team games, including a few dozen in the Premier League for Leicester City, before becoming an unlikely icon in North Wales.
Somehow, some way, Wrexham seeped into his blood and there developed a relationship that went far beyond the mere professional. In a horrifically me-first sport, Carey evinced true loyalty and real dedication to the shirt, attributes that were all the more remarkable to behold at a time when so many players are only interested in cashing a cheque at the end of the month. And the great thing is most of the fans of the Robins realise as much.
"I'd like to thank Carey for his 14 years at the Racecourse as one of the best central defenders I've seen in my time as a Wrexham fan," wrote a poster called "Red Paint" on the fan's website. "He did a great job in keeping us in the Football League against Boston. Sadly things didn't work out for him as full-time manager though. No doubt many of the youngsters who have come through the ranks at the Colliers Park would have learned greatly from him."
It was a measure of the special relationship between Carey and Wrexham that after his managerial stint ended badly in 2007 he stayed at the club. That he wanted to stay and help a troubled outfit (beset by financial woes) survive and that they wanted him to stay on after asking him to step down as boss says it all about the strange, enduring bond between the pair. In the unforgiving world of professional soccer, a place governed by the "what have you done for me lately?" mindset, Carey was genuinely beloved by the supporters and staff because they knew he was made of different stuff.
For him, the challenge now is of a different timbre. He and Saunders worked well together at Wrexham, halting the club's slide toward oblivion and departing at a time when they are poised to battle for promotion back to the Football League. With an impatient hands-on chairman and more resources, the duo must get Doncaster Rovers off the bottom of the Championship table quickly, and into a position where they can seriously harbour notions about one day making it to the Premier League. A tall, tall order.
And those of us who take an obsessive interest in Irish players and managers in the lower echelons of the English game will be watching avidly.
