Football’s most moving story from Wrexham: Where kids with autism can find refuge – and it’s not just down to Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s investment, writes IAN HERBERT

Just when there seemed no room for anything but noise in the all-consuming world of football – no still, small space for those who might struggle with the game’s sound and fury – an introduction to Gate 12 at Wrexham’s ground, and what lay beyond it, told me otherwise, last Friday. It was a profoundly affecting experience.

The gate, and the area of seating it leads to, is the vision of a woman I first encountered a year or so back, when writing a book about the transformation of Wrexham – both club and town – after the arrival of Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds. 

I called the book Tinseltown, though Kerry Evans’ work began long before Hollywood descended, at a time when the club could not afford to pay her a wage as its first disability liaison officer, nor fund away travel for fans who, like herself, were in a wheelchair. She raised the money herself.

Attending a football match, and experiencing what it is to be a football fan, is an even greater challenge for those on the autistic spectrum who need order, routine, their own space, and may find anything unexpected a terrifying experience. 

These are the ones for whom the 120-seat section, established by Evans, has become a weekly sanctuary, making Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground one of Britain’s outstanding environments for those with autism, and physical challenges, to watch football.

Fans in the zone can visit a small sensory room inside the stand if the noise becomes too much

Co-owner Rob McElhenney sits in the autism friendly quiet zone with young fans in August

The stories their parents quietly related to me there were a reminder of what football can bring to the lives of those with challenges, if the game will only let them in. 

In 15 years of reporting sport I don’t recall a more moving experience than hearing Helen Docking, a mother, describe the effect of being able to attend a football match on her 16-year-old son, Deian, who has retreated into himself, unable to form relationships, unable to communicate with others and on the margins of an education system from which she has been forced to remove him.

‘It takes its toll on us all,’ Helen says, not far from tears. ‘We’ve tried everything to get him back to school but the matches are the only time he leaves the house. We’re not judged when we come here. We’ve not found this kind of support in the education system.’

She, and other parents, do not need much to make football matches viable for their children: simply the same seat each match in this autism-friendly zone, the familiar faces of the same stewards – Amy and Nicky – and their acute understanding of what makes such children different. 

At half-time, the stewards bring refreshments to these young supporters in their seats, because heading into the concourse can be an ordeal for them. Gate 12, a designated quiet entrance, has no turnstile contraption to contend with. That helps too.

Another mother, Sue, is always among the first here at 1pm with her own autistic son, because the experience of walking into the stadium is not traumatic when it’s empty. She relates how the football sessions Evans organises for some of the group has given her son another form of access to the game.

Some here will still find the matchday noise becomes too much and a small sensory room inside the stand, with multi-coloured lighting which can be calming, often helps. An eight-year-old lays out across two seats and rests her head on her mother’s lap, with one of the stress-relieving ‘weighted blankets’ the facility provides laid across her.

It’s not just the young who find refuge. Ann Burden’s deteriorating mental health led her to give up her job as a shop assistant and walk into the club to hand back the season ticket she’d had since a girl. ‘They suggested I talk to Kerry,’ she relates. ‘The stand has given me a piece of my life back.’

McElhenney and Reynolds offered to invest in an expansion of the facility, assigning Evans a larger section of stand for her zone. ‘Thanks, but we don’t need that,’ she told them. ‘If the section’s too big, it will lose the intimacy we need.’

McElhenney and Reynolds, right, offered to expand the zone but Evans declined over concerns the section would lose the intimacy needed for supporters

Evans, second left, began her work long before Wrexham’s takeover by Hollywood stars McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds and had initially been unpaid as disability liaison officer

Paul Mullin took part in an Autism football community session run by Wrexham last October

She is the gatekeeper of her little area, through whom all requests to use it and become a part of it must go. She knows each of the individuals sitting here as Wrexham kick off against Mansfield – Theo Smith, Noah Jones, Idris Parry-Tabeart and many more, with their myriad challenges and needs. 

She is at the hub of the place all afternoon – nipping off only briefly at half-time, in her motorised chair, to check on those in the designated wheelchair area for visiting fans located in front of the away end, which McElhenney and Reynolds have had built for her. Few clubs afford visitors with disability such a welcome.

‘She’s our social worker as well as the organiser of all this,’ says another mother, Becky Parry-Tabeart, describing at half-time how the place has become ‘a magic switch’ for Idris, who struggled to cope for more than five minutes in a general part of the ground.

When Wrexham’s Paul Mullin scores in front of us, to send Wrexham ahead, our section of stand erupts, the environment enabling those here to feel what football fans feel and, in some cases, to express that. 

After Wrexham have won the game 2-0, Gate 12 is opened for those in our zone to leave. They will experience more challenges than most before they are next here, for the visit of Crawley next Tuesday night, but these two or three hours have offered something indefinably special. 

‘Win or lose, he loves it,’ says Helen, setting off for home with Deian. ‘I can see it in his face.‘

Fans in the designated quiet zone erupted in celebration after Mullin’s goal against Mansfield

Girls show the boys perseverance

A 10-0 win for my grandson’s team in the last game before Easter, on a Saturday morning which left you worrying for an opposition who had arrived without subs. 

Some of their boys’ heads went down when our eighth goal went in but not Lily and Chloe, playing up front. 

Ten years ago, those girls would have had no female football role models to take inspiration from and would probably not even have been on that boggy field in south Manchester, quietly showing the boys what forbearance looks like.

Girls have an abundance of role models to choose from as women’s football continues to grow

Lyon limits can’t dampen County Championship start

Cricket Australia have limited Nathan Lyon to featuring in seven County Championship games

Cricket Australia have limited Nathan Lyon to featuring in seven County Championship games

My Lancashire CCC membership card reached me a month ago and even before a ball is bowled, news arrives that Nathan Lyon will be limited by Cricket Australia to seven County Championship games. 

It takes nothing away from sense of anticipation about what lies up ahead: the freshly cut outfield, the first ball of the new season, against Surrey, at 11am on Friday, and that beautiful sense of summer calling.