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A year ago today, Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson unveiled a permanent monument to a mining disaster that will forever be intertwined with the identity of both the area and its football club.

The occasion? The 88th anniversary of an underground explosion at Gresford Colliery that claimed 266 lives. The place? Wrexham’s Miners Rescue Station, which sits close to the Racecourse Ground and now houses a memorial wall featuring the names, job titles and ages of all those who perished.

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Parkinson, joined by a few of his players, was there to further cement the club’s commitment to remembering a tragedy with strong football links. Many of those who died in the early hours of September 22, 1934, were either working a double shift or had swapped with others to leave them free to attend that afternoon’s Third Division North match between Wrexham and Tranmere Rovers.

Incredibly, the game went ahead as scheduled despite the devastation felt across a community left numb by the huge loss of life. A desire to lift spirits was given as justification at the time but George Lerry, writing in the Wrexham Leader newspaper, summed up the thoughts of many when he wrote: “The news of the disaster had become known on the morning of the match and at one time it was thought that the game would be postponed. Personally, I wish it had been so.”

The football club has since found more fitting ways to honour the memory of the victims, including a few seasons where the image of the Gresford Colliery Wheel has been part of the team’s shirt design. This time around, for Wrexham’s return to the EFL, the year of the disaster has been stitched into the back of the collar.

In 2009, on the 75th anniversary, kick-off against Luton Town in the National League was delayed by 15 minutes, just as they had done decades earlier to allow miners to get to the match after their shifts at the district’s various pits had ended.

Last Saturday also brought an impeccably observed minute’s silence before the 3-0 win over Grimsby Town.

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have maintained that close affinity. The pair’s mission statement on taking over in February 2021 included the pledge: “Appropriate and respectful observance of the Gresford Colliery Disaster will remain sacrosanct.”

McElhenney has since visited both the Miners Rescue Station and the memorial wheel that has stood for the past 40 or so years at the former mine’s entrance, just a few miles from Wrexham.

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“I took Rob to visit Gresford,” says Alan Jones, a former miner who worked at the pit until its closure in 1973 and is chair of the North Wales Miners Association Trust. “He had a good look around. We have a couple of shafts from Gresford that are not marked up. He is really interested in getting them marked up.

“It turns out that before the McElhenneys emigrated to America from Scotland, several family members were miners. We had a full afternoon together and I could see he was really interested in the history.”

Alan, who first watched Wrexham in January 1957 as a 10-year-old when Manchester United’s Busby Babes triumphed 5-0 in the FA Cup fourth round, couldn’t resist some football chat with the co-owner.

“I did tell him at one point, ‘I was dubious when you first came here’,” he says before laughing. “And I wasn’t the only one. But they have honoured exactly what they said they would and I thanked him for that.

“Rob said, ‘That’s down to him’ as he pointed towards his dad. As if to say, ‘That’s how Dad brought me up’. I thought that was a lovely touch. Nothing scripted. Just totally natural.”

The enormity of what happened that tragic night at Gresford is brought home when standing in front of the memorial wall at the Miners Rescue Station.

Not just the sheer number of names listed — 266 in total – but also the age range. The youngest to die was just 16 years old and the eldest 69. Then there are the addresses, which reveal how the disaster affected an entire community.

“Every village in the Wrexham area, for miles around, lost someone,” says Margaret Jones, secretary of the North Wales Miners Association Trust. “We go out to shows to explain what happened and someone will come up to say their grandad or great-grandad died at Gresford.

“Or it might be an uncle. Or maybe the family lived next door to someone who died. It touched everyone. So much so that even to this day we will have 200 people come to the anniversary. You feel as though you know them all.”

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The explosion that led to such a huge loss of life rocked the Dennis section of the Gresford mine at 2.08am. Further explosions followed amid a fire that burned with what was later described as an “almost intolerable heat”.

Only six of the men working in the Dennis escaped the blast, the rest either being killed instantly or falling victim to carbon monoxide poisoning. Three members of a rescue team sent into the wrecked tunnels also died, leading to the abandonment of the rescue and the mine shafts to be sealed. More than 250 bodies remain entombed to this day.

“There are so many tragic stories,” adds Margaret. “Such as the Nichols brothers. One of them was a widower who had three little girls. They wanted to go to the fair, as children do. So he asked his brother Harry if he would swap shifts with him.

“Harry agreed and died that night. John and Bill Nichols were also down there. When the explosion happened, only six people came out alive. One of them was good friends with John Nichols and he said, ‘C’mon John, come with us’.

“But John said, ‘No, I’m going back for our Bill’. He was never seen again.”

Alan, Margaret’s husband, has his own example of how fate played its part on that horrendous morning. “I worked at Gresford myself from the mid-60s until it closed for good in 1973,” he says. “I knew this guy who we called ‘Little Jackie Cartwright’.

“Jackie was working on the Friday afternoon shift but he doubled every Friday. This one Friday, he decided to go home. They were asking if he was ill. But he said, ‘No, I’m just going home’. And this was despite having his snap (food), his water.

“So, he cycles home, has to knock his parents up to get back in the house as they weren’t expecting him and then goes to bed. His parents get up in the morning, hear about the disaster and have to tell him the news.”

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Initially, mine owner United Westminster & Wrexham Collieries, who were criticised in the subsequent inquiry, attempted to play down the scale of the disaster. Even King George V was told the death toll stood at a little over 100 despite a special edition of the Wrexham Star already on the streets that Saturday morning suggesting the number was at least double.

“There was a local photographer, Geoff Charles, who shot down to Gresford in the early hours,” explains Alan. “The first thing he did was go to the lamp room to see how many miners’ lamps were missing. He realised how big it was — way over the 200 mark.

“He went with this story in the paper (Star) before having to go to cover the Tranmere match, even though he didn’t want to go. Once there, he was castigated by his fellow reporters for wanting to make the disaster bigger than it was.

“Accusing him of what people today would call ‘fake news’. But, it turned out, he was the one with the accurate figures.”

A crowd of 10,158 attended the Tranmere game, which finished as a 2-2 draw. Both teams wore black armbands and a two-minute silence was observed before kick-off.

With Wrexham due to play neighbours Chester at Sealand Road the following weekend, the English team’s directors discussed various ways in which they could help, including a collection for the disaster fund.

“There is a rivalry between the two clubs these days, but the Chester directors were the first to put their hands in their pockets,” says Alan. “I did a talk once at Chester Social Club and no one was aware of it.

“People forget these things. Chester also asked the Welsh FA if they could play a match with a mixed Chester and Wrexham team against the Wales team, but the Welsh FA refused.”

Margaret adds: “The Welsh FA did send money but no way would they let the match happen. It was a nice thought by Chester. I like to tell people that because there is a lot of rivalry between the two.”

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The Athletic is sitting with Margaret and Alan in the Miners Rescue Station, which first opened in 1913 as a training centre for rescue teams going into the mines. It would later be the base for the 30-man brigade that helped re-open parts of the Gresford pit six months after the disaster (the Dennis shaft remained sealed). This was to the relief of the community as 1,100 miners had been left unemployed by the closure.

We are joined by George Powell, the businessman who bought the then derelict building nine years ago and gifted it to a charity, the Wrexham Warehouse Project, in an attempt to preserve an important part of the town’s heritage.

“This town was built on coal,” says George, who stepped in after a previous owner had tried to demolish the Rescue. He has since helped turn the Grade II-listed building into a wonderful community hub, including a classroom and cafe.

“Our history is important and the pleasing thing is we are working with the schools now on the mining heritage becoming part of the curriculum. (All Saints’) Gresford School is putting it together. Then, all the kids — secondary and primary — will come here to learn about local history. Looking at starting this next year.”

McElhenney and Reynolds pledging to maintain the close affinity between the football club and what happened at Gresford can only help those attempts to keep the memory alive of an industry that once employed 18,000 people across 38 pits in the Wrexham area. The last of those to close was Bersham in December 1986.

“We had good links with the club before Rob and Ryan came in,” says Alan, whose family lost three members to the disaster. “Such as the shirt with the wheel on every five-year anniversary.

“But they have really put impetus into the relationship. I can’t speak highly enough of them. It would be so easy to just pay lip service. We’ve had owners in the past saying they will do this, that and the other. But these guys are genuinely interested in the community.”

(Top photos: Getty Images and Richard Sutcliffe)

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