WREXHAM THREAD

[Marner and Me]

Played roller hockey in the leisure centre there a few times.

[BritishHobo]

Everlands is gone now - it's a really messy-looking second hand shop, sadly. Jones is great but I prefer Borras; my girlfriend had fish and chips from Jones once and for an Irish person, it was a mind-blowing experience. There's also a decent one on Pen-y-Bryn (can't remember the name) that I've had good chips on from occasion, as my nana lives round the corner.

Always General, though you have to admire the fact that Central has successfully camouflaged itself into a retail park.

Did Everlands used to be somewhere else? They're still going just next to the entrance to the multi-storey carpark.

Iceland's moved as well now, to Island Green, with a business hub taking its place. Queen's Square feels a bit desolate these days. The little area that used to have the entrance to TJ Hughes is supposed to be getting a new lease of life, with a massive Sports Direct (no ta), and Techniquest going into that ancient haunted husk of the TJ Hughes, three thousand years after it closed. The space opposite though, where I think the Hippodrome(?) was, before I was BORN, that still sits empty, with those old defunct signs promising a brilliant development soon to come. The Smoke Shed is really really good though.

[Blue Jam]

I used to go to the Hippodrome fairly often. Bit of a fleapit but very charming. Think it had some big art deco light fixture above seats and I vaguely remember some campaign to rescue it and restore it and put it on display elsewhere, possibly the town hall.

I used to go to the Hippodrome for free quite a lot because the children's section of the Wrexham Leader had a weekly competition where you could win tickets and every time a film I wanted to see was on at the Hippodrome I would just enter the competition and win. Every single time. I guess only about four people per week sent in their answer on a postcard.

Perhaps the arrival of the Odeon finally killed the Hippodrome off. I remember going to the Odeon as well, going to the big Sainsbury's nextdoor to get some reasonably-priced popcorn and finding they didn't sell popcorn. At all. Presumably at the request of the Odeon's managers. Sneaky.

Back on the subject of the Hippodrome, when I left Wrexham in 2005 I think there were some plans to reopen the building as an arts hub of some kind, with a craft market as well as film screenings. I guess that never happened. That's a real shame.

Fittingly I now live in Edinburgh, a city which also has an abandoned and rotting art deco cinema.

[buttgammon]

You had to use Wrexham Central for the Liverpool train - via Bidston I think. Did a day trip once.

For two years, I commuted to Liverpool by going to Chester and changing onto the Wirral Line. When that line was closed due to flooding, I had a nightmare week of having to go via Bidston. I seem to remember the train stopping at General on the way out of town, but I still got it from Central by force of habit.

[buttgammon]

Did Everlands used to be somewhere else? They're still going just next to the entrance to the multi-storey carpark.

Iceland's moved as well now, to Island Green, with a business hub taking its place. Queen's Square feels a bit desolate these days. The little area that used to have the entrance to TJ Hughes is supposed to be getting a new lease of life, with a massive Sports Direct (no ta), and Techniquest going into that ancient haunted husk of the TJ Hughes, three thousand years after it closed. The space opposite though, where I think the Hippodrome(?) was, before I was BORN, that still sits empty, with those old defunct signs promising a brilliant development soon to come. The Smoke Shed is really really good though.

Oh, Everlands has moved then. I remember them being in the red building in between Tesco and the bingo hall.

[BritishHobo]

Ah yeah, I thought that might be the one. I think it had moved just before I started working in town. Then that place became a corner shop, then a hairdressers, and so on and so on. Nowhere stays there long.

[Blue Jam]

I used to go to the Hippodrome fairly often. Bit of a fleapit but very charming. Think it had some big art deco light fixture above seats and I vaguely remember some campaign to rescue it and restore it and put it on display elsewhere, possibly the town hall.

Ah, this is a nice read:

https://www.wrexham-history.com/restoration-of-the-hippodrome-light/

Ty Pawb looks like a major improvement on Marchnad y Bobl too.

Is the Hippodrome still empty and marked for demolition then?

[BritishHobo]

I was going to say, I think Ty Pawb lives up to that plan for the Hippodrome quite well. They show films for families, and there's also a great group called 73 Cinema who organise showings of independent films, with short films from local cinemas beforehand. Got their own fairground popcorn stall thing, and they have the bar open with a Ty Pawb ale. Turnout is criminally low though.

[BritishHobo]

I used to like walking through the market though, there was something about the old atmosphere that I loved. Really good local shop selling Welsh literature as well, the owner of which sadly moved on as he couldn't afford to wait for the makeover to be finished. I think he has another shop in Mold.

[Blue Jam]

Reading this thread is almost tempting me to go back for a visit. Almost.

I have visited Mr Jam's lovely home town of Widnes many times and I really like it, good sense of community thanks to the Vikings. I have often felt I really should take him to see where I was born and raised but nahhhhh, I remember how relieved I was to finally leave for good.

[Blue Jam]

I used to like walking through the market though, there was something about the old atmosphere that I loved. Really good local shop selling Welsh literature as well, the owner of which sadly moved on as he couldn't afford to wait for the makeover to be finished. I think he has another shop in Mold.

There was a good second-hand bookshop in there, and a stall selling small antiques and lots of "Russian Space Badges"- little enameled cosmonaut badges with stars and rockets and Cyrillic script. I'm not sure what they were exactly, whether they were actually issued to cosmonauts or just sold to commemorate Soviet space programs, all I know is that they looked cool as fuck and at 50p each I bought loads of them. I was told the Russian text on one of them translated as "We Are For Peace" which was nice. Bought a few sew-on patches as well, maybe those really were for cosmonaut's uniforms.

I remember being pissed off when my younger sister independently discovered the Russian Space Badge stall and started buying them up and putting them on her school bag- that was my thing you little bollocks.

I shall have to dig out my collection later. Here are some examples, I even own a few of these designs:

https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2015/05/26-soviet-space-badges-from-the-heat-of-the-space-race/

[Blue Jam]

Alright lads, it's not April Fool's Day:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54274142

Seriously, wtf?

[buttgammon]

This is getting enough coverage that everyone I know will mention it to me and say "isn't that where you're from?"

[Hand Solo]

He's gotten Deadpool and Welshpool mixed up.

[dr beat]

Alright lads, it's not April Fool's Day:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54274142

Seriously, wtf?

Someone posted this link to a documentary of an American taking over Chester City FC about 20 years ago. 

Will surely not be as funny as this real documentary about an american football coach who takes over then league 1's Chester City

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVWTEOYvY6w

And the accompanying Quickly Kevin podcast episode is a true delight, and works on its own without watching the source material.

Genuinely hilarious

https://play.acast.com/s/quicklykevin/tomcraineonchestercity-anamericandream

It is very entertaining, but maybe some serious food for thought for Wrexham fans.  Always a risk that clubs at that kind of level become playthings.

[buttgammon]

Lockdown on Thursday, las.

[PowerButchi]

My golf trip over the border to Carden Park next week is FUCKED.

[The Cloud of Unknowing]

The exciting new swimming pool with the 1970s swooping roof started falling apart from the roof down within weeks of being opened, and the new high rise Police HQ was tat as well.

Tat then, gone now. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-54772401. (Looks like the swimming baths on the right at the start of the video.)

[buttgammon]

Goodnight sweet police station.

[Blue Jam]

FUCK THA POLICE

Surprising that such a small town has a ten-storey police station.

Oh hang on, this is Wrexham. No it isn't.

[Pingers]

Here is the Pizza 🍕- Kebabs⚰️ - Burgers🍔 sitrep for Wrexham

#F.c.u.k
32 Town Hill, Wrexham LL13 8NB
01978 366767
https://maps.app.goo.gl/xoYnNyydubDZmwGr7


I still haven't stopped laughing at this yet

Please can someone order and review, share feedback thx

There is a quite profound and poetic review for Krazy About Pizza :

"Shocking ordered,
chicken kebabs to receive,
chicken minus chicken on a naan bread.
This is not a kebab"

Very moving. Should have ordered pizza, dey krazy 'bout dat shit.

[Blue Jam]

"Contemporary fashion chain with its own line of casual and work apparel, plus accessories and footwear"

I think someone's got the wrong FCUK there. Also have to love the name of Fried Chicken UK being based on a marketing slogan that's 23 years out of date.

[Inspector Norse]

"Shocking ordered,
chicken kebabs to receive,
chicken minus chicken on a naan bread.
This is not a kebab"

So a naan bread, then?

[BritishHobo]

Been waiting for that fucking police station to come down for ages now, having worked next to it for years while the destruction was earmarked. Of course it happens once I've gone. It was definitely hideous, and ridden with asbestos, but its absence is going to make the skyline that little bit less interesting.

[Blue Jam]

The cop shop in Chester is bloody massive as well. Why? Loads of footballers' wives being mugged for their Louboutins? People who hear that urban myth that it's legal to shoot a Welshman with a crossbow within the city walls of Chester and who don't immediately realise that it's obviously bullshit?



EDIT: OMG Chester cop shop has gone too, apparently because the Chester bizzies thought it was "too cramped". WTF?

https://chesterwalls.info/roodee.html

[Marner and Me]

That went years ago, it's now in South Central Blacon. A swanky hotel with a Miller and Carter stands there now.

[BritishHobo]

Used to have a deep-rooted fear as a kid, whenever we got the Park & Ride into Chester, that that police station would topple over and crush me. Wonder if the imposing design of them was meant to scare fuck out of criminals - the police always watching.

[Blue Jam]

I have since lived in London and Edinburgh and the police stations there are nowhere near as big as the now-demolished ones in Wrexham and Chester.

I have also lived in Japan but there is no petty crime there so apart from the big HQ in Tokyo the police stations there are all fucking tiny.

[Blue Jam]

Been waiting for that fucking police station to come down for ages now, having worked next to it for years while the destruction was earmarked. Of course it happens once I've gone. It was definitely hideous, and ridden with asbestos, but its absence is going to make the skyline that little bit less interesting.

Were you a lifeguard at Wrexham swimming baths or something?

;) Seriously, was the Wrexham cop shop Wrexham's tallest building? It must have been, right? What is it now, that weird tiny Methodist church on Regent Street?

Anyone ever go in there? Being raised Catholic I had no excuse but I was always very curious about it:

[The Cloud of Unknowing]

Seriously, was the Wrexham cop shop Wrexham's tallest building? It must have been, right?

I think it was but I'm not sure. I have a fading memory of it being a few feet taller than the tower of the parish church in the town centre, because some people thought it was deliberately sacrilegious when it was built. That's something I heard from others, might be bobbins.

Some boring photos of the town taken from the church tower over the years: https://stgilesparishchurchwrexham.org.uk/index.php/gallery/tower-views#!DSC_0071