Torquay United snub proved to be key moment in Wrexham AFC comeback | OneFootball

Leaving Torquay for Wrexham AFC was the best decision Luke could have made

For all the savvy signings Wrexham have made this decade, the most invaluable may have arrived before the takeover.

There are obviously a slew of players that have come in and impacted the club’s meteoric rise up the EFL pyramid. For as much credit as Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney, and Phil Parkinson get for the club’s success, we should not forget one key signing Wrexham made before those three arrived.

To convince a player of Luke Young’s experience to move to North Wales for a club seemingly stuck in non-league football and without the kind of financial backing they would go on to have is quite the feat. His signing proved an inspiring one for the club.

Wrexham’s lean years in non-league

There was a time when it looked like the National League was as good as it would get for Wrexham. Since a 24th-place finish in the 2007-08 campaign, they had not featured in the EFL for a while. Unlike some clubs that can turn a relegation into a promotion rather quickly, it was anything but that for the Red Dragons.

After three successive play-off trips in the early 2010s, the middle of that decade saw a significant drop-off for the club. They dropped to 17th in the 2013-14 National League campaign and, for the next few years, were usually a mid-table team at best.

What surely didn’t help was that there seemed to be a carousel of managers who would come and go in the mid 2010s. Some were there strictly as caretakers, while others just didn’t work out.

A shortage of finances, countless coaches, and a lack of results predictably added up to the team seemingly having a permanent home in the National League.

Luke Young’s signing was a big coup

Sam Ricketts was only the Wrexham boss for a matter of months, but in that time, he did some good things for the club. Working alongside Brendan Rodgers in his early days after retirement seemed to do him immense good, not only in scouting players but also in managing a team.

Not long after taking over the Red Dragons in May 2018, he added Luke Young to the squad. Young came on a free transfer to North Wales, signing a two-year contract with the club. Young was the first signing for Ricketts.

Young earned rave reviews at Torquay United, making over 130 league appearances. He’d been named the club’s Player of the Year on three occasions. He was in a comfortable position with the Gulls, a regular in the starting 11, and had been offered a new contract to remain at Plainmoor. However, Torquay had just been relegated from the National League, and evidently Young had bigger ambitions at that time.

Torquay’s loss became a huge gain for Wrexham.

Luke Young’s immediate impact at Wrexham

Early into his stint at Wrexham, Young’s presence and poise were evident. Ricketts' men earned points in their first six National League affairs in 2018-19, four of which were victories. In addition to that, Luke’s leadership and defensive awareness proved invaluable as the team failed to concede in their first four matches that season.

Ricketts, however, left in December 2018 to accept an offer from Shrewsbury Town. Wrexham were serious promotional contenders at that time, which hadn’t been the case for much of the previous five campaigns, when their best finish was eighth.

Despite his departure, the club continued to succeed and remained in contention for promotion until the end of the campaign. Young’s experience, distribution, and defensive awareness helped the club to a fourth-place finish with 84 points, a 14-point improvement from the 2017-18 campaign. While they were knocked out in the quarter-final playoffs by Eastleigh in a heartbreaking extra-time defeat (1-0), there was plenty of reason for optimism at the time.

That fourth-place finish was the club’s highest since 2011-12, when they were second.

Luke Young’s contributions to Wrexham

Unquestionably, Wrexham have risen the EFL pyramid, in large part thanks to its new faces. No one will ever forget what Paul Mullin, Ollie Palmer, and Steven Fletcher, among others, did for the club.

At the same time, there is something to be said about continuity and having an experienced face who’d been through so much already with the club. We should consider how beneficial it was for Parkinson and the newcomers to have someone like Young there when they arrived. He’d been a solid contributor and leader. That was clearly not lost on Parkinson, who promoted him to club captain in his first season at the helm in 2021-22.

For as great a manager and resume as Parkinson had at that time, it surely aided him to have someone like Young there. Young knew the club dynamics, the fanbase, along with the players that were already there. He had also experienced first-hand what had been working and what hadn’t before Parkinson’s arrival, both in training and on the pitch. He was also the club’s top goalscorer in the National League the season before Parkinson’s arrival. Young appeared in 42 of their 44 National League outings in 2021-22 as they wound up second.

Next season, he captained them to the National League crown, with his elite box-to-box play, stamina, discipline, passing and vision. As a result, they’d earned a place in the EFL for the first time in 15 years. Of course, there were numerous pivotal moments that got them promoted that season, namely all of Mullin’s goals and, of course, Ben Foster’s famous penalty save against Notts County.

What didn’t make the highlights, though, was Young’s great ball movement out of the back and his calming presence while also bridging the gaps in between both the defence and the attack.

After getting out of the National League at long last, Wrexham didn’t look back. Young, though, was again a part of the team’s move up from League Two, featuring in 25 domestic affairs in 2023-24 as the club wound up fifth.

He and the club parted ways at the end of that campaign, but his contributions were not forgotten. In his six seasons at the club, Young was named Player of the Year twice. He netted 22 times in 259 games and scored some timely and spectacular goals.

There were devastating losses in his early days, but Wrexham’s status as a promotional contender in the National League began when Young arrived.

The club went on to earn another promotion in League One in 2024-25 without Young.

Torquay United snub was key to Wrexham’s rise

As a club and a player, you can often live or die by the decisions you make. Luke Young likely won’t look back on his decision to leave Torquay with regret, nor will Wrexham.

Their partnership proved to be a win-win for both sides, but the opposite for the Gulls. Young, by some fans' estimations, will go down as a club legend with the Red Dragons. On the other hand, Torquay have failed to reach the heights, let alone come anywhere near them, of Wrexham.

The Red Dragons are not only a worldwide brand but also a hugely successful club on the field. The same cannot be said for the club from Devon.