Wrexham owe a lot to Sam Smith after his goals fired them to promotion, but it turns out chasing the striker took longer than we may think.
With both Ollie Palmer and Paul Mullin falling out of favour this season, Wrexham needed some fresh blood in attack to fire them to glory.
The January transfer window saw the club bring in the experienced Jay Rodriguez in that department, while the record signing of Sam Smith really got fans excited.
In the end, the former Reading striker fired in some crucial goals on the way to Wrexham securing their third-successive promotion.
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What Shaun Harvey said about Sam Smith’s ‘bizarre’ Wrexham move
The £2m spent on Smith was a big deal, breaking the Red Dragons’ spending record and proving to be a real signal of intent for Wrexham’s hopes of going up this season.
Discussing the scenario on the Fearless in Devotion podcast, club director Shaun Harvey revealed Wrexham actually wanted to sign Smith a couple of years earlier, and it turns out that missing him as a free transfer ended up costing the club more than just the £2m transfer fee they paid.
He said: “Perversely, we tried to sign Sam Smith when he was at Cambridge. Before he went back to Reading, he was one of those players in that free transfer category.
“So on that basis we made an offer to his agent for him to join us at that stage, but ultimately, in reality, he was always going back to what is his home in Reading.
“Ultimately, he’s probably got us to thank for getting him more money at Reading. Which is bizarre, isn’t it, because he’s then used that against us to get more money when he came to Wrexham. It’s a mad world.”
We can’t be sure just how much Wrexham are paying Smith each week, but there’s no doubt they had to offer him better terms than he was on at Reading.
Now they’re in the Championship, that Wrexham wage budget is only going to get bigger, too.
Sam Smith made all the difference for Wrexham in promotion push
Since his arrival in January, Sam Smith scored vital goals to help Wrexham push for second place, and he bagged a decent number of goals, too.
Seven goals in 18 games in the back end of the campaign is a steady return, and that stunning brace against Charlton for the all-important win that secured promotion will live long in the memory for many fans.
Indeed, Ryan Reynolds can’t stop watching the Smith scissor-kick goal; that’s fair, it is a great goal.
At the moment, each of Smith’s goals for Wrexham has cost roughly £285,714 based on his transfer fee alone. We’re sure that he will improve that value for money next season in the second tier.