Millwall keeper Reg Davies punches the ball away from the head of 21 year old Arfon Griffiths. Credit: AFCArchive
On 6 October 1962, 12,233 supporters packed the Racecourse Ground to watch Wrexham dismantle Millwall 5-1 in Division Three, with Ernie Phythian scoring a hat-trick on an afternoon captured in a striking photograph of 21-year-old Arfon Griffiths challenging goalkeeper Reg Davies.
The image freezes a familiar football moment: Davies punching clear as Griffiths attacks the ball, Mickey Metcalf watching nearby and the old Mold Road stand packed behind them. More than six decades later, the names and setting give it far more meaning than a routine action shot.
Both sides had come up together from the Fourth Division the previous season. Millwall were champions in 1961/62, with Wrexham finishing third, but there was nothing equal about their meeting that October in North Wales.
Wrexham put five past Millwall at the Racecourse
Wrexham were already 3-1 ahead at half-time and did not let up after the break. Phythian completed his hat-trick, with Clive Colbridge and Metcalf also getting on the scoresheet in a 5-1 rout.
It remains Wrexham’s biggest victory over Millwall, made all the more striking by how recently the clubs had been promoted together. For Phythian, it was one of only two hat-tricks he scored for the Reds.
The forward went on to make 161 competitive appearances for Wrexham, scoring 48 goals. That afternoon against Millwall stands among his finest individual displays at the Racecourse.
A young Arfon Griffiths back at Wrexham
The photograph becomes even more interesting with hindsight because of the player challenging Davies. Griffiths was just 21 and had recently returned to Wrexham following a spell at Arsenal, where he made 15 First Division appearances and scored twice.
So much of his Wrexham story was still to come. The picture shows him not as the established club figure remembered by later generations, but as a young player back in North Wales and attacking a high ball in front of a full stand.
Metcalf, watching the play unfold, was hardly a background figure either. He scored 13 goals in 31 appearances that season and ended his Wrexham career with 73 goals from 144 competitive appearances.
A snapshot of another Racecourse era
The attendance gives the image much of its atmosphere. Some 12,233 supporters were inside the Racecourse, and the packed Mold Road stand behind the action provides a vivid reminder of what a Third Division Saturday in Wrexham looked like in the early 1960s.
Wrexham had drawn 4-4 with Peterborough United at home a week earlier and lost 2-1 at Barnsley four days before facing Millwall. Few afternoons that season would prove quite as emphatic as this one.
Sixty-four years on, the photograph is more than a snapshot of Davies beating Griffiths to the ball. It captures a young Wrexham great, two prolific forwards and a packed Racecourse enjoying the afternoon when the newly promoted Reds put five past the Fourth Division champions.
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