sport news Football's most moving story from Wrexham: Where kids with autism can find ... trends now

Just when there seemed no room for anything but noise in the all-consuming world of football - no still, small space for those who might struggle with the game’s sound and fury - an introduction to Gate 12 at Wrexham’s ground, and what lay beyond it, told me otherwise, last Friday. It was a profoundly affecting experience.

The gate, and the area of seating it leads to, is the vision of a woman I first encountered a year or so back, when writing a book about the transformation of Wrexham – both club and town – after the arrival of Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds. 

I called the book Tinseltown, though Kerry Evans’ work began long before Hollywood descended, at a time when the club could not afford to pay her a wage as its first disability liaison officer, nor fund away travel for fans who, like herself, were in a wheelchair. She raised the money herself.

Attending a football match, and experiencing what it is to be a football fan, is an even greater challenge for those on the autistic spectrum who need order, routine, their own space, and may find anything unexpected a terrifying experience. 

These are the ones for whom the 120-seat section, established by Evans, has become a weekly sanctuary, making Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground one of Britain’s outstanding environments for those with autism, and physical challenges, to watch football.

The stories their parents quietly related to me there were a reminder of what football can bring to the lives of those with challenges, if the game will only let them in. 

In 15 years of reporting sport I don’t recall a more moving experience than hearing Helen Docking, a mother, describe the effect of being able to attend a football match on her 16-year-old son, Deian, who has retreated into himself, unable to form relationships, unable to communicate with others and on the margins of an education system from which she has been forced to remove him.

‘It takes its toll on us all,’ Helen says, not far from tears. ‘We’ve tried everything to get him back to school but the matches are the only time he leaves the house. We’re not judged when we come here. We’ve not found this kind of support in the education system.’

She, and other parents, do not need much to make football matches viable for their children: simply the same seat each match in this autism-friendly zone, the familiar faces of the same stewards – Amy and Nicky - and their acute understanding of what makes such children different. 

At half-time, the stewards bring refreshments to these young supporters in their seats, because heading into the concourse can be an ordeal for them. Gate 12, a designated quiet entrance, has no turnstile contraption to contend with. That helps too.

Another mother, Sue, is always among the first here at 1pm with her own autistic son, because the experience of walking into the stadium is not traumatic when it’s empty. She relates how the football sessions Evans organises for some of the group has given her son another form of access to the game.

Some here will still find the matchday noise becomes too much and a small sensory room inside the stand, with

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