Wrexham U18s looking to create more history
· Yahoo Sports
Life has gone full circle for Craig Knight after he returned to Wrexham to take up the role of professional development phase lead coach with the Championship club.
Uefa pro licence holder Knight spent a decade with the Football Association of Wales (FAW) but started his playing career in Wrexham's academy.
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He went on to land a youth coaching role with the Red Dragons before joining the FAW in 2015.
Knight took up his new role in November 2025 and is enjoying every minute of it.
"I'm absolutely loving it. The day-to-day stuff, it's really exciting and there's a real energy about the club," Knight told BBC Sport Wales.
"Working with young players, there's always excitement and an energy around them so we are loving spending time with players on a daily basis, being on the pitch and getting to know all the staff as well, so it's been a really, really productive yet busy couple of months."
Wrexham Under-18s continue their FA Youth Cup adventure when they face holders Aston Villa at Keys Park, the home of Hednesford Town, on Tuesday, 24 February (19:00 GMT).
This is the furthest they have ever been in the competition, and Knight sees it as great benchmark.
"These are the type of games as a player, as a coach, as staff, you want to be involved in, where you are testing yourself against the best players," he said.
"It's an opportunity to embrace it, see where we're at, and we're looking forward to it."
One of Knight's remits is to get academy players into Wrexham's first team in the future.
With Phil Parkinson's side pushing for promotion to the Premier League, that might be a daunting task at present, but Knight says there are examples at the club where first team football can be achieved.
"Obviously the Championship is a really, really tough level," he explained.
"If you're talking about Premier League it's another level again, but there's always success stories.
"If you look at Max Cleworth, he's gone right through all the leagues and he's now excelling at Championship level.
"Harry Ashfield's been in and around it as well. He's gone on loan to Cheltenham until the end of the season, but I know the staff here have got high hopes for him as well.
"So when you've got players like that within the building who have been able to force their way into a first-team environment, that's the motivation that you should be using on a day-to-day basis to make sure you're giving yourself the best opportunity to be that next person."
Wrexham's young Red Dragons have beaten Port Vale and Southend United on their way to reaching the fifth round, and Knight is hoping that they can create even more history this week.
"It seems to be quite a regular thing that this club does at the moment, the back-to-back to-back promotions, creating history, creating memories and hopefully we can do that for our players and their families," he added.
"Obviously the families invest so much as well over the years in terms of taking boys to train etc, supporting them when things aren't going quite so well.
"So these type of games and these type of opportunities are a reward for families as well."