EVERY obsessive football fan - and every football widow(er) - will recognise the situation. One wants a season ticket for next year, the other wants to save for a new three-piece suite. The tug-of-war is endless until the ultimatum comes: "That's it, it's Dixie or me!"

Wrexham's wives and girlfriends - for there were few ladettes on the terraces back in the late 70s - will recognise the situation being recreated in a play by the Stiwt Theatre Company next week.

Household rifts were caused during 1977-78 by Racecourse legend Dixie McNeil as he fired Wrexham FC to the promotion and the Division Three Championship, the Welsh Cup and a place in European competition.

"The play is about obsession," says director Tony Bailey, part of an entirely voluntary cast and crew behind Dixie Or Me, which was written by Stiwt Theatre manager Peter Read. "It centres around a Wrexham fan called Dave (Adam Watsham) and his wife Holly (Rebecca). All the main characters in the play have an obsession - there's one character, for example, who is obsessed with Van Morrison. With Dave it's clear from the start that his is Wrexham Football Club.

"We've all been in the situation - when the match is on and Changing Rooms is on the other side, or the fortnightly argument when the home game is on." Tony imitates the voice of a long-suffering other half: "But we need to go to Ikea - why do you have to go to every game?"

The tension in Dixie Or Me comes from Holly's exasperation with her husband's love for the all-conquering Wrexham side that included McNeil and Mickey Thomas.

"But Holly has her own obsession," says Tony. "It's not clear throughout the play, but there are little clues throughout and it all comes out in the end."

It is not just, then a play about football, but about human nature and as such Tony says there is something for everyone.

But he says it is also up to theatre companies to keep up with current trends, and with the recent explosion in football films like Football Factory, Bend It Like Beckham and Mean Machine it was a challenge the company couldn't resist.

"Football's been a very common theme in the media - it's easy for film-makers to shoot a match scene by taking a camera along. "Theatre has a responsibility to keep up with film and other media - it would be easy to just do four-wall melodrama, but we wanted to push it further than that.

"We have a match-scene on stage. There's only about 15 people in the crowd, but it helps recreate the atmosphere and the audience can relate to the feeling of standing on the Kop." . Dixie Or Me is at The Stiwt Theatre, Rhosllanerchgrugog on Tuesday March 2 and Thursday March 4, at 7.30pm.