From regular Portsmouth heartache to four consecutive promotions - a huge success story since leaving Fratton Park
After so many agonising near misses at Fratton Park, Andy Cannon has earned a remarkable reputation as a serial promotion winner.
The energetic midfielder is part of the Wrexham side which have booked a passage into the Championship for next season.
Incredibly, that takes the 29-year-old’s tally to a staggering four successive promotions since leaving the Blues in the summer of 2021.
Not bad for a player who suffered consecutive play-off semi-final defeats for Pompey as they failed to escape League One during his three years on the south coast.
Indeed, since January 2022, he has gone up with Stockport and then three times with Wrexham, where he continues to flourish in the Welsh club's phenomenal success.
What’s more, his story isn’t over yet, being contracted to the Red Dragons until the summer of 2026, following 86 games and 12 goals so far.
It seems an age since Pompey manager Kenny Jackett snapped up Cannon for an undisclosed fee from Rochdale in January 2019 to bolster his team’s League One title push.
Having occupied the top of the table for more than three months, a January transfer recruitment drive also saw the arrivals of Bryn Morris, Omar Bogle, Lloyd Isgrove, James Vaughan and Viv Solomon-Otabor.
Crucially, however, Ben Thompson was recalled by Millwall, while injury restricted Cannon to just two appearances during the second half of that season.
Jackett’s men collapsed to fourth, before losing 1-0 on aggregate to Sunderland in the 2018-19 play-off semi-finals.
The following season in 2019-20, and now free from injury, Cannon made 28 appearances and scored once in a shortened league campaign following the Covid outbreak.
The Blues were paired with Oxford United in the play-offs, with the midfielder starting the first leg and appearing as a substitute in the second, before Jackett’s side lost 5-4 on penalties after a 2-2 aggregate draw.
In 2020-21, his third season on the south coast, Cannon finally established himself as a first choice, starting 31 League One fixtures and totalling 49 outings and two goals overall.
Under new boss Danny Cowley, Pompey entered the final match of the season against Accrington occupying the last play-off spot.
However, the Blues lost the May 2021 clash 1-0, with Cannon an unused substitute, as they subsequently finished eighth and failed to qualify.
After moving to Hull on a free transfer in the summer of 2021, he joined National League Stockport on loan six months later and helped them back into the Football League after an 11-year absence.
Once again frustrated by lack of first-team football at Hull, he returned to the National League in December 2022, this time permanently with ambitious Wrexham.
Under Phil Parkinson, they won the National League that season and then, the following year, came second in League Two to win promotion.
Nonetheless, in his absence, they finished behind Birmingham in second place to go up to the Championship.
It represented a fourth promotion in four seasons for the midfielder - putting him on track to reunite with former club Pompey in 2025-26.
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