Wrexham season review: Historic promotion, Premier League in sight, scenes at the ‘circus'
'Championship, we're on our way…' sang the 1,861 jubilant supporters, many sporting fancy dress, lucky enough to get a ticket for the final act of a season that has seen history made in north Wales.
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A third consecutive promotion, sealed with victory over Charlton Athletic, means Wrexham standalone in the pantheon of fallen EFL clubs who have pulled themselves together in non-League.
Where the unknown lay ahead for the world's third oldest professional club when leaving Lincoln in 2008, now it is new stadiums never visited before such as Leicester City and Southampton on the agenda, plus first league meetings with West Bromwich Albion and Ipswich Town.
Phil Parkinson's side signed off with a 2-0 victory, both goals coming in the second half from Elliot Lee and Ryan Longman. Really, though, Saturday was about much more than the result. It was about a sense of pride restored and a promise of what lays ahead in a division the club last competed in 1982.
'The Championship is one of the most watched leagues in world football,' says Parkinson. 'It's a dream really for this club. A few years ago, we were fighting our way out of the National League but now we are competing at that table.
'Now, it is up to us to prove we can live in that company. Just as we did when coming into League One last season. We showed it then and we have to do it again.'
Thursday June 26 is the date Wrexham fans will have ringed in the summer diary, when the EFL fixtures will be released. Only then can the planning begin for the weekend of August 8-10 and the start of what promises to be a truly momentous campaign at the SToK Cae Ras.
The sense of excitement evident at Lincoln is only likely to grow throughout the summer, judging by the chanted countdown among a travelling band of fans that included one T-Rex, a host of traffic cones and at least three Mexicans, complete with sombreros.
'Sixty minutes to the Championship…' began a chant that continued all the way down to zero and referee Thomas Kirk blowing the final whistle.
As the close season gets under way — and the Wrexham players this week jet out to Las Vegas for their now traditional celebratory trip — it's surely worth one last look-back at 2024-25 and an unprecedented third straight promotion. Here's The Athletic's verdict….
Football's wider public realising just how serious Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds are in their quest to take Wrexham to the top. Talk of the Premier League when a club is languishing in non-League is easily dismissed as fanciful.
Returning to the EFL fold and even the third tier doesn't make it feel any more likely, either, such is the gulf between the top table of English football and Leagues One and Two. Now, though, Wrexham sit just one step away from fulfilling their owners' dream. Remarkable considering it's just two years since Parkinson's side signed off their stint in non-League at Torquay United, who on Saturday were competing in the National League South play-offs.
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Unlike previous campaigns when there were plenty of humdingers, this time around has felt to be a much calmer affair. An indication of that comes via the ten 1-0 wins, plus another seven triumphs by a one-goal winning margin.
There's still been plenty of entertainment, mind, with the 1-1 draw at home to champions Birmingham City early in the New Year a fine advert for League One, as was the 2-2 draw away to Charlton in October. We're going for the latter, even if it was Wrexham on the end of some late drama this time via a 96th minute equaliser from the penalty spot.
Sam Smith heading in Wrexham's third goal against Charlton to rubber-stamp promotion. The visitors had never looked like getting back into the game after going 2-0 behind inside 18 minutes but, still, there's always that doubt over how one goal could change everything. Smith heading in Max Cleworth's cross on 81 minutes meant the party could start.
One unheralded aspect about Wrexham's third promotion is how much their discipline has improved compared to the 2023-24 season, when Parkinson's side had six players sent off.
Four of these were straight red cards, the joint highest tally in League Two. To go from such a damning rap sheet to not having even one player dismissed in 46 league fixtures this time around shows how hard the manager has worked on sorting out what had become a problematic area. Only Rotherham United boast an unblemished record in League One this season.
'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,' said James McClean when asked by The Athletic after the Lincoln game what his team-mates who have joined in the last 12 months can expect from this week's players' trip to Sin City.
But we can't look past Charlton manager Nathan Jones' pre-match comments regarding his side's trip to Wrexham on the penultimate weekend. 'It's a bumper game, we have to go to the circus and see what we can get,' he said. One question, Nathan. Why?
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'You've seen the circus, now f*** off home,' came the retort time and time again from a pumped-up Racecourse crowd to Jones, as his Charlton side were well beaten.
Paul Mullin no longer being Wrexham's main man. Just three goals from 26 league appearances (17 from the bench) is not what supporters have to come to expect from the usually free-scoring Liverpudlian and there will be big questions over his future this summer.
Don't write the 30-year-old just yet, mind. He's now missed two consecutive pre-seasons after suffering a collapsed lung and four broken ribs in 2023 and undergoing back surgery last year. If Mullin can have a problem-free run at 2025-26, maybe the goals will flow once again.
Tomoki Iwata. Hands down, the best player Wrexham faced all season. He was immense in the 3-1 win for Birmingham, clearly way too good for this level after joining from Celtic.
A special mention should also go to Lee Gregory and Will Evans, the Mansfield Town strike-force who caused all manner of problems at The Racecourse back in November. Tyler Roberts also carried a real threat despite Northampton Town's 4-1 defeat in October.
Nine. Rarely put a foot wrong and was not worried to make the big calls, particularly at the start of February when a reset was needed after an awful first month of the year had yielded just four points from five games. Out went fans favourites Mullin and Ollie Palmer, as Smith and Jay Rodriguez came in to form a partnership that ultimately got Wrexham over the line via two defeats in 17 games together.
The shift in tactics to effectively 3-5-1-1 in late November may not have won universal backing from supporters. But, again, it worked as Wrexham racked up 92 points, 27 wins and 24 clean sheets thanks to a manager whose mentality was perhaps best summed after the Lincoln game by the man himself. 'I like to win a game of cards against my kids,' says Parkinson.
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Recruitment. There's no doubt this squad needs major surgery to compete in the Championship. Arthur Okonkwo (The Athletic's player of the year), Cleworth and Smith look ready but others may struggle with the step-up.
A recurring theme this summer is likely to be the need to pay players to leave, as there will inevitably be some surplus to requirements who are under contract and unlikely to command anything like their wages at Wrexham. It's a price the club must pay for such a rapid rise.
'Crikey, the Championship is a step-up from anything Wrexham have seen in years. So, to stay up quite comfortably is surely an achievement on a par with those three straight promotions.'
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