In a season of eye-watering numbers, only one matters: 110. Wrexham, uncatchable at last with that points tally.
And for the 46th and 47th times this season, Paul Mullin was serenaded. His pair of emphatic second-half strikes sank Boreham Wood, sealing a come-from-behind win – and so much more.
They ensured that, after months of drama beyond tangible measurement, there would be no 15th passing of the National League’s top spot. Instead, that number measures the years, to the day, since Wrexham’s 87-year Football League stint ended.
It hurt then. It still hurts now. Time’s healing qualities numb the pain but there is just one cure. And – served with a superstar side – Wrexham have it now: promotion to football’s most exclusive 92-member club.
The locals’ festivities began long before kick-off. Who can blame them? This day has been anticipated since Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney completed their February 2021 takeover.
The town buzzed from sunrise. Red shirt after red shirt scuttled out of Wrexham General Station, heading for the local watering holes. The lines for the Turf snaked from early afternoon. Paul Rudd, likely queue jumped. Ant-Man was the hero of the bar, but Mullin superseded him rapidly.
In the Maesgwyn they prayed for a Maidstone United favour. With Notts County three up after an hour, most turned away. They returned when the deficit became just one, but soon County had five. Few were surprised: “easy” is not a familiar word around here.
Soon came a moving rendition of Yma o Hyd and several songs name-checking the owners. This marriage of seeming inconvenience between Hollywood and a working class town a literal world away, works beautifully. No one quite knows how. It simply does.
There are cynics, what with Wrexham’s wage bill being, for this level, astronomical. That, though, does not wash here. And nor should it. Sweat, love and passion are all baked into the Racecourse Ground’s historic walls. But for supporter efforts, there would have been no club to buy.
Now a football club that courses through generational veins is back pumping blood to every corner of north Wales.
This title was for Denis, a half-time draw ticket seller of over three decades. In the early 1960s, Denis shovelled snow off the pitch during his school lunch breaks. The draw will not run next season and he anticipates being ticketless. His nephew, Steve Watkin who scored the winner in Wrexham’s infamous 1993 FA Cup victory over Arsenal, rarely gets in. And so, Denis may not visit again.
It was for Neil Williams. Now part of the club’s in-house commentary team, in 2004-05 he collected signed shirts from each of the 92 Football League clubs, auctioned them at Sotheby’s and donated the funds to Wrexham. Even the word “promotion” had his lips quivering.
The end was met with a pure release of joy, thousands ignoring the pre-match instructions not to invade the pitch. First they headed for the dug-outs, then in their droves to the opposite side of the pitch. From there, they looked up at Reynolds and McElhenney in their Aviation Gin suite. It was mutual sharing of the moment, that was at the same time symbolic of the complete detachment from reality woven into Wrexham’s present.
The sun has not always shone on Wrexham. And there is no guarantee it always will. But right now, even through the Saturday evening drizzle, its rays cover the town. And doubtless a fair few will be awake to watch its Sunday rising.
