Wrexham have been out of the EFL for 15 years – here’s what’s changed

It’s not quite a step into the unknown next season for Wrexham on their return to the English Football League (EFL) after 15 years away.

How could it be? More than half of their 23 League Two peers faced them at the Racecourse Ground as Conference/National League clubs during their time in exile. Plenty of those fifth-tier meetings took place recently, too, with Barrow, Grimsby Town, Harrogate Town, Notts County, Stockport County, Salford City, Sutton United and Tranmere Rovers all having gone up from non-League in the past four years.

Nevertheless, there are a few substantial changes the north Wales club will have to get to grips with once the new campaign gets going on the first weekend in August — financial fair play (FFP) regulations and Premier League clubs’ academy teams competing with you in the EFL Trophy are a couple of examples.

The former goes by the official name of Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP) and effectively restricts fourth-tier clubs to spending 55 per cent of turnover on their playing budget. A form of these regulations was in place during Wrexham’s final three years as a member of the league (2005-08) but only for guidance. Actual sanctions, ranging from transfer embargoes to points deductions, were not introduced until 2011.

The EFL Trophy, meanwhile, has gone through its own transformation while they were away. From being solely a competition for the 48 clubs of Leagues One and Two, in 2016 the likes of Chelsea and West Ham United were allowed to enter their junior sides. The move proved popular with EFL clubs’ accountants thanks to increased prize money for winning individual matches against, in inverted commas, Chelsea but was a big turn-off for fans, certainly in the group stage that replaced the previous straight-knockout format.

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Whether manager Phil Parkinson treats the Papa Johns Trophy, as it’s currently called due to its latest sponsorship, as a priority or not — his Bradford City side did reach a couple of its northern section semi-finals during his five years at the helm there — remains to be seen.

But it will be interesting to see whether the Racecourse, where tickets have been hot property the past couple of years, bucks the trend of crowds dipping as low as even three figures for the competition during group-phase play in the autumn. We may learn more come the first midweek of September, when its opening set of matches take place. Wrexham already know they will have Crewe Alexandra and League One’s Port Vale in their group, with its fourth member to be revealed in the draw later today (Thursday).

By then, supporters could also have a good handle on how their team are likely to fare in the coming season.

The bookmakers have Wrexham as overwhelming favourites to go straight through League Two and win a second straight promotion as champions. Parkinson’s men are priced around the 7-2 mark for the title, with second-favourites Stockport, who finished fourth last season (three teams go up to League One automatically) and then lost the play-off final on penalties, available at almost double those odds.

Considering how last season’s Wrexham squad boasted a collective 14 EFL promotions between them, this standing seems fair.

But the oddsmakers aren’t always right at this level. For example, four of the top five promotion picks by leading UK bookies William Hill before a ball had been kicked in League Two last July are still there (Northampton Town, initially priced at 10-1, bucked the trend by finishing third).

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What can be taken for granted in 2023-24 is the resumption of some old rivalries.

Wrexham last faced 10 of their fellow fourth-tier sides when still an EFL club themselves, including Bradford City (last meeting: 2008), Colchester United (2005), Crewe (2003, last league meeting: 1997) and Gillingham (2000).

Doncaster Rovers are another team Wrexham have not faced in almost two decades, their most recent meeting coming in the League Cup in August 2005. Doncaster moved home 16 months later, from Belle Vue to what’s currently called the Eco-Power Stadium, one of four new venues for travelling Wrexham supporters to enjoy in the coming months. The others are at AFC Wimbledon (Plough Lane), Colchester (JobServe Community Stadium) and Morecambe (Globe Arena).

Doncaster Rovers’ Eco-Power Stadium, one of the venues Wrexham will visit for the first time next season (Photo: Pete Norton via Getty Images)

As well as facilities at this level having improved, attendances have invariably grown compared to 15 years ago. Bradford lead the way with the Valley Parade average crowd having risen from 13,659 in 2007-08 to 17,967. Stockport, promoted from the National League in 2022, have also enjoyed a significant rise from 5,643 to 9,108 across the same period.

With the EFL fixtures release (and both cup draws) happening today, supporters will no doubt be hoping trips to Bradford and Milton Keynes — the latter’s 30,000-seater Stadium:MK being comfortably the biggest in the division — will be on weekends rather than midweek, enabling big numbers to travel.

One bonus this season compared to last will be a saving on fuel for those who follow Wrexham by road, with relative neighbours Crewe, Tranmere, Stockport and Accrington Stanley back on the radar. Compared to last season’s 10 round trips of 400 miles or more, 2023-24 has just five. Overall mileage for those who attend every away game will be down by almost 2,000 to a little over 5,700.

In terms of the 22 other fourth-tier clubs who watched Wrexham and Mansfield fall out of the EFL 15 years ago, there is little doubt who has fared best, with Brentford (14th in League Two that season) currently looking forward to their third consecutive Premier League campaign. Of the rest, 13 have been relegated to non-League themselves in the intervening years, with Barnet, Grimsby and Macclesfield Town suffering it twice.

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Macclesfield are also one of the three sides who were there in Wrexham’s final EFL season to have since gone bust and reformed as a phoenix club; Hereford United and Chester City are the others. There was also Bury, who got expelled from the EFL in 2019 and subsequently folded but are now back and set to play next season in the ninth tier of English football. Darlington are still the same club but were relegated four divisions on the recommendation of the Football Association in 2012 after failing to agree a CVA (Creditors’ Voluntary Agreement) to exit administration while in what is now the National League. They are now in National League North, the sixth level of the English game.

Eight of those other fourth-division teams from 2007-08 are at that level again waiting to welcome Wrexham back, including Grimsby and MK Dons.

As for knockout football, the League Cup format is pretty much as it was when Wrexham last competed in it — a 5-0 second-round thumping at home to Aston Villa. In fact, the only major change to the Carabao Cup, as it’s known due to its latest sponsor, is that extra time is now only played in the final, meaning Parkinson’s side will go straight to penalties if a tie is level after the 90 minutes.

Wrexham will discover the identity of their first-round opponents, a tie to be played in the week commencing August 7, later on Thursday with relegated Premier League duo Leeds United and Leicester City among potential opponents in a regionalised and seeded draw. Treble winners Manchester City and the other seven Premier League sides competing in Europe next season will enter in the 32-team third round in late September — a stage Wrexham last reached in 1981-82, when they were beaten 2-0 away to Tottenham Hotspur.

As for the FA Cup, Wrexham will enter in the first round proper, something they haven’t done since they were last Football League members in 2007-08 — one of several reassuringly familiar elements for a club who have perhaps undergone the biggest transformation of all these past few years.

Certainly, the Wrexham who return to the EFL in early August will bear little resemblance to the sorry outfit relegated in last place 15 years ago having won only 10 of their 46 league matches. And that has to be the most exciting change of the lot for their supporters.