May 2026 — A Playoff Heartbreak, a Historic Finish, and the Show Comes Back

A WrexPat's monthly look back at Wrexham AFC — May 2026

Wrexham's first Championship season ended the way a lot of the best ones do: two points short of where you wanted to be, and prouder of the group than the table alone would suggest. Then, right on cue, Welcome to Wrexham showed up to remind everyone why we were all watching in the first place.

Final day, final margins

A 2-2 draw at home to Middlesbrough on the last day — Windass and Sam Smith scoring — combined with Hull City beating Norwich elsewhere to confirm Wrexham finished 7th, two points outside the playoffs. I watched the other results come in on my phone at work and felt the exact mix of pride and gutted-ness you'd expect.

Still, the club's best-ever finish

Seven days of disappointment doesn't erase the bigger picture: 7th place, in the club's first season back at this level after three straight promotions, is the highest league finish in Wrexham's history. Add the run to the FA Cup quarter-finals against Chelsea, and this was, on the numbers, the best season this club has ever had — playoffs or not.

Then the cameras rolled back in

Welcome to Wrexham Season 5 premiered on May 14th to reviews that called it, per Rotten Tomatoes, still "the gold standard of football documentaries," even with some fair pacing criticism of the opener for rushing new-player introductions. Fearless in Devotion marked the moment with an interview with promotion-winning captain Ben Tozer — a nice full-circle touch, revisiting where this whole thing started right as the current chapter closes.

Sources: ESPN — final day report, Sports Illustrated — season summary, NBC Sports — club history context, Rotten Tomatoes — Welcome to Wrexham Season 5, and Fearless in Devotion's May 6th episode with Ben Tozer.

Header photo: Racecourse Ground, Wrexham, by John Lord, via Flickr / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).