Four of next season's home games kick off at 19:45
Burnley on 8 September, West Brom on 13 October, Middlesbrough on 4 November and Charlton on 8 December all start at quarter to eight. That is the fixture that catches visiting supporters out. You arrive in Wrexham at five or six, the afternoon has gone, and there is a long, loose stretch of evening to fill before anyone needs to be anywhere.
Handled well, that is the best part of the trip. Handled badly, you are standing outside somewhere at seven o'clock working out where has room for six people.
What counts as a sports bar in Wrexham
Honestly? On a matchday, the distinction between a sports bar and a pub in this town is mostly about size and how early it fills. The town centre is compact enough that the pubs within a few minutes of each other are effectively one long bar with different wallpaper, and the ones nearest the ground go first.
We have not tried to rank them here, because which pub is right depends entirely on the size of your group and how much of a scrum you can tolerate. The eleven we know well, and a route that joins them up, are in Eleven pubs, one square mile. Yorke Street is the obvious starting line if you want somewhere to aim for and work outwards from.
One caveat worth stating plainly: we do not keep a list of which places screen live sport, and licensing, screens and kitchen hours change. If watching an earlier fixture is the point of the evening rather than a bonus, ring ahead.
How much time each kick-off actually gives you
19:45 midweek. The most drinking time and the least sense of urgency, which is the trap. Anywhere doing food will be doing it while you are still deciding, so eat first and drink after — the reverse of the instinct.
15:00 Saturday. Southampton on 19 September, Preston on 17 October, Portsmouth on 28 November. This is the classic: arrive late morning, one round, lunch, one more, walk up. Two hours in town is comfortable. Three is ambitious with a group.
12:30 Saturday. Wolves on 7 November. There is no pre-match session at a 12:30 kick-off, only a coffee and a decision about whether you can face a pint at eleven. Plan this one as a post-match day instead.
If the eating half of the problem is the one you are stuck on, Dinner before kick-off is organised by how much time you have rather than by cuisine, which is the part people get wrong.
The walk back is the bit to plan
Where you sleep decides how much rope you have. From the Premier Inn opposite Wrexham General it is three minutes to the turnstiles, so you can stay out until the last plausible moment and still be early. The Lemon Tree is six, Boutique33 eight, and the City Centre Apartment and Wynnstay Arms both twelve.
The Wynnstay is the shortest possible version of this article: the bar is downstairs and the bed is above it. Take that as the recommendation and the warning at once. The full list of places you can walk home from is on hotels in Wrexham town centre, and everything within 25 minutes of the ground is on hotels near Wrexham AFC.
If you are staying out of town
The Ramada Plaza is 22 minutes on foot from the Racecourse, which is walkable in daylight and a perfectly reasonable walk after a 15:00 game. After a 19:45 finish in November, most people will want a car booked.
Hotel Wrexham on the Holt Road is 35 minutes, which is a taxi rather than a walk once you have had a drink. And if you are out in the countryside — the shepherd's hut, the cabin, the studio — then somebody in the group is driving, and the pre-match pint is a single pint or none. That is not a criticism of those places. They are quiet and they are good, and the trade is exactly this one.
After the whistle
Everybody leaves the ground at the same time and the nearest pubs absorb it in about four minutes. If you want a seat, the answer is to walk two streets further than feels necessary before you stop. The town is small enough that two streets is nothing, and the difference between the first pub you reach and the third is the difference between standing and sitting.
For everything else a weekend here can absorb discover the top must-do activities in Wrexham.