The team played their first match on October 22, 1864, against the Prince of Wales Fire Brigade at the Racecourse. Credit: Wrexham AFC
Wrexham AFC marked 162 years since their first-ever football match, looking back to their meeting with the Prince of Wales Volunteer Fire Brigade at the Racecourse Ground in 1864. The anniversary is another reminder of how deeply the club’s roots run through the town’s history.
The club acknowledged the occasion on social media, reflecting on a fixture played long before Wrexham became a familiar name in the English league system. What began as a local sporting initiative would eventually become part of the wider story of Welsh football.
How a winter pastime became Wrexham AFC
The club’s origins can be traced back to members of Wrexham Cricket Club, who wanted a sport to fill the winter months. According to Wrexham’s official history, the idea emerged during a meeting at the Turf Hotel in 1864.
Football offered something for the cricket club’s members to enjoy once their regular season had ended, while providing another recreational activity for young men in the town. It was a straightforward idea, born out of the sporting and social life of Victorian Wrexham.
Within weeks, a team had taken to the field against the Prince of Wales Fire Brigade at the Racecourse, beginning a connection that remains central to the club’s identity.
There was little to suggest just how enduring that original idea would become. Yet the club that emerged from those early gatherings has retained its connection to the place where the story began.
The Racecourse’s place in Welsh football history
The Racecourse was not simply the setting for Wrexham’s first game. It subsequently became a landmark venue for Welsh football, hosting Wales against Scotland in March 1877 in the national team’s first home international.
That distinction forms part of the ground’s remarkable heritage, recognised by Guinness World Records. Few football clubs can point to such a direct connection between their earliest recorded fixture and the stadium they still call home.
The Racecourse has changed considerably across the generations, reflecting the development of the club and the demands of modern football. Its place in Wrexham’s history, though, stretches back to those first tentative steps in October 1864.
From Wrexham’s beginnings to Welsh Cup history
Wrexham’s influence soon extended beyond the club itself. The Football Association of Wales was formed in the town in 1876, helping establish the foundations for organised international football in the country.
Two years later, Wrexham claimed the inaugural Welsh Cup, defeating Druids 1-0 in the 1878 final. The occasion is documented in the FAW’s historical account, which preserves details of a landmark moment in the club’s early competitive history.
That victory was the first of a record 23 Welsh Cup triumphs. It also established an early connection between Wrexham’s development and a competition that would become an enduring part of the club’s identity.
Wrexham describe themselves as the world’s third-oldest professional football club, although such rankings depend on how founding dates and professional status are defined. Their place among the game’s historic institutions nevertheless reflects a remarkable longevity.
On 22 October, attention returns to the match that started it all. More than a century and a half later, the same ground and the same town remain at the heart of Wrexham AFC.
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