Wrexham 3-0 Yeovil Town: Dragons on brink of title as Glovers relegated
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Paul Mullin celebrates with Elliot Lee after scoring his 45th goal of the season for Wrexham
Wrexham are one win away from securing the National League title and a return to the EFL after a hard-fought victory that sees Yeovil Town relegated.
Anthony Forde, James Jones and Paul Mullin's second-half goals mean the Dragons will seal promotion by beating Boreham Wood on Saturday.
Wrexham's 107 points breaks the National League and professional English single-season points record.
Defeat for the Glovers means they drop into the National League South.
Yeovil will spend next season playing in English football's seventh tier for the first time since 1997.
Wrexham in contrast, following a 33rd league win of the season, are on the brink of return to the Football League for the first time in 15 years.
And by winning their game in hand, the Welsh club are now four points clear of second-placed Notts County with two games remaining.
Wrexham co-chairman Rob McElhenney (left) celebrates after Anthony Forde put the home side ahead
Wrexham and Yeovil went into the game at the Racecourse needing maximum points for very different reasons - a Wrexham victory would take them a step closer to the title and automatic promotion while a win for Yeovil was essential for them to have any chance of avoiding the drop.
They both started positively, Miguel Freckleton putting Charlie Cooper's corner wide for Yeovil while Wrexham midfielder Andy Cannon fired an effort from distance wide of the post.
Elliot Lee's quick thinking at a free-kick on the halfway line created an opening for Mullin, but Wrexham top scorer's shot lacked any real power to trouble Glovers goalkeeper Will Buse.
Yeovil looked threatening on the break, although Matt Worthington's effort was parried by Ben Foster and a Reo Griffiths cross came to nothing while at the other end Mullin's attempted curling effort went high and wide.
Mullin's effort summed up Wrexham's frustrations during an even first half and Phil Parkinson's side came straight out of the blocks after the interval.
Forde's shot from distance was gathered comfortably by Buse but the former Wolves, Rotherham and Oxford United winger would not have to wait much longer to finally break the deadlock and settle any nerves among the capacity crowd.
The Irishman found himself in space on edge of the area and his shot took a deflection to beat Buse and Yeovil's resistance was at an end.
Buse then did well to deny Lee but Jones was on hand to put the ball away in the bottom corner to double the home side's lead.
And Mullin's looping header, from Ryan Barnett's cross, saw the striker reach 45 goals for the season as Wrexham underlined their dominance with a third late on.
Decade of decline for Yeovil
It is almost a decade since Yeovil beat Brentford 2-1 at Wembley in the League One play-off final to secure a historic promotion to the Championship for the first time.
Ten years on, Brentford are enjoying their second campaign playing in the Premier League and are admired for the way they have grown into one of English football's most stable top clubs.
Yeovil, by contrast, survived one season in the second tier before their plummet back down the divisions began.
Defeat by Wrexham means that next season they will be playing in National League South, the sixth tier of the footballing pyramid.
How did it get to this point is a question most Yeovil fans will be asking.
On and off the pitch, the Glovers have been in freefall for some time.
Scott Priestnall took over as owner and chairman after the club dropped into the National League in 2019, but his tenure was marred by behind-the-scenes controversies and widespread discontent among fans.
The club finished fourth in the shortened 2019-20 season, with subsequent finishes of 16th and 12th. Darren Sarll left as manager last March, with his successor Chris Hargreaves surviving less than six months before being sacked in October following a poor run of results and the club languishing in 21st place.
Mark Cooper was appointed on the basis of his experience working across the EFL and with the aim of getting Yeovil back to League Two. Yet the team have won only five of 30 matches during his tenure and have not won in their past 10 games.
Goals have also been a real problem, with the team only scoring 35 times in 44 games.
A new consortium called SU Glovers said they had taken over the club at the start of March, but the deal is still to be completed - raising questions over who is actually in charge. And as relegation became more of a reality the mess behind the scenes began spilling into the public domain.
Yeovil now find themselves in a position they have not been in since 1996-97, when they last played below the fifth tier. Untangling the series of events that allowed them to fall this far, this fast, is the first challenge for those that remain next season. Only then might the club be able to start rebuilding.
Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson said: "It was never going to be straightforward. Yeovil had pride to play for as well as the hope of staying in the division. They've got a good manager and he set them up to be difficult.
"We knew we had to be patient tonight and in the end we just wore them down and I'm very pleased with the performance.
"The lads stuck to the task and knew what we had to do. We couldn't quite achieve it in the first period and the final passes weren't quite the standard they normally are but you felt it was coming.
"I'm just pleased with the way we went about our business, stayed calm and got the job done."