WREXHAM will attract their biggest opening home crowd of the season for 43 years tomorrow.

You have to go back to August 18 1979 - the start of the club’s second season in Division Two - to see a five-figure Racecourse attendance where now-Premier League outfit West Ham United were the visitors.

Mick Vinter scored the only goal of the game that day as he made a mug of keeper Phil Parkes and England defender Billy Bonds to send the majority of the 13,036 crowd home happy.

Trevor Brooking, Frank Lampard’s dad, Frank Senior and Alan Devonshire - now boss at Wrexham’s National League rivals Maidenhead United - were also in The Hammers’ starting line-up.

The Wrexham team that day included club president Dixie McNeil and another Reds legend, Joey Jones.

Wrexham’s best opening day attendance of the post-war period came the season before with 14,081 watching the Reds first ever game in what is now the Championship - a goal-less draw against Brighton.

In their final season in the old Second Division, only 4,661 bothered to turn up to watch Queens’ Park Rangers dish out a 3-1 defeat in 1981 where Ian Edwards scored the Reds’ goal.

Tomorrow’s gate is expected to hit the 10,000 mark and will definitely be bigger that the Reds’ previous kick off in front of their home fans.

That was two seasons when the game against Boreham Wood was played behind-closed-doors due to Covid restrictions.

The Reds’ top attendances for opening day home games in their non-league era are as follows.

6,118: A 1-0 defeat to eventual champions Macclesfield in 2017.

5,941: Bryan Hughes’ side beat Barrow, who would also go on to win the title that season, 2-1 in 2019.

5,603: A drab goal-less draw against Dover Athletic in 2016.

4,901: Wrexham kicked off their non-league stint in style in 2008 with a 5-0 thrashing of Stevenage.

And Wrexham have only broken the 5,000 barrier another five times during that 43 year period from 1979 for Racecourse curtain-raisers.

6,671: Ian Rush’s Reds’ debut in a 3-0 win against Reading in 1988.

5,872: A 2-0 home defeat to Bristol City in 2000.

5,570: Gary Bennett scored two penalties in a 3-3 thriller with Rotherham in 1993.

5,099: Chris Armstrong hit the winner from the spot in a 2-1 victory over Swindon in 2004.

More than 7,100 season tickets have been snapped up for the new campaign and the club have also ensured at least 700 tickets will be available to purchase for general admission areas on a match-by-match basis.

Further seats will be available in the upper tier in the Wrexham Lager Stand at matches where the number of visiting supporters is expected to be fewer than 336.

This season’s away day excursions kick off a week on Saturday at Yeovil Town in a campaign that will see the Reds tot up 7,783 miles in round-trips.

Wrexham fans may have said good riddance to the likes of Dover (546) and Weymouth (502) but in age where fuel prices are hitting record-highs, only one away game comes under the 100-mile mark - and that’s a trip across the Cheshire border to Altrincham.

Torquay United tops the long-haul list at 504 miles where other gruellers include Maidstone United (472), Bromley (463), Southend United (450), Yeovil (446), Eastleigh (432), Dorking Wanderers (428), Aldershot Town (425), Dagenham and Redbridge (420) and Woking (406).

As for the journeys in the other direction, just south of Scotland it’s Gateshead at 396 followed by Scunthorpe United (282) and York City (260).