Wrexham played in front of the biggest crowd in their history, and six different West Ham players scored

Wrexham had waited 56 years to play in front of a bigger crowd than the one that watched them at Anfield in 1970. They got it on Friday night at the London Stadium, where 59,712 turned up, and then six different West Ham players scored past them. The 6-0 result sent West Ham back to the top of the Championship and handed Wrexham the heaviest defeat of the Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac era.

Six goals, six scorers

Jarrod Bowen started it in the 28th minute, arriving at the far post to finish a Manor Solomon cross. Joel Piroe made it two in the 37th after Valentin Castellanos carried the ball into the box and squared it, and Wrexham went in at half-time two down having had 25 reasonable minutes and then a very bad ten.

Konstantinos Mavropanos headed in Bowen’s corner three minutes after the break. Castellanos got the fourth on 63 minutes when Kyle Walker-Peters drove forward and laid it off for him. Mohamadou Kante ran onto a Solomon ball over the top for the fifth on 76. Solomon finished it himself on 82, controlling a Walker-Peters pass, turning and hitting it hard enough that a hand on the ball made no difference.

Four of the six came from West Ham’s attacking players and one from a centre-back at a corner. None of it arrived in a late flurry against a side that had already given up, either. The third goal came three minutes into the second half and they were still hunting the sixth at 5-0 with eight minutes left.

Anthony Patterson picked it out six times

The goalkeeper beaten by all six is the most expensive player Wrexham have ever bought. They paid Sunderland around £8 million for Anthony Patterson in August, a club transfer record spent on a position most Championship sides shop for cheaply, and the logic behind it was that Wrexham intended to win games 1-0.

It had been working. Wrexham took seven points from their opening six matches with a goal difference of plus two and a defence that had conceded five all season, which in this division is genuinely good. Friday doubled that total in 90 minutes. They are 16th now, with one win from seven and a goal difference of minus four.

Phil Parkinson did not dress it up. “For 25 minutes we were in the game and then two moments where our defending wasn’t good enough,” he said. “We gave a team already full of confidence a huge lift and the third goal kind of really killed us tonight.” He also made the point that his side have always been able to stay in matches whatever division they were in, and that they did not on Friday.

The crowd record that stood since 1970

The attendance is the part Wrexham will keep. Their previous best was 54,096, set when they played Liverpool at Anfield in an FA Cup tie in 1970, and Parkinson had said in the build-up that walking out in front of a bigger one would feel very special.

The caveat is obvious. West Ham have drawn crowds above 59,000 for every home league game this season, and the official figure on Friday was made up largely of their own support, so the record that fell belonged to Wrexham only in the technical sense.

West Ham did not win any of their first three

The other thing worth remembering about this scoreline is how recently West Ham looked nothing like this. They took two points from their first three Championship matches after relegation. They have won the four since, scored 16 goals doing it, and now sit top on 14 points from seven with a goal difference of plus 11.

Nuno Espirito Santo was careful afterwards, which is his way. “We know that we have to go again, but we are in a better place,” he said, and he spent as much time on the substitutes bringing energy as he did on the six goals. His side visit Millwall on 19 September.

More from our Championship coverage