Not so long ago, a trip to London for Wrexham meant Barnet, Bromley or Dagenham & Redbridge.All fine clubs in their own right but a world away from West Ham United, winners of the UEFA Conference League just three years ago and the club that did more than any other to help England win the World Cup in 1966.This rich and illustrious history, plus West Ham being outside the Premier League for only the fourth time in the past 34 years, meant a first trip to the London Stadium had been ringed on the calendar ever since the fixtures were released in June.Even Sky Sports subsequently shifting the game to Friday night for live broadcast, in the process making it the fourth consecutive away game this season when fans who travel by train have had to stump up for an overnight stay due to not being able to get back to north Wales, could not put off the 2,000 or so who headed south.Long before the end, however, that excitement had given way to a crushing sense of dejection, as the heaviest defeat of Phil Parkinson’s reign — eclipsing the 5-0 hammering meted out by Stockport County in League Two — made for a miserable night in the English capital.Even allowing for the undoubted quality in the home ranks, with Jarrod Bowen having played for England as recently as March and Joel Piroe bagging the Golden Boot in his last season at this level with Championship title winners Leeds United in 2024-25, there was no sugar coating such a heavy loss.Not only were Wrexham guilty of defending that would have shamed a schoolboy, but they also visibly wilted in the face of a claret and blue tide that, without a couple of excellent saves from the horribly exposed Anthony Patterson, could have brought a defeat of even more embarrassing proportions.“We very rarely come up short on big nights,” says Parkinson. “Or big occasions. I can’t remember too many times when it’s been billed as a big game that we’ve come out and not performed.“Part of me is being reasonable and saying these are a really good side. A multi-million pound attacking force, probably a strike force that could be in the Premier League. But, equally, we can do a lot better.“I look back to when we were in the National League and playing Championship teams (Coventry City and Sheffield United), and Premier League teams in Chelsea and Nottingham Forest last season, and we acquitted ourselves better than we did tonight.