Tom O’Connor: Wrexham’s three successive promotions were special

• Tom O’Connor has completed a permanent move to Peterborough United after leaving Wrexham AFC by mutual consent.
• He made 115 appearances and scored eight goals for Wrexham, one of only ten players to win three successive promotions with the club.
• O’Connor already knows his new club well: he played 19 matches there on loan during the first half of the 2025-26 season before injury ended his run.

Tom O’Connor transfer: how it happened

Tom O’Connor has completed a permanent transfer to Peterborough United, closing a Wrexham AFC career worth 115 appearances and eight goals.

The Tom O’Connor Wrexham promotion story includes a place among only ten players to win three successive promotions with the club, after he joined from Burton Albion in January 2022.

He leaves Wrexham by mutual consent, and the two clubs had already worked together this season: O’Connor spent the first half of the 2025-26 campaign on loan at Peterborough, making 19 appearances before injury cut that spell short.

Wrexham AFC confirmed the exit this week, and our full report on O’Connor’s departure carries the club’s statement on the move.

O’Connor arrived at Wrexham with a specific target in mind.

Speaking to the Border Counties Advertiser, he said: “I was playing in League One with Burton when I came to Wrexham and the aim was to get back there, and into the Championship.

“I went there as a centre-midfielder,” he added.

Injury slowed his first season. “Obviously I had the injury in the first season which held me back a bit,” he admitted.

Once fit, gaps elsewhere in the squad pushed him into defence. “I played centre-midfield quite a bit in the National League and then due to a few injuries, ended up playing at left centre-back which I’d played before,” he explained.

The switch became permanent by choice as much as necessity. “Left side of the three suits me, I enjoyed it and got on well enough there,” he said. It ended up defining his Wrexham career:

“That is where I probably played most of my football for Wrexham,” he added.

The expert angle: three successive promotions is pretty special

Only ten players share in Wrexham’s three successive promotions from the National League to League One, and O’Connor is one of them.

Judged from the outside, that run looks like a triumph built to be enjoyed.

Living through it, by his own account, felt different. “When you’re in the moment, it’s a bit of a whirlwind,” he told the Border Counties Advertiser.

The schedule of three straight promotion campaigns left little space for reflection. “It’s onto the next game, then onto the next game, the whole time,” O’Connor said. “You don’t take any time to step back and actually look at the grand scheme of things.”

Distance has changed that. The scale of the Tom O’Connor Wrexham promotion achievement only became clear once he had left the club behind.

“But when do you take a step back, back-to-back-to-back promotions is special,” he said.

He rates it among the hardest things to repeat in the game: “If I get another promotion in my career I’d be happy so to do three successive promotions is pretty special.”

He is not sentimental about the ending. “It doesn’t last forever in football but it was a crazy few years and a time I will look back on with great memories,” O’Connor said.

What happens next for O’Connor at Peterborough

O’Connor does not arrive at Peterborough as an unknown quantity.

His 19 appearances on loan in the first half of the 2025-26 season, before injury interrupted his run, gave the club a clear look at what he offers on the left of a back three.

“I enjoyed it at Peterborough and they know what to expect I suppose after the first half of last season,” he said.

No transfer fee or contract length has been disclosed by either club.

For O’Connor, the move continues a spell of football that began in League One with Burton Albion, ran through three promotions at Wrexham, and now returns him to the level he first set out to reach.

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