Leyton Orient ended the season in sixth position, one place ahead of Wrexham, while Scarborough and Scunthorpe United were the other semi-finalists.
With eight minutes of the match remaining, Mark Cooper received the ball from Harvey before swivelling and striking it past Salmon to make it 2–1.
Kevin Russell gave the visitors the lead in the first half before Scunthorpe lost both Paul Nicol and Cowling to injury.
The home side applied most of the pressure including shots from Paul Olsson and Chris Short, and a goalline clearance from Kevin Hales, but the first half ended goalless.
[9] The first leg of the play-off final took place at the Racecourse Ground on 30 May 1989 in front a crowd of 7,915,[10] Wrexham's largest attendance of the season.
Ian Ross, writing in The Times, described the playing surface as "so dry as to make the bounce of the ball unpredictable".
Although those conditions did not favour Leyton Orient whose "attempts to play cohesive football floundered", they had the first opportunity to score when a free kick from Kevin Dickenson struck the Wrexham crossbar from a Cooper header.
A minute before half-time, Leyton Orient took the lead when Lee Harvey struck the ball past Mike Salmon in the Wrexham goal from the right of the penalty area.
With eight minutes of the match remaining, Cooper received the ball from Harvey before swivelling and striking it past Salmon to make it 2–1.
[15] After the match, Comfort departed by helicopter for Heathrow Airport to catch a flight to Ireland where he was to be married later that afternoon.