Wrexham AFC, the Welsh club that breaks all records living a dream worthy of a Hollywood film

The semifinals of England cup and the duel between the historian Liverpool AND Nottingham Forest Of Premier League will capture the attention of British football this Saturday. Simultaneously and with far less media attention, a Hollywood story it might have a happy ending. A win will allow the Wrexham Association Football Club be crowned National League champions and promoted to League Two. The peculiarity is that a modest Welsh club, the third oldest on the planet among those with professional structures, is owned by the actors ryan reynolds AND Rob McElhenney.

Recommended by the former English footballer David Beckhamthe Canadian Reynolds, star protagonist of the films of the saga dead Pooland American McElhenney, creator of the sitcom It’s always sunny in Philadelphiathey started the process of buying the club in November 2020, paid £2m ($2.5m) and took the helm in February 2021.

That process has been reconstructed in the documentary series Welcome to Wrexhamwhose first season was added to the Star+ platform offer in January (the second is on the way).

More than 15 decades of history preceded the actors’ arrival. In a town located in north-east Wales, 40 kilometers south of Liverpool, and whose productive engines were the brewing, tanning and coal industries, the institution was founded in October 1864 by a group of members of the Wrexham Cricket Club. That very distant genesis keeps it as the third oldest professional club on the planet, surpassed only by Notts County (1862) and Stoke City (1863).

The foundation came just a year after the Football Association (FA) was created and the first rules of the game were written, and 12 years before the Football Association of Wales (FAW) was born. That’s why it’s one of the Welsh clubs playing in the English league system.

Even its stadium, the Racecourse (with a capacity of 10,500 spectators), is part of the history books. Built in 1807 and initially used for cricket matches and horse racing, it hosted the first match that the Welsh national team played in its territory: on 5 March 1877 they fell 2-0 to Scotland in a friendly duel. This makes it the oldest stadium on the planet among those that have hosted at least one match of international teams.

While Wrexham’s history is long, it is not a successful one. His most outstanding period was during the 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1977/78 season he was champion of the third division, which allowed him to be promoted to the second division for the only time, where he remained for four years. Additionally, they reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in 1974 and 1978, and the same instance of the European Cup Winners’ Cup (which they entered as Welsh Cup winners) in the 1975/76 season.

At the same time as the closure of the coal mines and the destruction of the industrial fabric of the city during the Thatcherite storm, the club began to go down a slope that led it to the fifth division of English football and a deep economic crisis that put it on the verge of bankruptcy. Faced with the defection of private investors, a group of supporters in September 2011 raised the £100,000 needed to prevent his disappearance and took control of the institution.

It was club members who overwhelmingly approved (over 98% approved) the sale to Reynolds and McElhenney in February 2021. “Our aim is to grow the team, bring them back to the English Football League with bigger crowds in an upgraded stadium whilst also making a positive difference to the Wrexham community”the proposed actors in a statement published a few hours after the completion of the operation.

The first steps have not been very fruitful in financial terms: in March 2022, after a year under new management, the club announced that it had recorded losses of almost £3m. Although turnover increased during this period (from 1.5 million to 5.9 million), the loss was mainly driven by the increase in investments in professional football (from 1.3 million to 4 million).

This higher investment correlated with team performance. In the 2020/21 season, during which Reynolds and McElhenney took over the institution, the Red dragons finished eighth in the National League, the fifth tier of English football, in which professional clubs, such as Wrexham, coexist with other semi-professional clubs, such as Maidenhead United. In the following campaign, they finished second, behind Stockport Countyand fell in the semi-finals of the playoffs for the second promotion.

This season, the team led by Phil Parkinson (He led Hull City, Charlton & Bolton in the Championship) He has had a devastating run – he has won 33 of 44 games played (he has drawn 8 and lost only 3), has 107 points and leads his escort, Notts County, by 4. If they beat Boreham Wood at the racecourse on Saturday, they will become champions, return to League Two after 15 years and will become the fourth Welsh club to participate in any of the English Football League categories: the others are Cardiff City, Swansea City (both in the Championship) and Newport County (in League Two).

Rounding out a very successful year, Wrexham progressed to the fourth round of the FA Cup: they beat Oldham Athletic, Farnborough and Coventry City, and were eliminated by Sheffield United (they are one step away from promotion to the Premier League) after a 3-3 draw draw, 3 in the first game and fall 3 to 1 in the second replay. And his women’s team earned promotion to the top flight of Welsh football last Sunday.

THE Red dragons they are one win away from returning to League Two, but their ambitions don’t stop there. “The plan is, and always has been, the Premier League. I just can’t give it a date. But if it is theoretically possible to move from the fifth division to the Premier League, why not give it a try?” Ryan Reynolds raved about January. This Saturday he can climb the first of four steps that would take his club to the top of English football.