Wrexham's rise is one of the wildest stories in sports, like a Disney movie with Ryan Reynolds

In the 18th minute of their game against Charlton Athletic last Saturday afternoon, Wrexham forward Sam Smith judged a lobbed pass that was headed in his general direction. He jumped, swung his left boot high in the air and caught the ball on the way down, sending it into the top corner of the goal. Up in the owners’ box at the Racecourse Ground, the old stadium in north Wales, Rob McIlhenney stood with his hands on his head, an expression of disbelief on his face. The American actor then hugged Ryan Reynolds, the Canadian actor who joined him in buying Wrexham AFC a little over four years ago. They both looked stunned. Smith’s goal, impressive as it was, wasn’t the reason for their shock. It’s what it meant. It gave them a two-goal lead, making a win seem inevitable, securing second place in the third tier of English football — in the confusingly named League One — and with it automatic promotion to the second-tier Championship. It is one of the best, wildest stories in all of sports: Two actors from the other side of the Atlantic buy a provincial Welsh club, which had been languishing in the semi-professional fifth tier of English football for more than a decade. They do this on something of a lark, because they have time on their hands during the pandemic, and because they figure they can make a documentary series that follows their attempts to turn the team around. Part of the challenge is that English football teams can be promoted or relegated each season depending on their finish, which means the neophyte owners had real stakes in their investment. If they did a poor job with Wrexham AFC, the club could have plummeted even further down the tiers. Instead, Saturday’s eventual 3-0 win over Charlton confirmed their third straight promotion season — from the fifth tier to the second, one rung below the Premier League, the wealthiest and most popular football league on the planet. No club has ever managed three straight promotions from the fifth tier in England, or anywhere in Europe (though it has happened rarely in the lowest levels of the domestic leagues). By one published estimate, Reynolds (Deadpool) and McIlhenney (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) have turned their $4-million purchase of Wrexham and its stadium into a club now valued at more than $260 million. “For this club to go (up) back to back to back is amazing and something special, it gets better each time,” said forward Steven Fletcher, a 38-year-old with tattoos and a man bun who could easily play a henchman in a British crime noir. The Wrexham rise, while unprecedented, has both some logical underpinnings but also a huge dollop of the unpredictability of sport. Reynolds and McIlhenney invested millions in the club, which made a significant difference when they were still in the semi-pro fifth tier. Hollywood FC, as it is somewhat derisively known among rival fans, brought in Phil Parkinson, an experienced manager in England, and signed players from clubs in higher tiers, luring them down to Wrexham with big salaries. This would have been financially unsustainable were it not for Welcome to Wrexham, the television series that airs on FX and Disney+ and has turned a small Welsh club into a global brand. While other clubs in the lower tiers were being sponsored by locksmiths and boiler-repair services, Wrexham was signing deals with TikTok and United Airlines. The show has made players like Paul Mullin and Ollie Palmer familiar to North American fans, and Wrexham reported last month that more than half its revenue came from outside Britain last year, up from about a quarter a year earlier — and from a negligible percentage when Deadpool and Mac took over the club. But that financial might has been less relevant as Wrexham has moved up tiers, where there are lots of clubs with wealthy owners and much bigger stadiums. Based on their roster at the beginning of the League One season, prediction models expected them to finish near the bottom of the standings, just above the relegation zone. This was understandable, too: Those third-tier players like Mullin and Palmer that were signed years ago to play in the fifth tier were now back in the third tier, but a few years older. Clubs that achieve promotion often try to consolidate those gains in their new division, spending carefully but avoiding risky moves that could be disastrous if they end up going straight back down. But Wrexham, after a decent start in League One, decided to roll the proverbial dice and bring in reinforcements mid-season. Sam Smith was signed from Reading in League One for a reported $2-million, about quadruple the club’s previous record signing, and Jay Rodriguez was brought in from second-tier Burnley. Parkinson changed his system to accommodate the new forwards and consigned Mullin and Palmer — who had been extras alongside Reynolds in Deadpool and Wolverine last summer — to the fringes of the squad. After a fallow period in January, the changes worked, and Smith and Rodriguez played key roles in the promotion push. What happens next should be fascinating. By any objective measure, Wrexham AFC is now completely out of its depth. It hasn’t been in the second tier for more than 40 years. The Racecourse Ground holds about 13,000 people, while other stadiums in the Championship have a capacity as high as 50,000. Wrexham reported about $52 million in revenue last season and a wage bill of about $20 million. Leeds United, currently in first place in the Championship, had revenue of about $250 million last year and wages of about $170 million. They are now a corgi among greyhounds. Taking Wrexham from the fifth tier to the Championship isn’t quite like taking a beer-league hockey team to the NHL, but it’s in the ballpark. Reynolds and McIlhenney have repeatedly said they want to go all the way up to the Premier League, which to seasoned observers of English football sounded like crazy talk from a couple of outsiders who didn’t know any better. In truth, they probably didn’t know any better. But that hasn’t stopped them yet.

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