promoted to league 2, which is part of the English football league. last year they were in the conference league, which is classed as "non league", there are still 3 divisions above them, league 1, the championship and then the premier league
@@AriasandtheNATION imagine being a wrexham fan a few years ago having ppl saying they r jealous of the team only a few years ago we were getting battered home and away and losing every game
Wrexham is my home city. I’ve been a season ticket holder since 2011. We have just won the National League title which is the 5th tier, which is so hard to get promoted from because only the champions are automatically promoted to league 2 (tier 4) with another team getting promoted through a playoff system where the team who finishes 2nd are far from guaranteed to go up. Us and Notts County have both broken the previous record points total for the division so this has been so hard-earned and demonstrates why there should be an extra promotion place. We’ve been stuck in this division for 15 years and us the fans have stepped in when it looked like we could have gone out of business because of some dreadful previous owners. That coupled with the multiple playoff losses makes this promotion all the sweeter. Rob and Ryan have not only given the football club and the fans a lift but also the local community, donating to some great causes and boosted tourism in the area and the local economy. We get a lot of visitors from the US and Canada and it feels a bit weird but in a good way. The area is buzzing and I’m looking forward to not only watching us in league 2 next season but Kings of Leon who are playing here next month. What a time to be a North Walian!
Just in case you ask, Wrexham, Swansea, Cardiff, Newport and Merthyr are Welsh teams in the English league system as there wasn't a Welsh league when they were founded
My husband and I are from the surrounding villages too Wrexham (Marford and Poulton) and to watch Wrexham afc get promoted is a dream come true. Up the Town (city now) lol
Why Wrexham? How ? A little story for your info and entertainment : The best place to start a Hollywood love story is at the beginning, and in this case with a question: what would movie star Ryan Reynolds and TV star Rob McElhenney want with an ailing football club in North Wales? Why buy any team, but especially this one, drifting without direction four tiers below the Premier League, fighting for attention in their own town, lost amid a sea of Liverpool and Manchester United shirts on the school playground? The answer involves boredom and luck, intrigue and inspiration, strategy and a little romance too. The beginning There is a third character in this story: Humphrey Ker is a British comedy writer and actor, and without him none of this would have happened. Ker went to Eton, studied at the University of Edinburgh and began a career in entertainment with an award-winning show at the Fringe. He appeared on panel shows like Have I Got News For You before moving to the US to write scripts for TV pilots, and there he worked with McElhenney on his new show Mythic Quest. Around this time Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool side were at their zenith, and often during his lunchbreak Ker would steal an hour to watch his beloved Reds. McElhenney would gently mock Ker’s love of soccer but he was intrigued by the emotion evoked by some of the more extraordinary events that year, like Liverpool’s heart-stopping, stomach-gripping Champions League semi-final win over Barcelona at Anfield. During the pandemic, Ker recommended McElhenney watch the Netflix series Sunderland ‘Til I Die to understand what football was really about and why clubs resonated more deeply in their communities than most US sports franchises. McElhenney sat down to watch with his wife, the actor Kaitlin Olson, but they weren’t taken in by the first episode and switched off. Then, when Olson went out of town for a few days to visit family, McElhenney tried again amid the onset of lockdown boredom. He binged two series and messaged Ker immediately. McElhenney was gripped by the jeopardy of promotion and relegation, a concept alien to most American sports fans, and told Ker he wanted to make his own documentary with his own club. Enthusiasm is a contagious thing, and despite his scepticism Ker was soon surfing the computer game Football Manager to come up with a shortlist of potential candidates. McElhenney had made some money with his hit TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but he certainly didn’t have the billions needed to purchase a Premier League giant, so Ker identified half a dozen clubs in need of new life. Hartlepool and Macclesfield were among them, but Wrexham stood out for two reasons: they retained a loyal and passionate fanbase still turning out for National League games in their thousands; and they served a giant catchment area without a major club for miles in any direction. Ker made contact with the Wrexham Supporters’ Trust, whom he found in need of investment after the pandemic and open to ideas. McElhenney meanwhile wanted a big-name sponsor and reached out to Hollywood star Reynolds, who owned several brands. “I had TV money,” McElhenney explained, “but I needed movie money.” McElhenney had never met Reynolds but they had become friends online after Reynolds sent a complimentary message about his favourite scene in It’s Always Sunny. Then came the reply that sent a jolt of electricity through McElhenney and Ker, that made them realise this wild, ridiculous idea was about to get global attention: I don’t want to sponsor Wrexham, I want to buy them with you. The hook In November 2020, RR McReynolds LLC bought Wrexham AFC for £2m, following a poll among the club’s 2,000 Supporters’ Trust members who voted overwhelmingly in favour of their new owners. Reynolds could have said that it was love at first sight, that he set eyes on the old Racecourse Ground and his jaw dropped. But that’s not what happened. As Reynolds put it: “The biggest challenge was the community going ‘what the f*** are these two guys doing here?’” He needn’t have worried, because they were welcomed by a town deliriously bemused by their new visitors. They signed shirts and posed for selfies as people from Aberystwyth to Colwyn Bay flocked to Wrexham. But the reality was that two famous actors had bought a football team muddling along in non-league, playing a game they didn’t know much about, in winter, in Wales. The action was often a stodgy watch and it all felt a long way from the excitement they’d seen on Netflix. At this point, Reynolds and McElhenney thought it would be an exercise in philanthropy rather than passion. The new owners invested in community schemes and hired voluntary staff like Wrexham’s disability liaison officer. They stayed in the town and drank in The Turf pub over the road. But on 2 April 2022, Wrexham played Stockport in the FA Trophy semi-finals, and everything changed. The game had all the ingredients: an intense rivalry, a fierce atmosphere and a place waiting in the final at Wembley Stadium. Wrexham stole the game with a 91st-minute winner that sparked bedlam at the Racecourse Ground, and it was all too much for Reynolds, who was left sobbing in the corner of his executive box. It was his first taste of football euphoria, and he was hooked. The middle Right from the start, McElhenney and Reynolds were open about doing it their way. They wanted to build a business. They wanted to make a behind-the-scenes documentary. A cynic might see Welcome to Wrexham as PR fluff, which perhaps it is, but then these are Hollywood stars and this is what they know. McElhenney describes the series as “a love letter to working-class communities” like those he knew growing up in Philadelphia. They have admitted their weaknesses - Reynolds jokes that “your average five-year-old in Wrexham has forgotten more about football than we will ever know” - but know their strengths: they are popular and charismatic and they can tell, and sell, compelling stories. Reynolds and McElhenney have deployed humour to great effect. One of the first ways they generated publicity was to promote the club’s shirt sponsor, Ifor Williams Trailers, with a video urging viewers to invest in a trailer for a loved one this Christmas - “especially if they own livestock”. They have thrown themselves into everything about Wrexham, engaging with the community and even learning bits of Welsh. McElhenney learned how to say the town name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, while Reynolds is reportedly going a step further and looking to buy a house in the nearby village of Marford. But alongside that enthusiasm, they have also been strategic in their approach. The trailers were soon replaced by TikTok as the club’s leading sponsor which brought a tenfold increase in revenue. Other major brands like Expedia came on board too as Reynolds and McElhenney cranked up the publicity, appearing to millions on The One Show in the UK and The Late Late Show in the US. They hired the former English Football League chief executive Shaun Harvey to help run the club, alongside Ker, handling contract renewals and transfers. Coaxing top talent like Paul Mullin, the League Two player of the year, and Ollie Palmer from his hometown club AFC Wimbledon transformed fortunes on the pitch, and Wrexham have now sealed long-awaited promotion back to the Football League for the first time in 15 years. In the meantime, the owners have become deeply emotionally invested, describing symptoms akin to a lovesick teenager. “We didn’t know anything about the sport - now we’re obsessed with it,” Reynolds said. “It’s a living, breathing, screaming nightmare for me. Now I love this sport so much that I hate it. It’s one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me and genuinely one of the worst.” The end Delve through fan forums from earlier this season and you could still find the occasional sceptic, a Wrexham fan who yearned for the old days when there was no delineation between supporters and owners, when club decisions were made in the pub by the same people standing on the terraces. But critics are few and far between now. Winning helps, of course, but there is more to the new ownership than on-field success. Reynolds and McElhenney have taken the time to learn that football clubs are delicate things, especially historic ones like Wrexham. They are not just sports teams but century-old community institutions; not just businesses but cultural artefacts to be carefully preserved. Wrexham were founded in The Turf in 1864, and it is not an exaggeration to suggest they might have followed clubs like Bury and Macclesfield to the wall without new investment. And despite all these changes, there is still a recognition of what matters locally. Ifor Williams Trailers may have been usurped as the main shirt sponsor but they remain visible on the players’ shorts and around the stadium, as do Wrexham Lager and others with longstanding ties. The ideal owners of a football club are always its supporters, but the next best thing is someone with money who understands why the ideal owners of a football are always its supporters. How does this story end? The beauty of football is that it has no ending, just the hope of a new beginning each season, over and over again. It is a series of never-ending sequels, and Wrexham will still be playing in front of their dedicated fans long after the credits roll on the RR McReynolds story, whenever that day comes. But it is a safe bet that Reynolds and McElhenney will leave the club in a better place than they found it. It has only been two years but that much is already true: the team are back in the Football League, and the playgrounds are filled with Wrexham shirts again.
Can't believe how popular and famous our team has become since Ryan bought it with his friend, also I'm technically supposed to support my city of Bangor but I've always been a Wrexham fan at heart
They are promoted to Division Two Daniel, the fourth tier of the English football league. Before things changed for TV back in 1991, There wee four tiers to the English League they were simply called Division 1,2, 3, and Division 4. Anything below that level was considered non league, The changes made back then were financial more than anything, they did alter the amounts of teams in the divisions but it was mostly about money and restructuring for TV, The old First Division became the Premier League, The Second Division became The Championship , Third Tier became 1st Division and Fourth Tier became Division 2, The National League where Wrexham were playing is considered Non-league despite it's title. There are other Tiers/Leagues below the National League all the way down to the bunch of guys that meet up on a Sunday for a game at the local sports field and then back to the pub for a few pints with the lads.
There's a great story in Scotland, Queens Park the 10th oldest club is two games away from promotion to the Scottish Premier League, currently in second place, one point behind the league leaders, last game of the season they go head to head.
So Happy you made a video on this Daniel. I actually bought a daypass to watch this game from my comfy seat in Belgium. I think these guys did such a wonderfull thing for this community. And also for the popularity of soccer/football in the US. Yes they put some cash into the team, but they also put their ❤ and soul into it. Many teamowners forget those last 2 investments. The return isnt always financial, ...the positive emotions and love they get from the fans, and the community, thats the real return . How many club owners have fans singing songs of praise to them? Not too many in my lifetime ✌️❤️
Jesus how many people are commenting the wrong information 😂 they’ve been promoted from the national league to league 2 which is EFL (English football league) - welsh teams can come into this too, obviously haha It’s really hard to get promoted in lower leagues but especially this low down - they have invested, but it will only get harder haha The national league to EFL is big though. That is very difficult I wish them the best of luck because I like Wrexham! Until I see them (if I see them) compete if with Liverpool and then nah 😂 they can sod off then
It's wonderful to see, when I was a kid they played in the 2nd tier so it was very sad to see them drop down through the leagues, it's brilliant to see them on the way up again and everything is looking so positive for the club now, it's been a miraculous turnaround. I grew up in Colwyn Bay about 45 miles away, and went to college in Wrexham, I still run for Colwyn Bay athletics club and we compete against Wrexham all the time, it's a great town with great people, I also grew up in the same village as one of their legendary players Mickey Thomas, so I've always had a soft spot for Wrexham and always wish them well. Back in the day I had the dubious honour of being beaten up by Wrexham's hooligan faction known as Wrexham Frontline, they put me in hospital on xmas eve in 1988, but that was the dark days of football when there was fighting after most matches throughout the leagues, it's rarely seen these days, there's also a funny video of Paul Rudd at the match yesterday, he even goes for a pint in the local pub with the fans!
Leyton Orient also won their league yesterday the one Wrexham have just won promotion to which is league 2, could I suggest watching Riots and Relegation, WTF Happened to Leyton Orient to see the result bad ownership does to clubs it took us 2 years to get out of that league, sadly this means Rochdale plus one other team lose their league place in Rochdale's case after 102 years, so you can wear your Orient shirts with pride and maybe watch our pitch invasion, we get our trophy after next weeks game against Stockport who lie in 4th place trying to get 3rd for automatic promotion. The league Wrexham won is the hardest to get out of as only one team gets automatic promotion the next 6 play a series of play off games, hopefully Notts County one of the founders of the football league and pushed Wrexham all the way will get that 2nd spot.
Papers and pundits all keep saying "Hollywood couldn't write a story like this". I saw aliens blow up the Whitehouse in Independence Day, pretty sure they can write about a non league team getting promoted😂😂
They was in the fifth tier and have just been promoted to the fourth tier ( league Two ) the top tier is the Premier league followed by the championship and then league 1 and then league Two which Wrexham will play in next season. They was playing in the conference league which is the fifth tier in England!
It's well worth watching, im a football widow, husband is a massive Liverpool fan. Im a massive Deadpool fan. I started watching the first episode and ended up binge watching the series. I'm now fully invested😁
Wrexham were what is termed a non league team, they will now be into league 2 which is the bottom of the English league system of Premiership, Championship, league 1, league 2
It's a shame Dan that you don't get to experience this with your soccer league . Relegation and promotion. Makes everything more important and special. . That's why there's more passion from the fans ... in Europe . It means more than life its self to some people 😂
If you watch welcome to Wrexham it explains the football pyramid in the UK . Wrexham were non league for 15 years and many teams in that league are semi pro . They bought the club during the pandemic and i was on the zoom call between Rob,Ryan and the members of WST.
Philip John Parkinson (born 1 December 1967) is an English professional football manager and former player who played as a midfielder. He is currently manager of EFL League Two side Wrexham. Parkinson is the only manager to take an English fourth-tier league club to the final of a major cup competition at Wembley Stadium, leading Bradford City of League Two to the 2013 League Cup final. During his career, he has achieved promotion four times: with Colchester to the Championship in 2006, with Bradford to League One in 2013, with Bolton Wanderers to the Championship in 2017, and with Wrexham to League Two in 2023. Parkinson would follow up the ground breaking 2012-13 cup upsets with a historic 4-2 victory over Chelsea in the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge on 24 January 2015. Bradford City went 2-0 down in the first half, but fought back in stunning fashion to record what Robbie Fowler, Liverpool legend, called the "greatest FA Cup upset of all time" in José Mourinho's second spell at Chelsea, who later managed Manchester United. On 24 May 2017, Manchester United won the Europa League courtesy of a 2-0 win over Ajax. This was Mourinho's second major trophy of his first season as Manchester United manager. It also maintained his 100% record of winning every major European Cup final as a manager. In 2017, United won the 2016-17 UEFA Europa League, beating Ajax in the final. In winning that title, United became the fifth club to have won the "European Treble" of European Cup/UEFA Champions League, Cup Winners' Cup, and UEFA Cup/Europa League after Juventus, Ajax, Bayern Munich and Chelsea. Zlatan Ibrahimović played for United in that match. Wikipedia.
they gone from Tier 5 (National League)(non-league) to Tier 4 EFL League Two(league) which is 3 leagues below the Premier league. They bought the team in 2020.
Notts County will probably go up thru the play offs. They have been great this season too. I am going to watch Woking vs FC Halifax on Tuesday night. We are in the playoffs, but get a 1st round bye if we can win our last 2 games. Sadly Notts County spanked us a couple of weeks ago, so even if we reach the play off final, they will probably roll us over. We have an American CEO but our budget isn't anywhere near the big boys.
Welcome to Wrexham season 2 is coming up this September 12. The season documented their journey to the Promotion to the EFL2. You should do a live "watch along" video. It is gonna be good content for your channel or Embrace the Suck 21
Now would you please try to show the S4C (Welsh TV) version of the song played when Wales is playing. This is the one with the English translation of the lyrics. It's called Yma o Hyd.
VNL is pretty much the last stop for once strong English football squad. It’s 3 leagues that allow teams to rebuild from the the foundation up. Prepared teams for the brutality of European football.
they have gone from the fith teir into the fourth teir , the premier league is the teir 1 or top division so they are a long way of being in the premier league
Wrexham are going from the 5th tier (National League) to the 4th tier known as League Two, so they have moved from the non league system to the EFL system, EFL system is the championship, League one and league two.
@@AriasandtheNATION no problem, quite a few teams are confirming promotion and getting relegated now, yesterday Rochdale were relegated out of league two (basically going the opposite way to wrexham) which means their 102 year run in the EFL comes to an end
@@manlikemark9641 wigan managed to stay up (for now) after beating playoff contenders millwall. Although I see wigan going down in the end. Rochdale's is massive. As someone from teesside I'd love to see hartlepool catch crawley but I think they got the new manager in too late so unfortunately wont.
@@samuelpinder1215 I'm a Charlton fan so I was quite happy to see Millwall lose but yeah I think wigan and Blackpool are done for, I'm sad about hartlepool too, they came to us on the final day when we won league one some years back and their fans were brilliant, all dressed up as smurfs and really added to the day
Wrexham were also known for the bootlegger on RUclips before the takeover. You should look at his best moments, I bet he had an interesting day when they were promoted 😂🍺
Whatever source just told you they will be in the Premier League is incorrect. They have been promoted from the 5th division into the 4th division. Prem is 1st division The EFL system is the top 4 divisions
It's gonna be fascinating to watch the second season of 'Welcome To Wrexham' when it comes out this August. Partly, for me at least, because the first season didn't shy away from showing the difficult conversations Ryan and Rob were subject to with regards to the cost of running the club. And whilst, yes, this IS a major neccesity for them, I am eager to see how the two suddenly stare down the barrel of a league where their money isn't AS MUCH of a unique advantage anymore. There's a reason the drop off from League 2 is so steep. Things don't get cheaper now, they get SO much more expensive.
The sadness for Rochdale having been in the league for over a hundred years perhaps someone in Hollywood could buy them. It's what Wrexham can do in league 2 we will have to wait and see
As a non-footie fan, basically they've gone from tier 5 to tier 4, though this has meant a change in league, which is apparently a big thing. Tier 1 is the "premier league" for all the top clubs. Tiers 2-4 are the "English football league", whilst tier 5 is in the "barely leauge-al" league!
There in the top league now 3 yrs ago they brought the team
Thanks Sandra! Much love!!
They are not in the top league now. They’re in the fourth division (league 2) but are back in the football league (as opposed to ‘non league’)
4th tier now
They’re 3 more promotions away from the top league
promoted to league 2, which is part of the English football league. last year they were in the conference league, which is classed as "non league", there are still 3 divisions above them, league 1, the championship and then the premier league
what a time to be a wrexham fan
ive stuck with this club my entire life and i was in this video on the pitch
That is awesome!!! Im jealous!
@@AriasandtheNATION imagine being a wrexham fan a few years ago having ppl saying they r jealous of the team
only a few years ago we were getting battered home and away and losing every game
Wrexham is my home city. I’ve been a season ticket holder since 2011. We have just won the National League title which is the 5th tier, which is so hard to get promoted from because only the champions are automatically promoted to league 2 (tier 4) with another team getting promoted through a playoff system where the team who finishes 2nd are far from guaranteed to go up. Us and Notts County have both broken the previous record points total for the division so this has been so hard-earned and demonstrates why there should be an extra promotion place. We’ve been stuck in this division for 15 years and us the fans have stepped in when it looked like we could have gone out of business because of some dreadful previous owners. That coupled with the multiple playoff losses makes this promotion all the sweeter. Rob and Ryan have not only given the football club and the fans a lift but also the local community, donating to some great causes and boosted tourism in the area and the local economy. We get a lot of visitors from the US and Canada and it feels a bit weird but in a good way. The area is buzzing and I’m looking forward to not only watching us in league 2 next season but Kings of Leon who are playing here next month. What a time to be a North Walian!
Just in case you ask, Wrexham, Swansea, Cardiff, Newport and Merthyr are Welsh teams in the English league system as there wasn't a Welsh league when they were founded
BORN IN WREXHAM. AND I WILL DIE IN WREXHAM. THAT WAS BRILLIANT. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👊👊👊👊👊👊⭐. I LOVE MY CLUB AND TOWN ❤
My husband and I are from the surrounding villages too Wrexham (Marford and Poulton) and to watch Wrexham afc get promoted is a dream come true. Up the Town (city now) lol
Why Wrexham? How ? A little story for your info and entertainment :
The best place to start a Hollywood love story is at the beginning, and in this case with a question: what would movie star Ryan Reynolds and TV star Rob McElhenney want with an ailing football club in North Wales?
Why buy any team, but especially this one, drifting without direction four tiers below the Premier League, fighting for attention in their own town, lost amid a sea of Liverpool and Manchester United shirts on the school playground?
The answer involves boredom and luck, intrigue and inspiration, strategy and a little romance too.
The beginning
There is a third character in this story: Humphrey Ker is a British comedy writer and actor, and without him none of this would have happened.
Ker went to Eton, studied at the University of Edinburgh and began a career in entertainment with an award-winning show at the Fringe. He appeared on panel shows like Have I Got News For You before moving to the US to write scripts for TV pilots, and there he worked with McElhenney on his new show Mythic Quest.
Around this time Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool side were at their zenith, and often during his lunchbreak Ker would steal an hour to watch his beloved Reds. McElhenney would gently mock Ker’s love of soccer but he was intrigued by the emotion evoked by some of the more extraordinary events that year, like Liverpool’s heart-stopping, stomach-gripping Champions League semi-final win over Barcelona at Anfield.
During the pandemic, Ker recommended McElhenney watch the Netflix series Sunderland ‘Til I Die to understand what football was really about and why clubs resonated more deeply in their communities than most US sports franchises. McElhenney sat down to watch with his wife, the actor Kaitlin Olson, but they weren’t taken in by the first episode and switched off.
Then, when Olson went out of town for a few days to visit family, McElhenney tried again amid the onset of lockdown boredom. He binged two series and messaged Ker immediately.
McElhenney was gripped by the jeopardy of promotion and relegation, a concept alien to most American sports fans, and told Ker he wanted to make his own documentary with his own club. Enthusiasm is a contagious thing, and despite his scepticism Ker was soon surfing the computer game Football Manager to come up with a shortlist of potential candidates.
McElhenney had made some money with his hit TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but he certainly didn’t have the billions needed to purchase a Premier League giant, so Ker identified half a dozen clubs in need of new life. Hartlepool and Macclesfield were among them, but Wrexham stood out for two reasons: they retained a loyal and passionate fanbase still turning out for National League games in their thousands; and they served a giant catchment area without a major club for miles in any direction.
Ker made contact with the Wrexham Supporters’ Trust, whom he found in need of investment after the pandemic and open to ideas. McElhenney meanwhile wanted a big-name sponsor and reached out to Hollywood star Reynolds, who owned several brands. “I had TV money,” McElhenney explained, “but I needed movie money.”
McElhenney had never met Reynolds but they had become friends online after Reynolds sent a complimentary message about his favourite scene in It’s Always Sunny. Then came the reply that sent a jolt of electricity through McElhenney and Ker, that made them realise this wild, ridiculous idea was about to get global attention: I don’t want to sponsor Wrexham, I want to buy them with you.
The hook
In November 2020, RR McReynolds LLC bought Wrexham AFC for £2m, following a poll among the club’s 2,000 Supporters’ Trust members who voted overwhelmingly in favour of their new owners. Reynolds could have said that it was love at first sight, that he set eyes on the old Racecourse Ground and his jaw dropped. But that’s not what happened.
As Reynolds put it: “The biggest challenge was the community going ‘what the f*** are these two guys doing here?’” He needn’t have worried, because they were welcomed by a town deliriously bemused by their new visitors. They signed shirts and posed for selfies as people from Aberystwyth to Colwyn Bay flocked to Wrexham.
But the reality was that two famous actors had bought a football team muddling along in non-league, playing a game they didn’t know much about, in winter, in Wales. The action was often a stodgy watch and it all felt a long way from the excitement they’d seen on Netflix.
At this point, Reynolds and McElhenney thought it would be an exercise in philanthropy rather than passion. The new owners invested in community schemes and hired voluntary staff like Wrexham’s disability liaison officer. They stayed in the town and drank in The Turf pub over the road.
But on 2 April 2022, Wrexham played Stockport in the FA Trophy semi-finals, and everything changed. The game had all the ingredients: an intense rivalry, a fierce atmosphere and a place waiting in the final at Wembley Stadium. Wrexham stole the game with a 91st-minute winner that sparked bedlam at the Racecourse Ground, and it was all too much for Reynolds, who was left sobbing in the corner of his executive box. It was his first taste of football euphoria, and he was hooked.
The middle
Right from the start, McElhenney and Reynolds were open about doing it their way. They wanted to build a business. They wanted to make a behind-the-scenes documentary. A cynic might see Welcome to Wrexham as PR fluff, which perhaps it is, but then these are Hollywood stars and this is what they know. McElhenney describes the series as “a love letter to working-class communities” like those he knew growing up in Philadelphia.
They have admitted their weaknesses - Reynolds jokes that “your average five-year-old in Wrexham has forgotten more about football than we will ever know” - but know their strengths: they are popular and charismatic and they can tell, and sell, compelling stories.
Reynolds and McElhenney have deployed humour to great effect. One of the first ways they generated publicity was to promote the club’s shirt sponsor, Ifor Williams Trailers, with a video urging viewers to invest in a trailer for a loved one this Christmas - “especially if they own livestock”.
They have thrown themselves into everything about Wrexham, engaging with the community and even learning bits of Welsh. McElhenney learned how to say the town name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, while Reynolds is reportedly going a step further and looking to buy a house in the nearby village of Marford.
But alongside that enthusiasm, they have also been strategic in their approach. The trailers were soon replaced by TikTok as the club’s leading sponsor which brought a tenfold increase in revenue. Other major brands like Expedia came on board too as Reynolds and McElhenney cranked up the publicity, appearing to millions on The One Show in the UK and The Late Late Show in the US.
They hired the former English Football League chief executive Shaun Harvey to help run the club, alongside Ker, handling contract renewals and transfers. Coaxing top talent like Paul Mullin, the League Two player of the year, and Ollie Palmer from his hometown club AFC Wimbledon transformed fortunes on the pitch, and Wrexham have now sealed long-awaited promotion back to the Football League for the first time in 15 years.
In the meantime, the owners have become deeply emotionally invested, describing symptoms akin to a lovesick teenager.
“We didn’t know anything about the sport - now we’re obsessed with it,” Reynolds said. “It’s a living, breathing, screaming nightmare for me. Now I love this sport so much that I hate it. It’s one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me and genuinely one of the worst.”
The end
Delve through fan forums from earlier this season and you could still find the occasional sceptic, a Wrexham fan who yearned for the old days when there was no delineation between supporters and owners, when club decisions were made in the pub by the same people standing on the terraces.
But critics are few and far between now. Winning helps, of course, but there is more to the new ownership than on-field success. Reynolds and McElhenney have taken the time to learn that football clubs are delicate things, especially historic ones like Wrexham. They are not just sports teams but century-old community institutions; not just businesses but cultural artefacts to be carefully preserved. Wrexham were founded in The Turf in 1864, and it is not an exaggeration to suggest they might have followed clubs like
Bury and Macclesfield to the wall without new investment.
And despite all these changes, there is still a recognition of what matters locally. Ifor Williams Trailers may have been usurped as the main shirt sponsor but they remain visible on the players’ shorts and around the stadium, as do Wrexham Lager and others with longstanding ties. The ideal owners of a football club are always its supporters, but the next best thing is someone with money who understands why the ideal owners of a football are always its supporters.
How does this story end? The beauty of football is that it has no ending, just the hope of a new beginning each season, over and over again. It is a series of never-ending sequels, and Wrexham will still be playing in front of their dedicated fans long after the credits roll on the RR McReynolds story, whenever that day comes. But it is a safe bet that Reynolds and McElhenney will leave the club in a better place than they found it. It has only been two years but that much is already true: the team are back in the Football League, and the playgrounds are filled with Wrexham shirts again.
Well done mate great synopsis!
Can't believe how popular and famous our team has become since Ryan bought it with his friend, also I'm technically supposed to support my city of Bangor but I've always been a Wrexham fan at heart
Good stuff Gaffer, great Football Story, back in the football league from non league👍🏽🫶🏽👌🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
They are promoted to Division Two Daniel, the fourth tier of the English football league. Before things changed for TV back in 1991, There wee four tiers to the English League they were simply called Division 1,2, 3, and Division 4. Anything below that level was considered non league, The changes made back then were financial more than anything, they did alter the amounts of teams in the divisions but it was mostly about money and restructuring for TV, The old First Division became the Premier League, The Second Division became The Championship , Third Tier became 1st Division and Fourth Tier became Division 2, The National League where Wrexham were playing is considered Non-league despite it's title. There are other Tiers/Leagues below the National League all the way down to the bunch of guys that meet up on a Sunday for a game at the local sports field and then back to the pub for a few pints with the lads.
There's a great story in Scotland, Queens Park the 10th oldest club is two games away from promotion to the Scottish Premier League, currently in second place, one point behind the league leaders, last game of the season they go head to head.
So Happy you made a video on this Daniel. I actually bought a daypass to watch this game from my comfy seat in Belgium. I think these guys did such a wonderfull thing for this community. And also for the popularity of soccer/football in the US. Yes they put some cash into the team, but they also put their ❤ and soul into it. Many teamowners forget those last 2 investments. The return isnt always financial, ...the positive emotions and love they get from the fans, and the community, thats the real return . How many club owners have fans singing songs of praise to them? Not too many in my lifetime ✌️❤️
Fantastic video mate. That's the passion that football can elicit.
Jesus how many people are commenting the wrong information 😂 they’ve been promoted from the national league to league 2 which is EFL (English football league) - welsh teams can come into this too, obviously haha
It’s really hard to get promoted in lower leagues but especially this low down - they have invested, but it will only get harder haha
The national league to EFL is big though. That is very difficult
I wish them the best of luck because I like Wrexham! Until I see them (if I see them) compete if with Liverpool and then nah 😂 they can sod off then
It's wonderful to see, when I was a kid they played in the 2nd tier so it was very sad to see them drop down through the leagues, it's brilliant to see them on the way up again and everything is looking so positive for the club now, it's been a miraculous turnaround. I grew up in Colwyn Bay about 45 miles away, and went to college in Wrexham, I still run for Colwyn Bay athletics club and we compete against Wrexham all the time, it's a great town with great people, I also grew up in the same village as one of their legendary players Mickey Thomas, so I've always had a soft spot for Wrexham and always wish them well. Back in the day I had the dubious honour of being beaten up by Wrexham's hooligan faction known as Wrexham Frontline, they put me in hospital on xmas eve in 1988, but that was the dark days of football when there was fighting after most matches throughout the leagues, it's rarely seen these days, there's also a funny video of Paul Rudd at the match yesterday, he even goes for a pint in the local pub with the fans!
Did anyone notice the ref sprint off the pitch as soon as he blew the whistle 😂😂😂
He made sure he was near the tunnel when he blew the whistle lol
They got promoted to League Two mate , technically the first tier of professional football in England
Leyton Orient also won their league yesterday the one Wrexham have just won promotion to which is league 2, could I suggest watching Riots and Relegation, WTF Happened to Leyton Orient to see the result bad ownership does to clubs it took us 2 years to get out of that league, sadly this means Rochdale plus one other team lose their league place in Rochdale's case after 102 years,
so you can wear your Orient shirts with pride and maybe watch our pitch invasion, we get our trophy after next weeks game against Stockport who lie in 4th place trying to get 3rd for automatic promotion. The league Wrexham won is the hardest to get out of as only one team gets automatic promotion the next 6 play a series of play off games, hopefully Notts County one of the founders of the football league and pushed Wrexham all the way will get that 2nd spot.
GO WREXHAM so happy for the town they deserve it.
Papers and pundits all keep saying "Hollywood couldn't write a story like this". I saw aliens blow up the Whitehouse in Independence Day, pretty sure they can write about a non league team getting promoted😂😂
They was in the fifth tier and have just been promoted to the fourth tier ( league Two ) the top tier is the Premier league followed by the championship and then league 1 and then league Two which Wrexham will play in next season. They was playing in the conference league which is the fifth tier in England!
It's well worth watching, im a football widow, husband is a massive Liverpool fan. Im a massive Deadpool fan. I started watching the first episode and ended up binge watching the series. I'm now fully invested😁
Wrexham were what is termed a non league team, they will now be into league 2 which is the bottom of the English league system of Premiership, Championship, league 1, league 2
Got it! Thats massive man! Much love.
It's a shame Dan that you don't get to experience this with your soccer league . Relegation and promotion. Makes everything more important and special. . That's why there's more passion from the fans ... in Europe . It means more than life its self to some people 😂
If you watch welcome to Wrexham it explains the football pyramid in the UK . Wrexham were non league for 15 years and many teams in that league are semi pro . They bought the club during the pandemic and i was on the zoom call between Rob,Ryan and the members of WST.
I was one of the ones who ran onto the pitch at the end. Outside of family life, the best moment of my life.
Footy is so great I just love it !
Highly recommend watching Welcome to Wrexham 🏴 you will fall in love with the team and the town. Warning Very addictive lol
That wasn't a smoke bomb it was a dragon and they love the dragon
Philip John Parkinson (born 1 December 1967) is an English professional football manager and former player who played as a midfielder. He is currently manager of EFL League Two side Wrexham.
Parkinson is the only manager to take an English fourth-tier league club to the final of a major cup competition at Wembley Stadium, leading Bradford City of League Two to the 2013 League Cup final. During his career, he has achieved promotion four times: with Colchester to the Championship in 2006, with Bradford to League One in 2013, with Bolton Wanderers to the Championship in 2017, and with Wrexham to League Two in 2023.
Parkinson would follow up the ground breaking 2012-13 cup upsets with a historic 4-2 victory over Chelsea in the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge on 24 January 2015. Bradford City went 2-0 down in the first half, but fought back in stunning fashion to record what Robbie Fowler, Liverpool legend, called the "greatest FA Cup upset of all time" in José Mourinho's second spell at Chelsea, who later managed Manchester United. On 24 May 2017, Manchester United won the Europa League courtesy of a 2-0 win over Ajax. This was Mourinho's second major trophy of his first season as Manchester United manager. It also maintained his 100% record of winning every major European Cup final as a manager.
In 2017, United won the 2016-17 UEFA Europa League, beating Ajax in the final. In winning that title, United became the fifth club to have won the "European Treble" of European Cup/UEFA Champions League, Cup Winners' Cup, and UEFA Cup/Europa League after Juventus, Ajax, Bayern Munich and Chelsea. Zlatan Ibrahimović played for United in that match.
Wikipedia.
It’s league 2 they’ve been promoted to they were playing non league before.
they gone from Tier 5 (National League)(non-league) to Tier 4 EFL League Two(league) which is 3 leagues below the Premier league. They bought the team in 2020.
It was some game to watch. Now the real work starts, it won't be easy or quick climbing the tiers from here
Notts County will probably go up thru the play offs. They have been great this season too.
I am going to watch Woking vs FC Halifax on Tuesday night. We are in the playoffs, but get a 1st round bye if we can win our last 2 games.
Sadly Notts County spanked us a couple of weeks ago, so even if we reach the play off final, they will probably roll us over. We have an American CEO but our budget isn't anywhere near the big boys.
They have been promoted to the English Football League 2.
Welcome to Wrexham season 2 is coming up this September 12. The season documented their journey to the Promotion to the EFL2. You should do a live "watch along" video. It is gonna be good content for your channel or Embrace the Suck 21
you should watch ben foster The Cycling Gk's goal cam vlog of the crazy save and his vlog of the field rush shows the locker room after the games too
They've moved to the 4th tier
Now would you please try to show the S4C (Welsh TV) version of the song played when Wales is playing. This is the one with the English translation of the lyrics. It's called Yma o Hyd.
From the national league (5th division) to league 2 (4th division)
Best day of my life ❤️ to be there was incredible ,even if i did sprain my ankle running on the pitch
VNL is pretty much the last stop for once strong English football squad. It’s 3 leagues that allow teams to rebuild from the the foundation up. Prepared teams for the brutality of European football.
Wrexham goalkeeper Ben Foster has his own very successful RUclips channel and he has a go pro in his net and for that game he wore a chest cam
Ardderchog
they have gone from the fith teir into the fourth teir , the premier league is the teir 1 or top division so they are a long way of being in the premier league
I’m in the series 😊
Wrexham are going from the 5th tier (National League) to the 4th tier known as League Two, so they have moved from the non league system to the EFL system, EFL system is the championship, League one and league two.
Thanks! Much love!
@@AriasandtheNATION no problem, quite a few teams are confirming promotion and getting relegated now, yesterday Rochdale were relegated out of league two (basically going the opposite way to wrexham) which means their 102 year run in the EFL comes to an end
@@manlikemark9641 wigan managed to stay up (for now) after beating playoff contenders millwall. Although I see wigan going down in the end. Rochdale's is massive. As someone from teesside I'd love to see hartlepool catch crawley but I think they got the new manager in too late so unfortunately wont.
@@samuelpinder1215 I'm a Charlton fan so I was quite happy to see Millwall lose but yeah I think wigan and Blackpool are done for, I'm sad about hartlepool too, they came to us on the final day when we won league one some years back and their fans were brilliant, all dressed up as smurfs and really added to the day
Wrexham were also known for the bootlegger on RUclips before the takeover. You should look at his best moments, I bet he had an interesting day when they were promoted 😂🍺
Whatever source just told you they will be in the Premier League is incorrect.
They have been promoted from the 5th division into the 4th division. Prem is 1st division
The EFL system is the top 4 divisions
You should watch this The Dramatic Transformation Of Wrexham FC
The controversial promotion of Wrexham Football Club.
Weirdo
WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY
They needed to get promoted.... they are spending enough on wages 😮
It's gonna be fascinating to watch the second season of 'Welcome To Wrexham' when it comes out this August. Partly, for me at least, because the first season didn't shy away from showing the difficult conversations Ryan and Rob were subject to with regards to the cost of running the club.
And whilst, yes, this IS a major neccesity for them, I am eager to see how the two suddenly stare down the barrel of a league where their money isn't AS MUCH of a unique advantage anymore. There's a reason the drop off from League 2 is so steep. Things don't get cheaper now, they get SO much more expensive.
Saddo
4th league not Premier... Promoted to 4th league
👌🏻👍🏻💪🏻🇬🇧
Promotion? Relegation?... Life as a football fan in the world.... You're USA sports are, like everything USA, fixed,.... 🙂
ruclips.net/video/mSnBr98nL_A/видео.html Rochdale relegation from league two covered by StuntPegg, on the same day as Wrexham promotions to league two
The sadness for Rochdale having been in the league for over a hundred years perhaps someone in Hollywood could buy them.
It's what Wrexham can do in league 2 we will have to wait and see
Just watched the video she did an excellent job on that video thanks for pointing it out
None league
Applaude.... united could need some propper ownership too.....glazers out!!!!!
As a non-footie fan, basically they've gone from tier 5 to tier 4, though this has meant a change in league, which is apparently a big thing. Tier 1 is the "premier league" for all the top clubs. Tiers 2-4 are the "English football league", whilst tier 5 is in the "barely leauge-al" league!