It has been five years in which records have tumbled and the fortunes of Wrexham have transformed.
Rarely has a takeover in British football yielded such instant results as that by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney at The Racecourse Ground.
Three promotions and memories to last a lifetime is a quite remarkable return for the Hollywood duo, whose every move as owners has been charted in the Emmy-award winning Welcome to Wrexham documentary.
As the pair made clear in an exclusive interview with The Athletic to mark this week’s fifth anniversary of their takeover, this is only the beginning, with the long-term goal being to make Wrexham self-sustainable as well as successful.
Using the peerless Wrexham Archive treasure trove of information and statistics as a resource, here’s the breakdown in numbers of a quite remarkable five years.
£350million… the valuation ($479m) given to Wrexham when Apollo Sports Capital recently bought a minority shareholding in the club. Quite the rise from the day in February 2021 when Reynolds and McElhenney paid a solitary £1 to buy the club from the Supporters Trust, plus a promise to invest £2million.
£7.5million… the current club record transfer fee, paid for Ipswich Town forward Nathan Broadhead last summer, a sum that could rise by a further £2.5million if certain criteria are met. The club’s transfer record has been broken seven times on the two actors’ watch, starting with the £300,000 paid for striker Ollie Palmer in January 2022.
Nathan Broadhead is Wrexham’s record signing (Molly Darlington/Getty Images)
£1.7million… the cost of a new pitch, complete with undersoil heating, laid at the Racecourse Ground last summer. A not inconsiderable sum — on the documentary, when Reynolds heard about the cost, he was incredulous, asking: “Is the grass human hair?”
50,596… the capacity crowd that squeezed into Chapel Hill’s Kenan Stadium in North Carolina to watch Wrexham take on Chelsea in their first pre-season friendly on U.S. soil in July, 2023. It was the first true indication of just how popular the Welsh club had become on the other side of the Atlantic, with fixtures following in Los Angeles, San Diego, Philadelphia, Santa Barbara and Santa Clara. Wrexham have also played a friendly in Reynolds’ hometown of Vancouver, and toured Australia and New Zealand last summer.
12,781… last season’s average league attendance at the Racecourse Ground, the highest in the club’s history, with the previous best having been 11,651 in the 1977-78 season.
7,500… the projected capacity of the new Kop stand when it fully opens in 2027. The intention is for this to be the first step towards raising the capacity of the world’s oldest international sports ground still in use up to 28,000.
279… games played in all competitions, starting with a 2-1 triumph over Altrincham behind closed doors just a few hours after the takeover had been completed. Wrexham have won 161 of those, drawn 67 and lost just 51. Their goal difference stands at a whopping +248 on the back of scoring 541 times.
173… most appearances by a player. Max Cleworth claimed this mantle in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat against Millwall, taking him past Paul Mullin (172), who is followed by Ollie Palmer (156), Elliot Lee (152) and Luke Young (150).
111…. points earned by Wrexham to prevail in the epic National League title tussle with Notts County in 2022-23, a record for the division.
110… most goals by a player over the past five years and, no surprise, it is the ever-reliable Mullin, followed by Palmer (46), Lee (41) and Jordan Davies (37). The joint-highest scorers among the current squad are Sam Smith and Ollie Rathbone with 13 goals apiece.
100… wins on home soil in 146 matches in all competitions. Wrexham have lost just 16 times at the Racecourse across the same five-year period.
97… minutes played when Ben Foster made that penalty save against Notts County, a moment surely beaten by only Mickey Thomas’ free kick to defeat Arsenal in the third round of the FA Cup in January 1992 on the list of most iconic moments in the club’s history.
49… episodes of Welcome to Wrexham, the documentary charting the ownership of Reynolds and McElhenney. These have been spread across four series with a fifth due in the spring. The first run lasted 18 episodes of varying lengths, while the second featured another 15. Things have become much more uniform since the switch from an autumn release to the spring with both series three and four featuring eight episodes apiece.
30… seconds of a Phil Parkinson half-time dressing-down for the Wrexham players at Yeovil Town in January 2022, which included an impressive 11 uses of “f***ing” invariably followed by “disgrace”. This festival of swearing, broadcast in series one of Welcome to Wrexham, led to the producers coining the phrase “Parky’s Enthusiasm Count”.
8… Primetime Emmy awards won by Welcome to Wrexham across its four-series run.
Welcome to Wrexham has won eight Emmy awards (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)
6… biggest winning margin: Barnet (April 2022), Torquay United (September 2022), Morecambe (November, 2023) and Forest Green Rovers (April 2024) were all thumped 6-0.
3… promotions. No team had ever gone from non-League to the Championship in consecutive seasons…until Wrexham achieved it last season.
2… Royal visits. First, King Charles called in at the Racecourse on a December 2022 trip to mark Wrexham’s newly-awarded city status, followed by Prince William, a little under 15 months later, to celebrate St David’s Day. During Prince William’s visit, Mullin and James McClean, neither in the Royalist camp, could only grin and bear it as mischievous team-mates joked: “You’re next up as the Prince has asked specifically to meet you”.
Prince William and Rob McElhenney during a Royal visit to Wrexham (Chris Jackson/AFP via Getty Images)
2… Wrexham players making cameos in the film Deadpool & Wolverine, with strikers Ollie Palmer and Paul Mullin given their big acting break by Reynolds. “Most people don’t know this because of his football,” the Canadian joked to The Athletic soon after the movie hit the screens, “but Paul trained for eight years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. They still talk about his Prospero…”
1… visit to Wembley, for the 2022 FA Trophy final against Bromley. David Beckham and Will Ferrell were among the crowd as the London club triumphed 1-0. Can Wrexham book a return ticket to Wembley for their Hollywood owners in May’s Championship play-offs?