Wrexham
AFC
, the Welsh football team, achieved its second consecutive promotion under the ownership of
Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney
, and entered League One, equivalent to the Third Division in England. The celebration broke out after a
6-0 win against Forest Green
. The goals were scored by Elliot Lee, Paul Mullin, Ryan Inniss, Ryan Barnett and Jack Marriott. With this victory, Wrexham secured a place in a higher category of English football for the first time since the 2004/2005 season.
The modest Welsh club, the third oldest on the planet among those with professional structures, is owned by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
Advised by the former English soccer player
David Beckham , the Canadian Reynolds, star protagonist of the
Deadpool
saga films
, and the American McElhenney, creator of the sitcom
I'ts Always Sunny in Philadelphia
, they began the process of purchasing the club in November 2020. , they paid
2 million pounds ($2.5 million)
and took the helm in February 2021.
That process was reconstructed in the documentary series
Welcome to Wrexham,
whose first season was added to the Star+ platform in January.
More than
15 decades of history preceded the arrival of the actors.
In a city located in northeast 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 maintains it as the third oldest professional club on the planet, only surpassed by Notts County (1862) and Stoke City (1863).
The founding occurred just one year after the Football Association (FA) was created and the first rules of the game were drawn up, and 12 years before the birth of the Football Association of Wales (FAW). That is why it is one of the Welsh clubs that play in the English league system.
Its stadium, the
Racecourse Ground (with a capacity of 10,500 spectators)
, is also part of the history books. Built in 1807 and initially used for cricket and horse racing matches, it hosted the first match that the Welsh national team played on its territory: on March 5, 1877, they lost 2 to 0 against Scotland in a friendly duel. That makes it the oldest stadium on the planet among those that hosted at least one international national team match.
While Wrexham's history is extensive, it is not riddled with success. His most notable period was during the 1970s and the early years of the 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. . In addition, they reached the quarterfinals of the FA Cup in 1974 and 1978, and the same stage of the European Cup Winners' Cup (which they entered as champion of the Welsh Cup) in the 1975/76 campaign.
Simultaneously with the closure of the coal mines and the destruction of the city's industrial fabric during the Thatcherite storm, the club began to go down a slope that took it to the fifth division of English football and a deep economic crisis that put it at the verge of bankruptcy. Faced with the defection of private investors, a group of fans raised the necessary £100,000 in September 2011 to prevent its disappearance and took control of the institution.
It was the club members who overwhelmingly approved (more than 98% gave their endorsement) for the sale to Reynolds and McElhenney in February 2021.