Wrexham co-owner Ryan Reynolds has admitted his nerves ahead of a crucial weekend in his team’s bid for promotion to the Championship, saying the last weeks of the season have developed “an eight-inch ulcer in my stomach.”
With two games to go this season, Wrexham are in second place in League One and will be promoted if they beat Charlton Athletic on Saturday and third-placed Wycombe Wanderers lose or draw against Leyton Orient. League leaders Birmingham City have already secured the title.
The Welsh club have been propelled to worldwide fame by co-owners Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. They have rocketed up the football pyramid, having been a down-on-their-luck side when the Hollywood pair completed their unlikely takeover in 2021.
Next season, Wrexham could be playing with the likes of former Premier League champions Leicester City who were Champions League quarterfinalists in 2017 and FA Cup winners in 2021; the same year as Reynolds and McElhenney changed Wrexham’s fortunes forever.
“I have, literally, like an eight-inch ulcer in my stomach right now because it’s the end of the season,” Deadpool star Reynolds told the TIME100 Summit this week. “It all comes down to the next two weeks. They just can’t do it easy, like just one year let’s do it without having receding hairlines all around. We’re all losing it. Stress [is] killing us.”
It would be typically Wrexham to take it to the final game. And it is the team’s taste for drama, last-gasp wins and defeats, that has helped make the Disney+ docuseries “Welcome to Wrexham” so popular.
“That’s not a consolation at all,” Reynolds said.
While there have been moments of high drama during Wrexham’s rise under Reynolds and McElhenney, if anything, success is becoming all too predictable.
This would be a third straight promotion, defying the odds even with the financial boost that comes with having celebrity owners. Just ask the group of Manchester United greats, including David Beckham, Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs, who haven’t managed to rise beyond League Two with their team Salford City, despite pumping money and fame into the club.
Indeed, Wrexham passed Salford on their way up the league and would be within one division of United if they can secure promotion.
Success has come both on and off the field given the ongoing popularity of its hit streaming series and a record turnover of £26.7 million ($34.5m) last season, a 155% rise, which helped repay all of its loans to shareholders.
The down-on-their-luck element of the Wrexham story has been left in the past. They are now an upwardly mobile team fast-approaching the top tier of English football.
The nature of the club’s success has drawn criticism from some quarters, though, with Charlton manager Nathan Jones describing Wrexham as a “circus” this week.
“It is a lack of respect to our owners, the team, the staff, the supporters and the heritage of Wrexham Football Club,” manager Phil Parkinson told local newspaper The Leader. “But we will just concentrate on what we’ve got to do.”
>
