OFF THE WALL
We just couldn’t let this stuff go …
Being owner of a team is real roller-coaster ride
Ryan Reynolds went from joy to despair, and punch-the-air ecstasy to desolation.
The unlikely new love of his life — Welsh soccer club Wrexham — put the movie star on an emotional roller coaster Sunday in a thrilla-minute FA Cup match that had an ending not quite in the script.
Wrexham, the fifth-tier team bought by Reynolds and fellow Hollywood actor Rob McElhenney
for $2.5 million in
November 2020 on the recommendation of one of their writers, conceded in the fifth minute of stoppage time to draw 3-3 with Sheffield United.
Reynolds and one of his daughters (pictured) flew in for the fourth-round match at the atmospheric Racecourse Ground in north Wales, about 28 miles south of Liverpool, and went through a whole range of emotions as the goals poured in at either end.
He’s getting used to it by now.
“I’m now so much in love with this sport that I actually hate it,” Reynolds, a Canadianborn actor best known for starring in the “Deadpool” movies, told the BBC before the match.
“Each match I’m pacing around like a caged lion.”
With 71 places between the teams in English soccer’s pyramid, Wrexham came close to a big upset to add to a long line in its history. The team beat then-English champion Arsenal in the third round in 1992 and also reached the quarterfinals in the 1996-97 season, when it was in the third tier.
This was the biggest occasion since Reynolds and McElhenney, an American actor and director who was the creator of TV show “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” took over.
Fans serenaded Reynolds, who was in one of the directors’ boxes and was standing for most of the game, with a chant of “There’s only one Ryan Reynolds” near the end of the match — when Wrexham was 3-2 ahead and looked like completing a win against an opponent that was down to 10 men at that point.
Reynolds was seen walking across the field and to the locker room after the final whistle to speak to the players.
And he has a sequel to look forward to: Wrexham and Sheffield United will meet in a replay next month. Wrexham beat another second-tier team, Coventry, in the previous round.
Trivia question
Who holds the record for most points scored in an NBA quarter?
Party hasn’t stopped
Stetson Bennett, who led Georgia to its second consecutive college football national championship earlier this month, was arrested in Dallas early Sunday morning on a misdemeanor public intoxication charge, where he is preparing for the NFL Draft.
Officers responded to reports of a man banging on doors in the 1600 block of Tribeca Way at 7:10 a.m. Eastern time, Dallas police said in a statement to The Washington Post.
Bennett was released around noon Eastern time and left without comment.
Trivia answer
Warriors’ Klay Thompson scored 37 points on 13-for-13 shooting with nine 3s in the third quarter against the Kings in 2015.