A MOMENT TO SAVOUR AT LAST FOR DIE-HARDS
IT was back in September 2020 when an embargoed press release was sent out by Wrexham, confirming a Special General Meeting of the Supporters’ Trust had been called.
“This AGM follows an approach to buy the club by two well-known individuals of high net worth. These investors currently wish to remain anonymous.”
It came with a promise of the interested parties’ intent to “immediately invest £2 million into the club for the purposes of taking it forward as a business and as a successful football team” and was seeking members’ approval to pursue discussions.
It wasn’t long before the anonymous investors were unveiled as Ryan Reynolds – he of Hollywood mega fame and a seriously impressive business portfolio – and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney.
Soon the duo were logging onto a zoom call to convince the Wrexham fans to relinquish their fan ownership and, embark on a new adventure together. It was a landslide, 97.5% voting in favour with hope their long-run in NonLeague would finally come to an end.
Soon they would fall in love with this part of north Wales, a region they immediately connected with.
But why Wrexham, came the cries, a question emphatically answered by Trust chairman Spencer Harris in these pages.
“‘Why wouldn’t anybody be interested in Wrexham Football Club?’,” he said. “We have a long history. We’re the third oldest professional club in the world, we’re the oldest in Wales, we play in the oldest international stadium still in use anywhere in the world. We’ve been to the quarter-finals of the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
“We’re the only fully professional football club in north Wales that competes in the English Pyramid system. There is a round one million people living in the area and a lot of people with an interest in Wrexham.”
A Disney+ documentary charting the story since has caught the attention of millions more across the globe. Naturally, selling it as an underdog tale rankles with some. The investment into the playing squad has clearly been significant and winning the title a matter of time.
But perhaps this story is really about the underdog of a town that had fallen on hard times and has been rejuvenated.
This title win isn’t about the people who have jumped on the bandwagon. It’s about those die-hard fans who have spent 15 seasons outside the Football League, seen their side hit 98 points but not go up, watched their team finish 17th in the league and were at Braintree on a Tuesday night when they crashed 3-0.
People like long-serving secretary Geraint Parry, who has seen it all, and, as many may have, probably questioned if they’d ever get back.
And for a group of fans who saved their club when it was a basket case and only going in one direction. Who dug into their own pockets to keep their famous club alive.
Those who were on that zoom call in September 2020 – and who haven’t stopped dreaming since.