00:05For all that Billy Meredith, John Charles and Ian Rush have brought to Welsh football,
00:10the reality in the 21st century is that for many fans around the world,
00:15Wales exists as a football nation, mostly as an offshoot of Hollywood.
00:21The takeover of Wrexham AFC in 2021 by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney
00:27thrusts the then-non-league club into the headlines.
00:31Everything we do is in lockstep with the community of Wrexham.
00:36Hopefully to make sure that Wrexham is the name,
00:39it's something that's a little bit more global than it is now.
00:41That's a big priority for us, is expanding and growing the club in every way we can.
00:47In Wrexham's 150-plus year existence, the club has never played in the top flight
00:53and only briefly in the second tier.
00:58But under Hollywood ownership, the Red Dragons found a new scriptwriter,
01:02winning promotion from the National League in 2023, then League Two in 2024.
01:09To say it was fun, and at times it was fun, but it was incredibly stressful.
01:14As any football fan knows, the amount of anxiety that courses through your veins
01:19over the course of a season is astronomical.
01:24So towards the end there, for as joyous as it was at the very end,
01:28it was dicey leading up to that.
01:31The takeover was accompanied by an Access All Areas docuseries,
01:36Welcome to Wrexham,
01:37which has garnered the club an army of admirers across the globe.
01:41I think the single biggest thing they've brought to the club and to the town and to everybody
01:45was just a sense of sort of, you know, to borrow the presidential slogan of Barack Obama,
01:51a sense of like, yes, we can.
01:53Like this idea of like, why not?
01:55Why not Wrexham, why should people in this town expect less from life
02:01than people do in other towns around the world?
02:05Wrexham's ascent has somehow managed to unite hardcore locals,
02:09international hangers-on and even royalty.
02:15With Swansea City and Cardiff City both enjoying spells in the Premier League in recent years,
02:21and now Wrexham on the rise, club football in Wales has never been in ruder health.
02:28A country once defined by rugby is now a thriving football nation.
Comments