Up the Town
Welcome to Wrexham is a 2022 FX documentary series following Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney as they purchase and get to grips with running Wrexham AFC, a Welsh football/soccer club which, as it happens, is the third-oldest professional club in the world.
Wrexham is a former mining town suffering from a depressed economy and low employment. The local football club, meanwhile, has been languishing in England's National League note since 2008. This comes to the attention of Rob McElhenney. Although he knows little about the sport or the club, he understands the town and club's working-class story of struggle and dignity and decides to buy Wrexham AFC in the hopes of improving the club and helping it gain promotion back into the English Football League.
However, Rob realizes that he'll need more money to make the investment work. Superhero-movie-star-gin-company-owner levels of money. Enter Ryan Reynolds, who also has working-class roots and an appreciation for how sports bring people together. Together, Ryan and Rob set off to make improvements to a club in a town they've never seen in person.
The original plan was for the series to run for two seasons, though Ryan and Rob said they were open to considering further installments. In November 2023, FX announced it had renewed the series for a third season.
Welcome to Wrexham contains examples of:
- Abandoned Area: Due to lack of funding and bureaucratic boondogglesnote , the Kop had fallen into disrepair and needed to be sealed off for safety reasons and usually hidden away with a shade. Once Ryan and Rob secure the funding and permission, work gets underway to replace it with a newer and larger stand.
- The Ace: Paul Mullin is brought to the club from Cambridge United because he is a phenomenal goalscorer who can take opportunities from any angle; it's stated several times that with his level of skill, he really should be playing in League One or even the Championship (two and three levels higher, respectively). Once at Wrexham, he proceeds to outstrip not just everyone else on the team but everyone else in the National League, ending the 2021-22 season with more goals than anyone elsenote . Ollie Palmer is acquired from AFC Wimbledon for the same reason, combining well with Paul to give the club a powerful attacking advantage.
- On the women’s side, Rosie Hughes is unquestionably this; as she once scored three hat tricks in a single game. She helped lead the women’s side to an undefeated season and into the Adran Premier and semiprofessional status. She jokingly but deservedly remarked that she wasn’t the female Ollie Palmer, he was the male Rosie Hughes.
- Actually Pretty Funny:
- When Ryan and Rob attend their first match, an away game at Maidenhead United, Wrexham go behind and the home fans are quick to start serenading Ryan with chants of: "You've bought the wrong club". He sees the funny side.
- The documentarians asked to profile a supporters' group of their fierce rivals Notts County, to which the group texted back, "No. Shove your shite documentary up your arse," which cracks Rob and Ryan up.
- The Alcoholic: In Season 2, Shaun Winter, one of the Wrexham superfans featured in the series, admits that he has a drinking problem and talks about his struggles to maintain his sobriety.
- All-Loving Hero:
- Ryan and Rob are portrayed as this as people say time and time again that the two have given Wrexham's working-class community a new sense of hope and excitement.
- Under the two's leadership, the club makes an effort to be more inclusive. Kerry Evans, a wheelchair user, is hired as the club's full-time Disability Liaison Officer to make sure that disabled fans have access to the Racecourse and can travel with the team to away gamesnote . The team also starts sponsoring a wheelchair football team. Evans, herself, appreciates the dignity a full-time job affords her as she'd been relying on benefits for a long time.
- Authority in Name Only: Humphrey Ker is made an executive director at Wrexham AFC but he confesses that he has no real authority and the title was given to let people know that he speaks for Rob and Ryan when they can't be in town. This slowly changes across the seasons as he learns the ropes of managing the business side from Shaun Harvey.
- Bash Brothers: Paul Mullin and Ollie Palmer are paired together to form Wrexham's attacking front, with Mullin using finesse and Palmer using strength to create and take goalscoring opportunities. It helps that the two hit it off on a personal level and start hanging out together off the pitch.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: When Ryan and Rob take over, there's some mocking over the fact that the only shirt sponsor that the club can attract is Ifor Williams Trailers (an agricultural trailer manufacturer) despite the fact that the company is providing sorely needed funding. Even when the team starts attracting bigger-name sponsors, Ryan and Rob can't help but mock professional sport's need for corporate sponsorship.
- Bittersweet Ending: Ryan and Rob's investment and efforts revitalizes Wrexham AFC while new management and acquisitions propel the team up to the top of the National League and the FA Trophy final. Unfortunately, Season 1 ends with the team falling short — losing the final to Bromley and then losing the play-off semi-final to Grimsby Town less than a week later. That said, the team's performance was a marked improvement on previous seasons.
- Book Ends: When Ben Foster signs with Wrexham to help wrap up the 22-23 season, he talks about how his professional career truly began with a stint at the club and that he's happy that he'll play his final professional games there as well.
- Busman's Holiday: Shaun Harvey, described as basically "The Hand of the King", takes a short vacation, but winds up having to put out fires over the phone and nearly comes back early.
- Butt-Monkey: Rob is often portrayed/treated/dismissed as Ryan's sidekick despite the major role he plays at the club. While he takes most of it with good humor, he gets rankled when — during the FA Trophy match at Wembley — Ryan jokingly says that he must be the team's bad-luck charm.
- The Cameo: Celebrity guests are often spotted on camera, including Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, David Beckham, and the cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Wrexham AFC's previous owner, Alex Hamilton (no, not that one) . Already having a poor public reputation, Hamilton initially hid his ownership through shell companies and a puppet chairperson, and planned to slowly bleed the club dry so that he could drive it away from its hometown, tear down the stadium and redevelop the land to sell it all off at a profit. It took a massive fan effort to stop his plans, however Hamilton's actions had long-lasting effects that crippled the team and weren't untangled until Ryan and Rob came along.
- Demoted to Extra: Ryan and Rob were major on-screen presences in Season 1. With the success of that season and a global fandom coalescing around the club and town, the two fall back in Season 2 to mostly provide commentary and pop up only on occasion.
- Destructive Romance: "Hooligans" covers the toxic nature of hooliganism. Firm members claim to love their clubs, but their anti-social and violent behavior physically and emotionally injures those around them while damaging the reputation of the teams they claim to support. The episode also features Jonny Taylor and Saskia Barkley, who've been dating for several years, and how Jonny's hooliganism and unhealthy focus on Wrexham has negatively impacted Saskia's life in significant ways — even ending her ambitions to become a police detective because their relationship meant she couldn't pass the background checks after completing training.
- The Determinator: Rob is the main driving force behind the Wrexham purchase and the club's reorganization despite the huge cost and the odds against him. Ryan says that Rob won't give up and will keep talking and arguing until even the toughest hold-outs give in.
- Did Not Think This Through:
- Paul Mullin confesses he didn't really consider what might happen when he posted a photo of his boots emblazoned with "F*** THE TORIES'' with the Racecourse in the background. The image kicks off a global political firestorm with the club having to go into damage-control mode to minimize the backlash and banning Mullin from wearing the boots on the field.
- The same could be said for some of Rob's antics, such as launching a blimp note from the pitch with no thought to local aviation regulations and trying to broadcast his owner's feed of an away game on the pub TV in defiance of football broadcasting regulations; these, combined with the fallout over Paul's boots, almost lead Shaun to come back early from his much-needed holiday.
- Down to the Last Play: In a match against their arch-rivals Notts County that all but decides who will win the league, it comes down to a last-second, stoppage-time penalty kick for Notts County that Ben Foster saves.
- Dying Town: Wrexham is a proud mining community. However, once the mines were shuttered, the economy and people began suffering. Ryan and Rob hope that revitalizing the football club and gaining promotion out of the National League will raise spirits and bring in new investments, create jobs, and improve Wrexham as a whole.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Twice in Season Two.
- First, in the episode "Yn Codi"note , Wrexham's women complete an unbeaten league season in Adran North, one of two regional leagues that make up the second level of Welsh women's football. However, with only one promotion place available to Adran Premier, they had to win a playoff against the top team from Adran South. They did.
- The final episode, "Up the Town?", sees the men secure their long-sought promotion to the EFL. The epilogue shows that Notts County, which pushed Wrexham to the very end, won the promotion playoffs to join them in League Two.
- Every Year They Fizzle Out: One thing shown repeatedly in Season One is that Wrexham AFC will come achingly close to achieving a milestone (reaching the play-offs and the FA Trophy final), only to fail at the last minute. Averted in Season Two.
- Family Man: There's a lot of speculation over how much the club had to offer to get Paul Mullin down to the National League. However, Paul keeps saying that money played no part in his decision to join Wrexham and that it was the club and town's proximity to his familynote was his main motivator. We also get to see several other players, notably Aaron Hayden, relaxing with their families.
- A Father to His Men: When not turning the air blue on matchdays, Phil Parkinson can come across as this, and acknowledges the need to do so when running a team consisting mostly of men in their early twenties who are all having to deal with personal as well as professional issues.
- Firing Day: Ryan and Rob don't want to make cuts, but the club failing to reach the playoffs leave them no choice. The entire coaching staff and 11 players are immediately sacked to make room for new blood.
- Football Hooligans: Explored in the episode "Hooligans", following crowd trouble after the Torquay game. We get the perspectives of a man who was beaten up by hooligans, one of the police officers who has to deal with the problem at most home games, and an actual hooligan; it goes on to explore how his behaviour on matchdays has negatively affected his girlfriend's life.
- Green-Eyed Monster:
- When looking at their pay slips and how much was withheld for taxes, some younger players jealously talk about Paul Mullin and speculate about how much he was paid to come down from League Two to play for Wrexham.
- When Ryan makes a trip to Wrexham to visit the club and shoot a promotional video, Rob snipes at his friend over having gone alone and hanging out with the players without him.
- Hero of Another Story:
- Season 2 starts giving glimpses of the Wrexham Women's team, who've been on their own journey to promotion from amateur to semi-pro soccer.
- "First Losers" spotlights Dorking Wanderers FC, another club in the National League seeking promotion into the EFL with ambitions to eventually reach the Premier League. What makes Dorking notable to be featured in the show is that the club began as a recreational team but experienced enough success that they gained a record-setting 12 promotions in 23 years to rise from amateur to semi-pro football.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Ryan and Rob are very good friends. "Wromance" is an entire episode where the two discuss the origins of their friendship while a relationship expert explains how platonic male friendships are hard to form while being considered such a rarity in modern times that the term "bromance" had to be invented.
- Hidden Depths: Combined, perhaps, with Hero of Another Story in the case of the local vicar, who meets Ryan and Rob when they first visit Wrexham. It is quickly revealed that he is also an exorcist, although not much detail is given.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Maxine Hughes, a journalist moonlighting as Ryan and Rob's Welsh translator, insults Ryan and Rob to their faces in Welsh, safe in the knowledge that neither of them can understand what she's saying.
- Hype Backlash: Invoked. The documentary's first season brought global attention and a large number of international fans to Wrexham AFC, the result being that the team is hyped as the one to beat in the 2022-23 National League season. The show's second season, which follows that season, shows that this led to strong backlash and resentment from fans of rival clubs (most notably Notts County, who quickly became Wrexham's main rivals for the one automatic promotion spot at the top of the National League). Wrexham supporters brush this off as jealousy.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Shaun Harvey is described as "The Hand of the King" because he knows the ins and outs of managing the business side of a football club and the only one capable of taking Ryan and Rob's ideas and transforming them into workable plans that fall within the rules and regulations they must abide by. Perhaps inevitably, things start to go awry when he takes a much-needed holiday, to the point where he almost has to come home early.
- I Hate Past Me: In Season 2, Shaun Winter reflects on his appearances in Season 1 and says that his aggressive behavior was due to a combination of depression from a bad breakup and too much alcohol. He then speaks about how he's since quit drinking and is working on being a loving and supportive father to his children.
- I Reject Your Reality: Jonny Taylor, a Wrexham-supporting hooligan interviewed for the series, doesn't seem to understand how his violent behavior harms himself, his loved ones, and even the club. He insists that he's just being passionate, seems indifferent to how he's damaged his girlfriend's professional prospects, and is intent on buying a season ticket despite being banned from the ground and under police orders not to even be within the vicinity.
- Is This Thing Still On?: At one point, on-screen text informs the viewers that Ryan forgot to turn his microphone off before going to the bathroom and that the sound of water they're hearing really is Ryan peeing.
- Manchild: Ryan and Rob are compared to toddlers due to their antics and impulsivity. They're even portrayed on screen by boys in one episode to illustrate how frustrating it can be do deal with them sometimes.
- Money Sink: The initial purchase price is already huge, but Ryan and Rob keep having to pour money into things like: brand-new sod for the pitch, salaries for experienced managers and skilled players, replacing a condemned stand, and even the land beneath the club itself. In budget meetings, it's revealed that the National League is, in relative terms, the most expensive league to operate in because owners have to pay for everything themselves. In Season 2, Ryan and Rob talk about how the club runs at a loss and that it's unsustainable for them to keep pouring money into it. This adds another incentive for Wrexham to reach the English Football League, because the club will start receiving money from the FA to support its operations and sign larger contracts with corporate sponsors.Ryan: Well, after two full seasons as the owner of a fifth-tier football club, 200,000 quid seems like, well, more of a rounding error.
- Mr. Exposition: Early on, there's a voiceover explaining sporting concepts like promotion and relegation which, while familiar to British viewers, may well be lost on their American counterparts. In the second series, Humphrey sometimes fulfils this role when it comes to explaining things like the British political system and various football-related regulations.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: The good fans of Wrexham refer to their new owners as Ryan Reynolds and his friend Rob.
- My Local: The Turf pub, next to the Racecourse Ground, is beloved by Wrexham fans — not just because of the obvious proximity, but also because the club was actually founded there.
- "Not So Different" Remark:
- In the first episode, Rob and Ryan both speak about how sports were important to the bonds they share with their families. Then, interview segments with with Wrexham fans show that the locals' passion for the club strengthens relationships among families and friends.
- In "Do or Die", Jason Stockwood, the chairman of Grimsby Town FC, says something similar about the importance of football to Grimsby and how the town has been struggling since its main industry, fishing, declined. The same could be said about many other British Footy Teams, especially those in the lower divisions.
- In "Family Business", Ollie Palmer says he feels kinship with Rob because they both experienced a parent coming out of the closet later in life and overcame the initial shock to forge stronger familial bonds.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: Ryan and Rob's investment and support of the club and town are greatly appreciated, but their penchant for unannounced visits and pranks is disruptive to the club's operations (to the point where Shaun Harvey almost cancels a holiday to come put out some fires). Rob even comes close to facing legal consequences due to some of his antics note until he's told just how much trouble he'll get into if he doesn't stop.
- Product Placement: The need for sponsors and the money they provide is discussed. In the beginning, the team can only attract Ifor Williams Trailers as a sponsor, but Ryan and Rob are able to bring in companies like TikTok, Expedia, and Aviation Gin (Ryan's own brand). Mocking promotional spots are included in episodes to poke fun at the practice of sponsorship.
- Second Place Is for Losers: In "First Losers," Rob outright says "Coming in second means you lost first," while discussing how all the teams he supports ended up in second place over the past year. The situation is especially serious in Wrexham's case, because if they come up just short again for promotion, the investments made into the club will have made them completely unsustainable.
- Separated by a Common Language: Whenever someone uses a British English colloquialism on camera, the show cuts to a graphic providing the American English and Welsh equivalents. A few instances of American sporting colloquialisms being used ("locker room" instead of the more British "changing room", for example) pass without comment.
- Serious Business: For the people of Wrexham, the team and its fortunes are life-and-death. Truth in Television for a lot of British football fans, regardless of club allegiance.
- Shout-Out:
- After Ryan and Rob buy the club, fans start dressing as Deadpool and seem to adopt the character as an unofficial mascot; it certainly seems to become the most popular movie in the local DVD rental shop.
- In Ryan and Rob's first full season as owners, Wrexham's away kit is modeled after an American Football jersey and colored Philadelphia green in homage to the Philadelphia Eagles, Rob's home team.
- Sly references to Ted Lasso are made when Wrexham reaches the FA Trophy Final and Wembley. It's nailed home when the camera shows that "the guy from that show" is in the owner's box with Ryan and Rob.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Phil Parkinson is usually soft-spoken and polite. On match day, however, he becomes loud and aggressive, and starts stringing together many variations of the word "fuck" during his team talks. When this happens, the show maintains a "Phil's Enthusiasm" counter which keeps track of the number of f-bombs he uses; it invariably gets into double figures rather quickly.
- Soccer-Hating Americans: Rob is a recent convert to the Beautiful Game, previously having been indifferent to it. When Rob drags some of his friends to watch a Wrexham match at a bar, however, they find it dull and are disappointed by it being 0-0 draw.
- Special Edition Title: "Gresford" begins with a modified title sequence, acting as a tribute to the victims of the Gresford mining disaster of 1934 that the episode focuses on, with the arial shot of the Racecourse at the end replaced with one of the colliery wheels from the mine, now displayed as a memorial.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: Wrexham, like all football teams, has hooligans within its fanbase. After a match against Torquay, Wrexham hooligans started going after anyone, regardless of club affiliation. Interviews with other fans call out the violent behavior and say that hooliganism must end in Wrexham, especially as Ryan and Rob's ownership of the team has put a global spotlight on their town. A hooligan who is interviewed about the subject seems to not see anything malicious in his actions despite the fact that he keeps getting caught and banned from attending games in person.
- Tempting Fate: In Season 2, Shaun Harvey says that he asked for red, white, and black shirts to be designed for the 2023-24 season despite the National League not allowing black and navy uniforms on the field (to avoid confusion with referees and linesmen, who wear black). Shaun says that he's betting that Wrexham will win promotion up to League Two, to which Rob and Ryan cringe — not least because they'll have thousands of shirts that can't be worn or sold if things go wrong.
- 10-Minute Retirement: Ben Foster had retired from professional football but found himself coming back after just ten months because the chance at being a part of Wrexham's return to the EFL was too tempting of an opportunity.
- Underdogs Never Lose: Completely averted for most of the team's history. In the show's second episode, they fail to reach the promotion playoffs. They also start the next season with an even worse record and lose the first game Ryan and Rob see in-person. Although things do get better, Ryan and Rob's first full season in charge ends with Wrexham losing the FA Trophy final and failing to achieve promotion.
- Under Strange Management: Ryan and Rob's takeover of Wrexham AFC is initially viewed with bewilderment. Why would two Hollywood celebrities who've never been to Wales and don't know anything about soccer buy a club languishing outside of the EFL? But after some awkwardness and management changes, the two are embraced for their passion and the energy they've injected into the team and town.
- What Does She See in Him?: Hinted at, but not outright asked, in the case of the young lady whose relationship with a football hooligan stopped her from getting the police job she really wanted.
- Worthy Opponent: Season 2 quickly establishes Notts County FC as Wrexham's serious rivals for the National League title. Humphrey Ker says they're worthy opponents but he'd like to see them vanquished.
