Welcome to Wrexham (TV Show Review)
by Jake Bourgeois, Contributing Writer
As a person for whom soccer (or football) fandom is not an insignificant part what I choose to spend my time on, I vaguely recall the news that Hollywood A-listers Ryan Reynolds of Deadpool fame and Rob McElhenney of It’s Always Sunny had added “football club owners” to their résumés last year. Even more unbelievable, said football club was in the lowest tier of professional football in England and Wales in a town called Wrexham.
So, one morning — as I’m up for my regular dose of early morning Premier League soccer (the pinnacle of the English/Welsh football leagues) — after seeing the advertisements for FX’s Welcome to Wrexham, documenting the duo’s ownership, as well as the community and club as a whole during the end of the 2020-2021 season and the following season, I was intrigued. With a premise like that, how couldn’t I be?
Thankfully, the docuseries is able to succeed and deliver a fittingly compelling series of television that does its subject justice.
Obviously, as someone who was already interested in the sport, there was a draw from the soccer angle already. However, as someone whses team plays at the highest level, the league that Wrexham chronicles is a far cry from that reality. The series does a great job in illustrating the difference between clubs at this point and clubs that are more well-known among the general public. I am familiar with relegation and promotion already — where the best teams can move up a league and the worst teams drop — but explaining why the National League is the most difficult league to be promoted from adds to the stakes, and is useful for sports and non-sports fans to understand on the journey.
The other thing from a sports angle that I really enjoyed was the exploration of the impacts — both positive and negative — of the club’s new celebrity owners. The ownership situation the Reynolds and McElhenney saved the club from was a dire one, as detailed, but that does not mean they don’t have to earn the community’s trust. Guaranteed profitability, like that seen in American sports, does not exist at this level. Running clubs can be a money pit (turf is expensive), and for this seemingly snake bitten club, the abandonment of the owners is a real fear. Likewise, while those of us who have played the FIFA video game franchise have all tried spending our way to an easy promotion (including bringing in a top-tier coach), real life doesn’t quite work like that. Getting teams to jell isn’t always instantaneous, and the celebrity ownership means that the team always gets their opponent’s best, which makes the treacherous league even more so.
But I don’t want to create the impression that Wrexham is just for the sports aficionado. Far from it. As much as it explores the soccer team, the docuseries explores the community of Wrexham as a whole. There’s plenty of history that gets mined with the team, the stadium, and the town and how all of it is interconnected. The importance of the success of the club to a town that’s had it rough lately was something that attracted the owners to make a bid initially, and is a point that’s hammered on repeatedly by basically everyone who’s interviewed. The series even takes its time to explore Welsh history and culture, which I appreciated.
Where I think the show really shines in through is through the personal storytelling. Over the course of the season, you get to know everyone from the pub owner, to club volunteers, coaching staff, grounds keepers, long-suffering fans, and players new and old. Each 30-minute episode has a different through line, and a lot of the major players are sprinkled in throughout. By the climax in the season finale, we’ve become invested in the story of not just of the team, but the people that surround them.
The through line for each Reynolds and McElhenney was an interesting one to follow. The duo hadn’t even met before going in together on this. Watching that partnership develop in real time is fascinating. What is also interesting is watching the dichotomy of Reynolds and McElhenney as owners. Reynolds is jokingly brought in as the “money” behind the group (showing the true cost of running a team like this), but McElhenney is very much the heart. He seems to be invested by jump in every single result. Watching them both fall in love with both the team and the community — particularly as COVID restrictions lighten — was one of my favorite parts of the series.
We’ve come to admire Reynolds for his marketing acumen, and this series has some clever touches. We get to see how they try to use their star power to help raise the team’s profile. The doc itself is a marketing move, too. There’s obviously the point that you have to consider the source when it comes to the documentary. It’s an inside job, with the marketing opportunity it provides being a selling point for the ownership. But none of that negates the fact that I think the documentary has its merits as a telling of an intriguing story.
From the production side, the series is well-produced. The language throughout is enjoyably salty, and the “enthusiasm” counter put on the team’s manager was one of the best pieces of production I saw. The finale sends you off on a high note with some masterful editing, weaving together the storylines developed throughout the season. It doesn’t hurt that the finale is quite a cracker of a game.
It’s a must watch for those who are fans of the sport, and it offers enough (both in context and subject) that I think it’s worth giving a try for those who are just intrigued by the human story. A season two of the series has already been confirmed, and why not? It’s gotten me and others invested in the team and this venture. Up the town!
Score: 8/10
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