Wrexham have been on an incredible journey since being bought by Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac four years ago, as they have climbed through the divisions of the English Football League.
The Red Dragons now play in the Championship, and this journey can now be seen as Wrexham faced Leicester City, a team who were Premier League champions less than 10 years ago, when the Welsh side were competing in the National League.
This success has come about due to the investment of Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, along with their creative management on the pitch by Phil Parkinson.
However, one little key detail has appeared to be the ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ docuseries, the apparent brainchild of the Always Sunny star, and now a football journalist has revealed how the American celebrity came up with the concept.
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Football journalist reveals Rob Mac was inspired by a Diego Maradona documentary
‘Welcome to Wrexham’ was one of the main talking points on the latest episode of Libero, a football podcast, as they discussed the rise and success of football documentaries.
A common agreement between the three journalists discussing this was the success of the Wrexham series; however, it was revealed how the idea came about for Rob Mac.
Rory Smith said: “I remember interviewing Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds about Wrexham and putting the idea that Rob Mac had watching ‘Sunderland ‘Til I Die’ during lockdown and thinking, ‘Let’s do that for football.’
“He said to me, and he may have said different to other people, that this is not quite true, that he watched a documentary about Diego Maradona and thought, ‘Look at this whole kind of footballing landscape I don’t understand,’ and that is what inspired him.”
“Regardless, it is kind of a cross between ‘Sunderland ‘Til I die’ and Ted Lasso; that is what Wrexham is, and it has worked really well, as the scale of their success in the US is astonishing.”
The difference between Wrexham and other National League clubs at the beginning of the docuseries
The Hollywood owners took control of the club four years ago, and with that, ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ was born.
It has been a driver of growth for them and has been a vehicle to demonstrate their rapid rise through the divisions as they came in and invested in the club.
On the Libero podcast, journalist Jack Pitt-Brooke detailed how this was unlike any other owners at the National League level at the time and they were a refreshing change.
He said: “When they started… there were not many happy stories about National League owners; most owners of clubs at that level are either underinvesting, or they don’t have the money to invest in the team, or they are trying to turn the ground into flats, or they aren’t paying their taxes.
“So, I think particularly a town like Wrexham, a big town, who are a big and well-supported club who had done nothing for a very long time. Having owners who come in and say, ‘We want to make you good; we are going to spend money, and here are our plans to do so; here is how we are going to keep the money coming in, and we will spend it on players.’
“There are worse things in football than that basically.”