Wrexham’s executive director Humphrey Ker has reacted after highly-rated defender Max Cleworth signed a new contract.
The pieces of Wrexham’s summer puzzle have started to bind together in recent days.
Instrumental defensive midfielder George Evans was given a new contract on Tuesday, keeping him at the club till the summer of 2026 while defender Lewis Brunt was captured from Leicester City on the same day.
Evans committing his future to the Reds and Brunt signing on the dotted line was followed by the news of Max Cleworth agreeing on a new contract, with the 21-year-old extending his stay at the Racecourse Ground till 2027.
The highly-rated defender, who Ben Tozer claims has got ‘Premier League written all over him’, is a Wrexham star at present and in the future.
Last season, he experienced his first taste of the football league and passed that test with flying colours, rarely putting a foot wrong in his 24 League Two appearances.
Cleworth even scored a vital goal, his first for the club, in the comeback win over Colchester United and will be now hoping for even more moments like that in years to come.
Humphrey Ker shares hilarious response to Max Cleworth’s new contract
Cleworth has been at Wrexham since a very young age and has worked his way through the academy setup before establishing himself as a first-team star under Phil Parkinson.
Looking back on the 2023/24 campaign, it’s hard to believe the Welshman only featured once for the Reds in their opening 21 matches – 59 minutes at centre-back in a 2-0 win over Doncaster Rovers in September.
From the 2-0 victory over Newport County at the end of December – his first 90 minutes of the campaign – Cleworth only missed two games and unsurprisingly, they both ended in defeats against Salford and Bradford City in February.
Whilst Parkinson dubbed him for his “huge potential”, executive director Humphrey Ker took a different approach to his response.
Reacting to the news via Instagram, Ker dropped a humorous claim, saying: “Delighted that @maxcleworth8 has decided to stay on to learn everything he can from me.”
That sort of response is hardly surprising from the 41-year-old, whose one of many roles outside of Wrexham includes being a comedian.
READ MORE: Who is Humphrey Ker? Profile, Height, Wife, TV Shows and More
Wrexham building for the future
Wrexham have become renowned for signing experienced players coming to the end of their careers; the acquisitions of Steven Fletcher and James McClean last summer are prime examples.
Parkinson has now shown an appetite to blend that experience with an influx of youth this summer, signing players aged 23 or under.
Goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo, 22, and new arrival Brunt, 23, are two players – along with Cleworth – who represent an incredibly bright future for this football club.
It shows that Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds are acting savvy in the market by signing younger players with higher resale value.