Four years ago, the course of Wrexham history changed forever, and most definitely for the best, when the club hired Phil Parkinson as its new manager.
While Dean Keates was given the chance to continue his work at Wrexham in the wake of Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds’ takeover, his failure to get the Red Dragons promoted led to him departing the role.
Phil Parkinson took over a month later, and though it took him two seasons to get out of the National League, it’s safe to say Wrexham haven’t looked back since.
He’s now led the club out in their big return to the second tier after 43 years away, and though that opening game ended in a dramatic defeat to Southampton, it’s worth looking back at how Parkinson landed the job in the first place.
Phil Parkinson passed huge test to get Wrexham job
We know Rob and Ryan were desperate to get the appointment right when selecting the man to take Wrexham into this new era, and it turns out the recruitment process saw more than 60 applicants put themselves forward for the job.
That’s according to then-CEO Fleur Robinson, who also revealed at the time that the club had immediately put Parkinson at the “top of the list” once he made his interest known.
On the back of that, McElhenney and Reynolds also added (via Sky Sports): “The process put in place by Les Reed, Shaun Harvey, Humphrey Ker and Fleur Robinson was thorough, and we were presented with a number of good options, all of whom would have been very credible managers for the club.
“We’d like to thank all those that applied for the role but once we knew Phil was interested, he was our man and we got him. Phil has an immediate objective of gaining promotion but is conscious of our ambitions for the club and embraced each element of our vision.”
It was an easy decision for the Wrexham owners, then, and it turns out it was also a no-brainer for the man himself, too.
Parkinson said: “Once the plans of the chairmen were explained to me, the decision to join Wrexham was very easy. Wrexham are an EFL club in all but the one thing that matters, league status, and we have a very clear objective with the work starting immediately.
“The club didn’t need selling to me, it sold itself and I wanted to be part of the journey this club is about to embark upon.”
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Is Phil Parkinson still the right man for the job?
Interestingly, no matter how enamoured with Parkinson they were at the time, Rob and Ryan only sanctioned a 12-month rolling contract for the EFL veteran. Obviously, that got extended pretty quickly once they saw the impact he had on the Wrexham squad.
Now, four years later, we’ve witnessed Parkinson achieve three-successive promotions to guide the Red Dragons to the Championship. That’s no mean feat, of course, but is he really the best man for the task at hand now?
Parkinson’s Championship record doesn’t make for pretty reading, but he’s assembled a strong squad over the summer and Wrexham did look good against Southampton in their opening fixture.
Obviously, it was a bit of a reality check for them to lose the game late on, but Parkinson will be buoyed by certain aspects of the performance, especially against one of the best teams in the division.
It would take a lot for the Wrexham hierarchy to lose patience with Parkinson now. He’s earned a great degree of goodwill at the very least, and we’re pretty sure he would be given at least half a season before any tough decisions were even contemplated.