It's like the plot of a Hollywood movie. Two film stars with zero knowledge of football buy a British club in dire straits… cue rousing music. It’s the ultimate underdog blockbuster.
Instead, Welcome To Wrexham, now streaming on Disney+ is a brutally real 18-part docu-series charting the decision of Rob McElhenney (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) and Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) to buy a Welsh soccer club that has fallen on hard times.
They dream of bringing Wrexham AFC and the town back to prominence, but they’re going in completely blind. They don’t understand football and have never been to Wrexham.
It’s basically the plot of Ted Lasso, with a similar amount of facial hair, but decidedly less sentiment and sheen. No one hugs or cries or bakes biscuits. Most people in Wrexham thought the superstar buyout in 2020 was a publicity stunt or a hoax.
“F*** off! It’s not gonna happen,” says painter-decorator Shaun Winter, a life-long Wrexham supporter who has just split up with the mother of his kids.
In the local pub, fans worry they’ll be a laughing stock if it all goes wrong.
A fan wanders casually past Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground in a Deadpool outfit. In Wrexham, the club is everything.
It’s these moments of local colour, contrasted with the American ‘dream big’ sentimentality, that keep this series grounded in reality and easy to digest.
Rob and Ryan are funny too, and well aware of the task at hand.
“There is a version of the story where we are villains,” Rob says. “Where it doesn’t work and we go, ‘We’re gonna have to sell it’ and then we’re the bad guys.” “F*** that,” says Ryan. It’s gonna work.” Why are they doing this? Rob, who seems the most personally invested, is a sports fanatic from working-class Philadelphia and feels he can relate to what a team means to people.
Ryan mentions his “unquenchable” need for validation through sporting achievements with his late father, but he’s also the cash.
“I have TV money,” says Rob, “but I realised I needed movie star money. I needed superhero movie star money.”
Scenes flip almost comically from Wrexham, with players occasionally subtitled and football explainers for the US audience, to Rob and Ryan wandering around LA or glossy Hollywood studios.
But the genuine importance of their project is not lost. This is the heartwarming and humorous story of a town counting on two actors.
“It’s more than football,” says our friend Shaun. You’ll be rooting for these underdogs.
