When is a documentary not a documentary? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself while watching previews of the new season of Welcome to Wrexham, which returns to FX (US) and Disney+ next week. The documentary follows the takeover of the down-on-its-luck north Walian football club by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, who are intent on dragging it out of the doldrums of the fifth tier of English football.
Welcome to Wrexham serves as a new high watermark, in exposure at least, of the remarkable streaming-powered boom in sports documentaries in recent years. All or Nothing, Drive to Survive, Hard Knocks, Break Point: if a sport is being played in professional form, there’s probably a camera crew capturing it. What unites these docs is their veneer of access all areas authenticity – managers swearing violently at players, Nick Kyrgios doing Nick Kyrgios things – but with that slight nagging feeling that things might be slightly more polished than they seem.
