Welcome to Wrexham: The Documentary Series

What Welcome to Wrexham Is About

In February 2021 two Hollywood actors with no football background bought a fifth-tier Welsh club they had never visited. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney paid roughly £2 million for Wrexham AFC, a club founded in 1864 that had spent 15 seasons outside the English Football League and had come close to folding entirely. Welcome to Wrexham is the documentary record of what happened next, produced by FX and shot in the style of a sports docuseries crossed with a small-town portrait.

What makes the series work is that it is not really about the owners. Cameras spend as much time in The Turf pub, in the terraced streets around the Racecourse Ground, and in the living rooms of season-ticket holders as they do in boardrooms. Supporters became recurring characters. The town's industrial history, its economic struggles, and its stubborn attachment to a football club that had given it very little for a decade and a half form the emotional spine of every season.

The football itself supplies the drama. Season one ends in failure — a play-off semi-final loss to Grimsby Town that the series refuses to soften. Season two delivers the 111-point National League title, Paul Mullin's 47 goals, and Ben Foster's last-second penalty save against Sheffield Wednesday's Notts County rivals in a title race that ran to the final week. Season three follows the club through League Two and a second promotion, and season four covers the League One campaign that produced a third consecutive promotion into the Championship — a feat no club had achieved in the modern English pyramid.

Season by Season

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney: Why Wrexham?

Rob McElhenney, creator and star of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, discovered football through Sunderland 'Til I Die and became convinced the story of a community-owned club was worth telling from the inside. He approached Ryan Reynolds, known for Deadpool and for turning Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile into marketing case studies, and the pair began searching for a club with history, a stadium they could restore, and a fanbase that had been let down. Wrexham AFC — the third-oldest professional club in the world, playing at the oldest international stadium still in use — fit exactly.

Their pitch to the Wrexham Supporters Trust, which owned the club, was investment plus visibility: money for the squad and the stadium, and a documentary that would put a National League side in front of a global audience. Trust members voted overwhelmingly in favour. The results have been measurable — record season-ticket sales, sponsorship from United Airlines and TikTok, sold-out US tour matches, and a Kop stand rebuilt for the first time since 2008.

Fan Reaction

Among Wrexham supporters the series is regarded with a mix of pride and mild exasperation. Longtime fans point out that the documentary compresses years of volunteer work — the Trust years, the fundraising, the away-day loyalty through relegation — into a few minutes of backstory. But almost nobody disputes what it has delivered: a club that was 15 minutes from administration in 2004 now plays Championship football in front of a genuinely international fanbase.

For American viewers the series is usually the entry point. Thousands of US fans who had never watched EFL football now follow results, buy shirts, and plan trips to north-east Wales. If that is you, our new fan guide explains the club, the rivalries and the terminology, and our Championship explainer covers how promotion and relegation actually work.

Frequently Asked Questions