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Welcome to Wrexham

2022 American sports documentary series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome to Wrexham
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Welcome to Wrexham is an American sports documentary television series that premiered on August 24, 2022, on FX. The series documents the events of Welsh association football club Wrexham A.F.C. after its purchase by new owners, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. The series received critical acclaim, winning eight Primetime Emmy Awards and two Critics' Choice Television Awards. Its fourth season premiered on May 15, 2025.[3]

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Background

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In September 2020, American actor Rob McElhenney and Canadian-American actor Ryan Reynolds announced their intention to buy Wrexham A.F.C., a Welsh professional association football club based in the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham, North East Wales in the United Kingdom.[4] The company RR McReynolds was set up by November 2020, and the deal was completed in February 2021. As of the purchase, Wrexham A.F.C. played in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system, below the Premier League and the three tiers of the English Football League.[5][6]

At the time, the team was described to be "struggling":[7] Management before 2011 was described to have "mismanaged the club to the point of near collapse", with fans "starting to fall out of love with it". The club was served with a winding-up order in 2011.[8][9] Following the suspension of the 2019–20 National League in March 2020 after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Wrexham A.F.C. was said to have furloughed staff and players, and the club was experiencing a "threat to the[ir] continued existence".[10] Prior to the pair's purchase, Wrexham A.F.C. was owned by the Wrexham Supporter's Trust, a fan-operated company, since 2011. The trust approved McElhenney and Reynolds' £2 million takeover by 98.6%.[8][11][12][13] Following the purchase, Wrexham A.F.C.'s Twitter account posted a skit with McElhenney and Reynolds performing a parody advert for Ifor Williams Trailers, then the only sponsor for Wrexham A.F.C.[13] McElhenney and Reynolds attended their first ever game since becoming the club's new owners at Maidenhead, a 3–2 defeat in October 2021.[2]

The series is said to be inspired by Sunderland 'Til I Die, which prompted McElhenney to be interested in buying an association football club,[8] as well as the influence of Humphrey Ker, who was also interested in purchasing a club.[14] Ker was said to have been always watching association football in the writer's room of McElhenney's show Mythic Quest, causing McElhenney to become interested as well, particularly "the idea of promotion and demotion", which McElhenney said was "incredible to me". McElhenney also joked that he only had "TV money" and needed "superhero, movie star money". Ker described himself as "Rob and Ryan's representative" to the club as the pair's inside operations person.[15] The inspiration for the documentary series came from McElhenney's viewing of Chef's Table, Last Chance U and Cheer, and his subsequent realization that all of those were produced by Boardwalk Pictures, who he approached to partner with.[16]

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Synopsis

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The series is based on the Hollywood pair's attempts to revive the third-oldest professional association football team in the world, founded in 1864, and how the team has performed under the pair's ownership.[17] The pair had no prior experience in managing a sports team.[7] The series also highlights the pair's hopes of improving the team and bringing positive change to the local Wrexham community.[7][18] The style of the series is irreverent and from time to time it is openly critical of the two Co-Chairmen and their team, presenting them struggling with the Welsh language, and making mistakes.[citation needed]

During and since the takeover, Wrexham rose in the rankings of the National League. In the 2019–20 National League (prior to any talk of a takeover), Wrexham A.F.C. were 20th,[19] and by the 2020–21 season, Wrexham rose to eighth place.[20] In the 2021–22 season, the first full season under the new ownership, and the focus of the first season of the TV show, Wrexham finished in 2nd. However, despite a successful season, they missed out on promotion to the fourth-tier EFL League Two after being knocked out in the semi-finals of the promotion play-off and remained in the fifth-tier National League for the 2022–23 season.[21][22]

In the second season of the series, the team successfully secures promotion to the EFL League Two during the 2022–23 season and in the third season of the show filmed during the 2023–24 season they win a back-to-back promotion to EFL League One.[23]

In addition to following the highs and lows of the Wrexham men's team, the series follows fans of the club and characters from the City of Wrexham. It includes the people working behind the scenes for the club, and from time to time follows the personal lives of some of the players. Emotive issues such as autism, bereavement, divorce, mental health, football hooliganism, cancer, stillbirth, disability and injuries ending players' careers are featured through following the lives of different individuals involved with the club. The series explains basic football terms and rules for a US audience, along with occasional Welsh words and British phrases. From the second season, the women's team is also featured.[24]

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Cast

The cast for the series was stated as the following:[25]

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Episodes

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Season 1 (2022)

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Season 2 (2023)

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Season 3 (2024)

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Season 4 (2025)

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Production

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Crews

As of 28 May 2025[37]
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Development

The series is produced by Boardwalk Pictures, the company also behind Last Chance U and Chef's Table.[17] Maximum Effort, a film company founded by Reynolds is also co-producing and marketing the series.[38] FX commissioned the first two seasons of the show.[7][18] McElhenney confirmed plans for a second season, following the full release of the first, on October 13, 2022.[39] The executive producers of the series were stated to be Rob McElhenney, Ryan Reynolds, Nick Frenkel, John Henion, Andrew Fried, Dane Lillegard, George Dewey and Sarina Roma.[6][18][40] Henion was also the showrunner for season 1,[40] with Bryan Rowland and Josh Drisko running season 2.[41]

Alex Webb of Bloomberg News estimated that the first season of the show would bring Reynolds and McElhenney a revenue of £600,000, which would have contributed considerably to the club's budget that year.[42]

Filming

Filming for the docuseries began in December 2020,[10] with the film crew appearing alongside the owners' first visit to the team at the Wrexham v. Maidenhead United F.C. match in October 2021.[43][44] In an interview with Variety, Reynolds admitted that he was initially uncomfortable with the all-access documentary setting.[45] Discussions about dismissals of players were recorded on camera, but were ultimately cut, to keep focus on the effect of the decisions on the players, rather than on the executives making the decisions.[45]

Post-production

For Season 1, sound recordings for the matches were done with single mono microphones, which were then mixed in post to sound wider and represent the larger crowds better; Season 2 featured full surround sound recordings.[46] Editors found the first episode of the show challenging to plan, and ended up leaving most of the footage from the 2020–2021 season on the cutting room floor.[47] The editors room had a mix of football fans and non-fans, which helped with balancing the match highlights with the human stories.[48]

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Marketing

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Season 1

The all-access "fly on the wall" docuseries was first announced by McElhenney and Reynolds on May 18, 2021.[49][50][51] Later that month, an announcement trailer for the series was released onto Reynolds' YouTube channel, titled "Welcome to Wrexham". The roughly two-minute parody sketch comedy involves McElhenney and Reynolds announcing the docuseries, as well as former BBC News and S4C journalist Maxine Hughes, who acts as a "pretty disgruntled" Welsh language translator for the pair, but adds some "creative" translations to the pair's words.[52][53][54][55][56]

In December 2021, FX released a video promo for the series, titled "It's Never Sunny in Wrexham".[57] The short 30-second clip involved lookalikes of the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia cast, including a Danny DeVito lookalike, set inside the Turf Hotel located next to Wrexham A.F.C's Racecourse Ground.[6][58] In the clip, the lookalike cast looks confusingly at a television screen showing the true cast of the American series starring McElhenney, staring back from their Philadelphia Irish bar. The clip also includes the two owners. The scenes involving the lookalike cast and the two owners were filmed in October 2021 as the two owners visited Wrexham.[6][58] When the lookalike of Danny DeVito visited Wrexham, he was confused for the real actor.[57][59] Describing the series, Nick Grad, FX Entertainment's original programming president said "Rob and Ryan will take fans inside the sport as never before, pairing their genuine love for the game with the welcome challenge of building on the heritage of this club".[18][60]

On July 20, 2022, the official trailer for the program was released.[61][62] The series' official synopsis read "From Hollywood to Wales, from the pitch to the locker room, the front office to the pub, Welcome to Wrexham will track Rob and Ryan's crash course in football club ownership and the inextricably connected fates of a team and a town counting on two actors to bring some serious hope and change to a community that could use it".[63]

The Walt Disney Company, which owns FX as well as the sports network ESPN, moved three FA Cup matches involving Wrexham to networks ESPN2 and ESPNews to help promote the series.[64]

Season 2

The first teaser trailer for the second season was aired during the half time of Wrexham's pre-season game against Chelsea on July 19, 2023.[65] On July 22, it was officially announced that the season would begin airing on September 12.[66]

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Release

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In May 2022, it was announced that the first two episodes of the series would premiere on August 24, 2022, in the US on FX.[67] All episodes would become available on FX on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK on August 25, 2022.[5][68][69] The series would be composed of 30-minute episodes.[69] The series would also be released in Ireland on the same day and on Disney+ as the UK. Dates for other international releases have yet to be announced but are expected to be on Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ (under the Star banner) in various other territories.[70][71] It is set to be released as a Star Original outside the United States.[62]

A week after the premiere of the first season's final episode, McElhenney and Reynolds confirmed on Twitter that a second season of the series was in the works.[72] It was officially confirmed by Disney in April 2023 after Wrexham secured promotion to EFL League Two.[73] The second season premiered on September 12, 2023, in the US, and the following day on Hulu and internationally on Disney+.[74]

A third season of the show was announced on November 14, 2023.[75] In a change, season 3 will air in the spring, rather than autumn as the first two seasons, to be closer to the contemporary events happening to the club.[76]

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Reception

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Audience viewership

According to the streaming aggregator Reelgood, Welcome to Wrexham was the seventh most watched program across all platforms, during the week of September 2, 2022.[77][78]

Critical response

For the first season, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 91% approval rating with an average rating of 7/10, based on 33 critic reviews. The website's critics' consensus reads, "Plunking two famous funnymen into the unpredictable journey of a sports documentary, Welcome to Wrexham is a calculated gamble that pays off."[79] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 75 out of 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[80]

For the second season, Rotten Tomatoes reported a 91% approval rating with an average rating of 7.3/10, based on 22 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "While its marquee stars are plenty welcoming all their own, Wrexham smartly spends its sophomore season focused on the community itself to inspiring effect."[81] Metacritic assigned a score of 78 out of 100 based on 12 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[82]

For the third season, Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating, based on 7 critic reviews.[83]

For the fourth season, Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating, based on 6 critic reviews.[84]

Author Cleo Watson has compared the 2023 Jilly Cooper novel Tackle! to the programme.[85]

Accolades

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Spinoff series

Necaxa's backers purchased 5% of Wrexham AFC in April 2024 and Wrexham's owners Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, purchased a minority stake in Necaxa.[101]

On July 9, a TV series was ordered with filming beginning on the same day. The series will be similar to Welcome to Wrexham.[102]

Notes

  1. The episode erroneously refers to the result as 2–1.
  2. Erroneously referred in the episode as a midfielder.
  3. Welsh for "Rise"
  4. In the Adran Premier, after all eight teams have played each other twice, the league splits into the top and bottom halfs, with the top four teams playing each other twice for the championship, and the bottom four teams playing each other to avoid relegation.

References

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