Last weekend, Wrexham made history by becoming the first club in English football history to win promotion in three straight seasons from the top-five flights after achieving promotion to the Championship with a game to go. It is an excellent achievement considering where the club was just a few short years ago.
The rise has been incredible
We all know the story of Wrexham’s rise courtesy of the Disney documentary ‘Welcome to Wrexham’, charting the team’s time under the ownership of Hollywood a-list Ryan Reynolds and highly successful writer and actor Rob McElhenney.
But for those who have been living under a rock and don’t know anything about the Welsh club, we will talk about it briefly. The pair bought the Dragons in February 2021, reportedly after extensive research into British football clubs in the lower leagues.
When the pair arrived at the Welsh club, they were struggling in the fifth tier and had not played in the Football League for 15 years.
However, they had a proud tradition and loyal fans, and just needed a catalyst to propel them back into the Football League. That catalyst was the financial backing of the club’s new owners.
There can be no argument that Wrexham did spend money on big wages and some transfer fees in the club’s early days under Reynolds and McElhenney. In truth, the National League is a tough league to escape from, so it’s understandable that they needed to invest.
Judging by the fact that the team had failed to gain promotion in previous seasons, it was clear that many of the players were not good enough. Like any ambitious owners, Wrexham’s pair invested in better players.
It’s a logical process when ambitious new owners come into a club. Many complained, but they did what was best for their club. What the club did was almost future-proof the team by bringing in players from higher divisions.
This meant that when the team were promoted, the majority of the players wouldn’t be out of their depth. Promotion from League Two to League One for the Welsh team was unsurprising, and Wrexham already had League Two-standard players in the squad. In fact, some would argue that the players were League One players.
Shrewd management and recruitment
The step up to League One wasn’t ever going to be a massive one for Phil Parkinson and his team because of the presence of those players of the appropriate standard.
As they have gone up the football pyramid each summer, the Welsh club has improved the playing squad. However, it would be difficult to claim that the Dragons splashed the cash in terms of transfer fees. In the summer of 2024, they spent less than £5m in transfer fees, but still managed to make the squad stronger. Even by League One standards, it wasn’t a massive sum of money to spend.
However, as has been the case all along the way with the club’s promotions, they have been shrewd with recruitment. They have built sensibly, not overstretching the club’s budget or making particularly wild purchases.
One of the key people involved in Wrexham’s rise is, of course, head coach Phil Parkinson, who has guided the Dragons to all three promotions so far. Parkinson has been a highly-rated manager in the lower divisions for some time now.
He was hired as he had previously guided a number of teams to promotion, so he knew exactly what it took to help the Welsh club to promotion. The former Bradford boss has done an exceptional job in what hasn’t been an easy job.
Wrexham face their biggest task yet
When the club’s current owners arrived at the club, making it to the Premier League was the goal for the Dragons. It’s the holy grail for football clubs in terms of prestige and, of course, financial reward.
However, the Championship is one of the most unforgiving leagues in world football. It is full of clubs that have ambitions of playing Premier League football. The odds are stacked against most clubs achieving promotion, especially as the teams who are relegated from the Premier League receive parachute payments.
In recent seasons, teams that have recently been in the Premier League tend to go back up from the Championship. This season is the prime example, as the teams currently in the top three of the table, Leeds United, Burnley and Sheffield United, have all been in the Premier League in recent seasons.
To achieve a fourth straight promotion to the English top-flight next season would be absolutely incredible. No doubt, the club will continue to be shrewd in the transfer market, but whether it will be enough to win promotion to the Premier League, only time will tell.
Wrexham will be playing at the highest level of football they have ever been at next season, as they have never played in the English top-flight. The Welsh team may need a few seasons to build a promotion-winning squad.
However, as the club has proven in recent years, they have built something highly positive, not just the football club that has thrived since the owners came in, but also the whole community.
The Championship may slightly halt the positive momentum. Still, for everybody connected with Wrexham, there is no doubt that they are delighted to be playing in the English second tier after so many years of hurt and disappointment.