With a cheeky Vegas offer, back-to-back crucial wins and a rival’s slip-up, Wrexham’s Premier League dream remains firmly alive.
The Welsh club, who have shot to prominence in recent years via the ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ documentary that has charted their climb from non-league football to the Championship, sit inside the English second-tier’s playoff places with two games remaining.
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The Red Dragons defeated near certainties to be relegated Oxford United 1-0 on Wednesday, while fellow playoff contenders Hull drew 2-2 to confirm Leicester City’s relegation to third tier.
Wrexham leapfrogged Hull into sixth place – the last of the four playoff positions – as a result, and now sit firmly in the driver’s seat to give themselves a shot at an astonishing fourth straight promotion.
The two are locked on 70 points apiece, but Wrexham are ahead with a goal difference that is superior by two goals.
“The [Premier League] dream is still alive and we feel we’re in a good place,” manager Phil Parkinson said after the win against Oxford United.
“Nothing more we can do than win and we just concentrated on making right decisions from the bench and getting another three points.
“To get 70 points is a good statement in our first season in the Championship and now we want more. It was important we did our job, and we did that to a man.”
The past week has been an impressive response after a 2-0 loss at the Tom Brady part-owned Birmingham City threatened to derail their season earlier this month.
The NFL legend shared an Instagram story of the result poking fun at Wrexham’s owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, who legally changed his surname from McElhenney last year, saying “it’s always more fun to beat your friends.”
But the Hollywood stars may have the last laugh in the coming weeks, however, even if things will not be easy.
Awaiting on the weekend is a trip to champions Coventry, who under the tutelage of Chelsea great Frank Lampard sealed their title and promotion to the Premier League last weekend.
With Coventry already having achieved their goals, Mac took to social media to offer Lampard and his team an all expenses paid celebratory trip to Vegas courtesy of him and Reynolds.
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After Coventry, Australians Riley McGree, Sammy Silvera and their fifth-placed Middlesbrough will make the trip to the Racecourse Ground on the final day of the regular season.
The tough run-in means that if Wrexham do still have a shot at promotion once 44 games have been played, they will truly have earned it.
The Championship’s playoff structure pits third against sixth and fourth against fifth in two semi-finals played over two legs.
The winner of those two respective clashes will meet at Wembley for football’s richest game.
With the added revenue that comes from the Premier League’s broadcast rights as well as sponsorship deals, the victor will pocket almost half a million dollars for the following season.
Sunderland, who also developed a cult following with their own series ‘Sunderland ‘Til I Die’, earned that big payday last year and their impending mid table finish in the Premier League will make Championship clubs hopeful of kicking on in the top flight.
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If Wrexham cannot overcome the likes of Ipswich Town or Millwall (who are vying for the second automatic promotion place), or Southampton or Middlesborough, it will not be disastrous for the club, however.
Regardless of how this season ends it will be the highest they have ever finished in the English football pyramid.
They impressed by making it to the Round of 16 in the FA Cup – where they lost 4-2 to Chelsea in extra-time at home after leading 2-1 and being reduced to ten men in the 93rd minute.
Wrexham managed to topple a Premier League club Nottingham Forest two rounds earlier, however.
Reynolds and Mac are also cashing in financially.
They bought the club back in 2021 for US$2 million (A$2.8m).
They recently sold shares in Wrexham at US$475m (A$664m) valuation.
But the Hollywood actors’ goal has never been the Championship.
In their first interview as owners five years ago, they were asked what their perfect ending to this script would be.
“We’d be lying if it wasn’t the Premier League,” Reynolds said.
With ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ recently renewed for another three seasons, they will be eager to get their sooner rather than later.
They made that clear to the club hierarchy at the beginning of the current season – their first in the English second tier in 43 years.
Wrexham chief executive Michael Williamson told the Telegraph in a pre-season interview that his aim was a mid-table finish and to be competitive.
But when he proposed this to Reynolds and Mac, they immediately responded by asking what it would take to reach the top two and gain automatic promotion.
In the end, they settled on: “Let’s be competitive and see where we end up.”
“If we can find ourselves in that position towards the back end of the season, I give us a very good shot of being in the play-offs,” Williamson added.
“And then, ultimately, if we’re in the play-offs, I give us a very good shot of getting promoted just because of who we are and what we are and the DNA, the resilience and what it means to this town and for the squad.”
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Of course, the Premier League is still missing from Reynolds and Mac’s Wrexham story, but so too is a Wembley trip that ends in joy rather than despair.
In the past two seasons, they have finished second in League One and League Two respectively – earning automatic promotion on both occasions.
Their return to league football followed winning the National League with a record points tally of 111 in 2022/23.
But in the first season of their Hollywood ownership, Wrexham missed a chance to go to Wembley.
The finished second but lost a playoff semi-final 5-4 in extra time at home to Grimsby Town, who stormed through the playoffs from sixth to get promoted.
Wrexham did make it to Wembley that season, however, for the EFL Trophy final.
But Hollywood A-listers watched on alongside Reynolds and Mac as their team lost to Bromley.
It is almost like there is a hoodoo surrounding Wrexham and Wembley.
If they can get to the playoffs, history is also stacked against them.
The last side to finish sixth – with fifth-placed Middlesborough six points and 15 goals clear on goal difference, so it is unrealistic that Wrexham could finish any higher – and win the playoffs was Blackpool back in 2009/10.
But one player could be the key to changing that.
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It is quite ironic that the leading man for a club who has been built by fame, fortune and a documentary shies away from the spotlight.
Josh Windass has netted 15 goals this season – 14 in the league and one in the FA Cup – including five in his past six appearances.
It is the most ever scored by a Wrexham player in the second tier.
The 32-year-old insists his recent tally is actually six from six, however, claiming he got a touch on George Thomasson’s corner which made its way into the back of the net in last weekend’s 2-0 win against Stoke.
Windass certainly cares about how many goals he scores, even if he does not show it on the pitch.
He famously does not celebrate his goals.
Windass does not even crack a smile.
There is no chance fans would see him jumping in the air, fist pumping, doing a knee slide or taking his shirt off.
He opts to get straight back to work, as he did after scoring the winner at Oxford two days’ ago.
His attitude is no different off the pitch post-game.
“You’re going to get a boring interview because there’s not much to say apart from that we need to win the next two games,” Windass replied when asked what his team need to do to stay in the playoff places.
But Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson was able to utter words of praise for his goalscoring machine.
“It’s not easy to get goals at this level but he’s producing goals when it matters most,” he said.
“And that’s the sign of a top player.”
Windass and Wembley have a special connection.
His father Dean famously volleyed Hull to the Premier League in the 2007/08 Championship playoffs final against Bristol City.
He has also created euphoric scenes himself.
Windass scored Sheffield Wednesday’s winner in the final minute of extra time in the 2022/23 League One playoff final against Barnsley.
It is something he wants to do again.
“I celebrated the last time I scored at Wembley,” he told The Athletic. “Maybe I’ll do it if we score again.”
Reynolds and Mac would struggle to come up with a better script than that.
But first, they will be hoping Coventry took up that Vegas offer.