Thus far into Welcome to Wrexham — across all 18 episodes of season one and six of season two to date — we’ve been dealing with a hope-to-history ratio that doesn’t favor viable hope in the long term. Every win is exciting, but every loss is far more crushing than the thrill of winning. Everyone from Shaun Harvey to Shaun Winter wants to believe, but hope can only take a team so far. We’ve been shown so many times that pessimism is a reasonable and heart-guarding strategy when it comes to the Red Dragons, and yet. And yet! The team, its owners, managers, trainers, executives, and most of all, supporters can’t let go of the notion that something good might be taking root.
The influx of stellar players recruited from higher leagues is one good thing, and their performance in the early part of the season is another, but what they need now is a shot in the arm, the confidence boost(er) that they can only get from a nice long run in the FA Cup. Historically, Wrexham has shone brightly in the annual knockout tournament, which Humphrey notes is open to any football club that plays on Saturdays (Saturday matches are the criterion for being an organized club). Wrexham has a longstanding reputation as giant killers, a team that punches well above its weight, and many fans cling to those talismanic wins. I mean that almost literally; Turf owner Wayne Jones notes that winnings from previous FA Cup runs have helped keep the club afloat in the past.
Two examples that emerge repeatedly in talking head interviews are the Town’s 1992 and 1999 victories over Premier League mainstays Arsenal. The wins themselves are very important, but the significance of the good vibes and energy they generated are impossible to overstate. A clip of one of those win celebrations on the field — featuring winning-goal scorer Mickey Thomas held aloft on a teammate’s shoulders — is so iconic that it appears in the show’s credits. Humphrey likens this kind of matchup and upset to an A-league minor league baseball team defeating the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Comparisons to March Madness upsets are also apt.
Having made it to the third-round draw — unlike the bracket methodology of March Madness, FA Cup matches are determined by televised lottery — Wrexham now faces Coventry City, who play in the second highest FA division, the Championship League. Sure, Wrexham has been throwing a lot of cash around to recruit the best possible players, but Coventry’s player salaries total two and a half times Wrexham’s total player payroll and their stadium holds three times as many people. It’s a big deal! As ever, Wrexham — town and club alike — are ready. Shaun Winter sums it up neatly: “They ain’t gonna expect the energy Wrexham have, that fire we’ve got.” Wayne concurs that people outside Wrexham don’t take this bid seriously. On the players’ side, Ollie Palmer notes that even if all the team does is wrestle a much bigger, wealthier team to a draw, that would be amazing, while Elliott Lee frames the question everyone’s wondering: “How good can we be against a Championship League team?”
Phil Parkinson’s pre-match pep talk is one for the ages, culminating in “We’re not here for a day out … we’re here to fucking upset them!” After taking a commanding lead in the first half, Wrexham stumble a little bit, allowing Coventry to get close to tying up the score at 3-4. With seconds left in the match, the international feeds that enable Ryan and Rob to watch matches from home or work drop out. Just hearing Ryan and Rob describe it (“a writhing, all-consuming agony” and “harrowing,” respectively) is almost too much to bear. The outcome is pure joy, though; Wrexham win! Against a team 61 places ahead of them (thank you for this detail to the King of Football Stats, Mark Griffiths!). It just goes to show anything can happen in the FA Cup, including Paul Mullin returning to the pitch, taking photos with fans, and kissing babies. Just absolute scenes.
What’s next is a whole other kettle of fish, as the following match draw sets Sheffield United as Wrexham’s opponent. Sheffield is another Championship League team who, like Wrexham, are tearing up their table to get promoted. Their player salaries are a whopping eight times’ Wrexham’s, leading Humphrey to note, “This is gonna be fuckin’ hard.” On Team You Gotta Believe, however, no less a pessimist than Wayne Jones is keeping the faith: “Coventry thought they’d steamroll us, and look what happened there.” On game day, world quip champion Ryan Reynolds is being interviewed by BBC Sport and generously describing Sheffield as having “a very slim chance of pulling off an upset,” while fan after fan predicts a 2-1 win for Wrexham. He’s joined by novelist and veteran YouTube mainstay John Green, who is practically an old-timer in supporting a beloved team from afar, having sponsored AFC Wimbledon since 2013. The atmosphere in Philadelphia is just as wild as Rob is watching the match with family and friends in what seems to be a parking lot next to the Eagles’ home stadium on what’s also a crucial game day for the Birds.
The game starts poorly, as Sheffield scores in the first two minutes, and two Reds suffer game-ending injuries. Going into halftime only down 0-1 is an accomplishment. Parky’s pep talk is another barn-burner, describing the team as playing “great fuckin’ football, [with] fuckin’ composure … we’ve got ’em fuckin’ rattled!” Enthusiasm meter count for this excerpt of locker-room wisdom: 13. Thanks to judicious editing and my own emotional porosity, I’m on an adrenaline-fueled knife edge for the next ten minutes as Wrexham and Sheffield trade back and forth one game-equalizing goal after another. The wrenching draw score is 3-3, which is particularly disappointing, as one of Sheffield’s players got red-carded, leaving them short-handed for the rest of the match. The Reds snatched a draw — which will necessitate an away game rematch — from the jaws of victory, leaving the players totally deflated in the locker room afterward, but their managers are very encouraging.
Ryan Reynolds is rightly famous for his sarcastic wit, so much so that he sometimes seems as though he’s mildly allergic to sincerity. I’ve never seen him get choked up as he is now, thanking the lads for putting in such an incredible performance (which his daughter got to see!). I hope they all took to heart his comment that they “did something tonight that was extraordinary … we felt your heart out there like nothing else … no one can take away what you did for this town.”
On rematch day, Parky delivers another “clear eyes, full hearts” style pep talk, and Rob and Ryan emphasize how proud they are of the team, but no amount of gassing up can save a group of players who are 100 percent gassed. Mark Griffiths calls the ensuing match “the most honorable 3-1 defeat” imaginable, while Shaun Harvey describes it as a reminder to all other teams that Wrexham is not to be trifled with. As ever, Parky puts the rhetorical hammer all the way down, making sure the team goes home knowing that Sheffield tipped their hand by celebrating “on that pitch as if they’d won the fuckin’ final.” Sheffield captain Billy Sharpe, to whom Wrexham should be about as much of a threat as a cold cup of tea, was sufficiently rattled to make some unfortunate post-game comments about his opponents, racking up a £2,500 fine (about $3,000) in the process. Rob and Ryan are tickled pink, knowing their team’s excellence got that far under Sharpe’s skin. Wrexham are locked in now. Let’s get back to winning the league!
Up the Town!
• John Green’s debut novel, Looking for Alaska, was adapted for TV in 2019 and resulted in my first-ever recaps at Vulture!
• One thing that’s presented in passing, and which will matter a great deal down the line: FA Cup matches take place concurrently with regular-season League play. That means regular-season games have to be postponed, but the season only has so many weeks to play. What a jerk time is!
• The U.K.’s conventions around surname-based nicknames are so endearing. In this episode, I noticed Dalbs (Sam Dalby), Mulls (Paul Mullin), Reecey, and Youngy (Captain Andrew Young and we’d all be well advised to remember his name).
• You might think that the eminently quotable Parky (oh, look, another nickname!) would have delivered my favorite line of the episode, but this time it goes jointly to Ryan and John Green for the exchange where Ryan thanks John for advising him that “Of all the unimportant things in life, football is the most important.” John’s immediate reply: “I stole it from Pope John Paul II!”
• One last Philadelphia sports note: If you enjoyed this episode’s vibe, you may wish to check out the Phillies, currently playing postseason baseball with a very similar energy to Wrexham AFC.
