Wrexham have not played in the third tier of English football since the 2004-05 season, but are powered by famous owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney and with the Welcome to Wrexham with documentary cameras following their every step, North Wales' biggest club may be on the verge of ending the drought.
They have three games remaining in the League Two season and know that two wins will be enough to guarantee League One football to the STÅ K Cae Ras next season. From there it is 'only' two more promotions to the Premier League...
Reynolds and McElhenney's investment, Phil Parkinson's management and 'Super' Paul Mullin's goals have lifted Wrexham out of the doldrums and they are now tantalizingly close to achieving a new goal, as well as providing the perfect end to the season three of Welcome to Wrexham.
Permutations: What does Wrexham need to get promoted?
While the National League - the division the Red Dragons spent their first two seasons in Welcome to Wrexham desperately fighting to get out - has just two promotion places, League Two offers three automatic promotion places before the clubs finishing from fourth to seventh place compete for an extra spot via the play-offs.
Wrexham currently sit second in the table, having played 43 of 46 matches, and only need to secure a place in the top three to seal promotion.
As it stands, Stockport County sit at the top of the table on 83 points, four ahead of Wrexham and with a game in hand, making them overwhelming favorites to win the title.
But it's the third- and fourth-place teams that the Red Dragons will be more concerned about.
After a thumping at home to Crawley Town on Tuesday evening (where star striker Paul Mullin scored twice in a 4-1 win), Wrexham are second with 79 points from 43 games, Mansfield Town are third with 76 points from 42 games and MK Dons are up third place with 76 points from 42 games. are third with 74 points from 43 games.
That means MK Dons could end the campaign with a maximum of 83 points and Mansfield could reach 86 - should both win all their remaining games - but because they play each other on Saturday, April 13, at least one will drop points.
The story continues
Wrexham's remaining League Two games
April 13 - Forest green (H)
April 20 - Crewe Alexandra (A)
April 27 - Stockport County (H)
If Dons beat Mansfield with both winning every other match, they would both end the campaign on 83 points, meaning 84 points is the magic number for Wrexham to guarantee they finish above at least one of these points and achieve a top three finish.
That means Wrexham need five points from their last three games two wins (or one win and two draws) ensure promotion for the Red Dragons and getting them back into League One after twenty years.
Wrexham would gain promotion on Saturday if they beat Forest Green Rovers, and MK Dons and Barrow fail to beat Mansfield Town and Gillingham respectively.
How did they get here?
The story of Wrexham's return to the Football League following investment from Reynolds and McElhenney is well documented in the first two series of Welcome to Wrexham. After a heartbreaking play-off defeat in the first season, they held off Notts County in a thrilling title race last year to win the National League and ultimately end a 15-year spell stuck in non-league .
Expectations were high ahead of the 2023-2024 season, with the prospect of back-to-back promotions. After a 5-3 opening day defeat to MK Dons, Wrexham made a brilliant run to rise to the top of League Two. They lost only two of their next 22 league games before eventually slumping to a 3-1 defeat to Walsall on 29 December.
Unfortunately, that heralded a first sustained run of poor form of the season as they lost three games in a row when the calendar turned to February - to Newport County, Salford City and Bradford City. Parkinson and co. have righted the ship to win five of their last eight matches and leave promotion in their own hands heading into this final stretch.
Despite suffering a punctured lung during a match against Manchester United, which forced him to miss the first month of the season, Mullin is once again Wrexham's goalscorer, with nineteen points in the league. Elliot Lee also scored 15 goals, while Arsenal loanee Arthur Okonkwo was brilliant in goal, keeping 12 clean sheets.
Why Wrexham? The story so far
Wrexham's rise from National League obscurity to one of the most talked-about teams in English football owes as much to the investment of Reynolds and McElhenney - even as the thought of two Hollywood stars running a fifth-tier football club from North Owning Wales would have been. ridiculous just a few years ago.
The question often asked is 'why Wrexham'? It's a long story, best told during the first two series Welcome to Wrexham - but it starts with British comedy writer and actor Humphrey Ker watching football on his lunch breaks while working on McElhenney's show Mythical quest.
McElhenney became hooked on the sport, decided he wanted to invest in a football club and then began deciding which club to target from a list of unlucky teams with growth potential drawn up by Ker. He settled on Wrexham for its still passionate fan base and huge catchment area, given the lack of any other major club for miles around.
McElhenney needed a partner for the investment and got Reynolds on board with the idea because he needed "movie money" instead of just the "TV money" he had been making. It's always sunny in Philadelphia.
In November 2020, RR McReynolds LLC purchased Wrexham AFC for £2 million, following a poll of the club's 2,000 Supporters' Trust members who voted overwhelmingly in favor of their new owners, and from there the duo began rebuilding the club .
They invested in community schemes and hired volunteer staff, such as Wrexham's Disability Liaison Officer. They stayed in town and drank in The Turf pub across the road. The Welcome to Wrexham documentary has charted their course and while it may be just PR fluff rather than a truly hard-hitting sports documentary, it has attracted attention and further investment into the team, with the Hollywood pair utilizing the knowledge and contacts from their daily work.
TikTok was appointed as the club's main sponsor, delivering a tenfold increase in revenue. Other major brands like Expedia also came on board as Reynolds and McElhenney ramped up the publicity and appeared in front of millions of people. The one show in Great Britain and The late-late show in the U.S.
They hired former English Football League CEO Shaun Harvey to help run the club alongside Ker and handle contract extensions and transfers, allowing them to sign players with pedigree from the above leagues with the lure of high wages and a long-term project.
Players like Mullin, Lee, Ollie Palmer and many others have brought success and excitement to the pitch which in turn has led to the recovery of the local community and businesses, including The Turfpub which features in the documentary and is a tourist attraction become.
Where the journey ends, who knows? But Reynolds and McElhenney may be on the verge of helping Wrexham end a two-decade drought with promotion to League One, and the sky appears to be the limit.
