Teams, tales and tips – a guide to the local game
The football fairy tale to end all football fairy tales, Wrexham’s is set in a former market town in north Wales, 40 minutes from Liverpool. Here in 1864, local cricketers convened at the Turf Hotel to form what is now the world’s third oldest professional football club.
That autumn, encouraged by the decision of chairman of Denbighshire County Cricket Club to invest in a football, Wrexham played their first game at the adjacent sports field, the Racecourse Ground.
Exactly 160 years later in 2024, the current owners of this football club were contemplating expanding the stadium to 55,000 capacity, with a view to hosting Premier League fixtures within the decade.
On the other side of the world, Wrexham AFC were holding 2021 Champions League winners Chelsea to a 2-2 draw at 2026 World Cup venue, the Levi’s Stadium, in Santa Clara in the Welsh club’s second pre-season tour of major arenas across America. Anyone flying premium on United Airlines from June 2024 receives Wrexham-branded pyjamas.
Promoted from League Two that spring, promoted from the National League the previous spring, the Red Dragons have gone global. And this a club that had last been a member of the Football League’s hallowed 92 ln 2008.
On several occasions either side of that watershed nadir, Wrexham almost went out of business entirely, only to be saved by their supporters in various tin-rattling initiatives. During this time, the taxman, energy companies, all kinds of creditors, were placated, averted or avoided, anything to get this venerable club onto the pitch the following Saturday.
The plot twist in this Hollywood epic, dramatised in the three-series Netflix hit Welcome to Wrexham, occurred 5,000 miles away, appropriately in Los Angeles. Award-winning UK stand-up act and comedy writer Humphrey Ker had gone west to seek fame and fortune beyond the Edinburgh Fringe, finding parts such as Alan in the long-running cult classic, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Created and co-produced by American actor Rob McElhenney. Philadelphia led to Ker working on McElhenney’s next venture, Mythic Quest. A London-born Liverpool fan, the Brit in the writers’ room would break for lunch by going to a sports bar to fixate on LFC’s dramatic run in the Champions League in 2018-19. First edging out Napoli on goal difference in the group stage, Liverpool beat Bayern and then Porto, games conveniently unfolding at lunchtime in LA.
Alongside, rabid sports fan and soccer uninitiate McElhenney sat disinterested – until something simply amazing happened: Liverpool’s semi-final with Messi’s Barcelona, that 1-0, 2-0, 3-0 and 4-0, one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the game, at a rampant Anfield, leaving Messi to weep in the dressing room.
That was when McElhenney, a man who knows his drama, sat up and took notice. Some months later, exchanging box-set recommendations during the pandemic lockdown, Ker suggested his friend watch Sunderland ’Til I Die. Days later, a tentative ‘Hmm?’ duly elicited a ‘Meh’.
Thinking McElhenney was best left to his Philadelphia Phillies, Ker let it lie. Then his phone bleeped again. “I watched the lot! I get it!” Promotion, relegation, the hope that kills you, the life-long dedication of fans who follow an institution baked into the urban fabric for a century and a half, it all clicked for the first time.
“We need to buy a club!” insisted now all-in McElhenney. “Then make our own documentary about it. Find me one!”
So Ker cast his net wide around the lower reaches of football’s food chain over the pond, seeking long-established clubs with significant loyal followings despite decades of failure. Wide catchment area and traditional ground preferred. He hit upon Wrexham.
All of this, of course, the Hollywood writers’ room, the LA sports bar, the vision of a maverick comedy creator from Philadelphia, was beyond the ken of anyone in Wrexham. A city steeped in football history, where Wales played their first international home game in 1877, where the Welsh FA was founded at the Wynnstay Arms Hotel and where the first Welsh Cup final was played in 1878, had been in steady decline since World War I, whose conclusion was announced by Britain’s Prime Minister Lloyd George from a hotel balcony in Wrexham.
Wrexham AFC had played in The Combination for non-league teams from north-west England and Wales, the Welsh League and then the Football League, joining the new Third Division North in 1921.
Regular winners of the Welsh Cup, the Red Dragons ditched blue for their signature colour shortly before World War II. By then, the Welsh national team was attracting better crowds to Cardiff’s Ninian Park, although the Racecourse Ground, remains the most popular venue in the all-time table.
Before Hollywood came knocking, Wrexham’s golden age came in the 1970s, when they were promoted to the Second Division for the first time and qualifying for Europe through the Welsh Cup. Not only did big names come to the Racecourse Ground – Anderlecht, Hajduk Split, Porto – some left with a bloody nose.
Starring in many of these games was Mickey Thomas, the first name anybody thinks of when Wrexham is mentioned. Born in nearby Mochdre, this tricky young winger came back to his first club after playing for Manchester United and Chelsea, captaining the Red Dragons in their finest hour, the shock cup win over reigning league champions Arsenal in 1992.
Bottom of The 92 the previous May, Wrexham ignored the 91 league placings between hosts and visitors to overturn a 1-0 deficit in the later minutes of a feisty mid-winter struggle. A sublime Mickey Thomas free-kick from outside the box levelled the scores on 82 minutes, only for Wrexham’s Steve Watkin to then snaffle up a half-chance soon afterwards.
The Racecourse Ground wouldn’t see scenes like it for a very long time. Some 30 years later, thinking of suitable clubs to fit the bill for his Hollywood mentor, Humphrey Ker was casting around in his football memory when that Mickey Thomas goal appeared. It prompted the question, as it once did to everyone unaware of the club’s demise, of wondering whither Wrexham?
Within a few weeks, Wrexham had new owners. With Wrexham suggested, Rob McElhenney knew he needed a major sponsor to help him lift the club back into The 92 – instead of Aviation American Gin, part-owned by his Canadian friend Ryan Reynolds of Deadpool fame, he got a partner just as gung-ho as he was.
The rest, of course, is recent history. When the moment came, an emotional promotion from the National League in 2023 after 15 years in the wilderness, two fans in baseball caps could be seen crying and hugging in what passes for a VIP box at the Racecourse Ground.
For Wrexham as a city, the journey has been just as transformative. McElhenney and Reynolds having convinced 99% of the Wrexham Supporters’ Trust to sell – at the height of the pandemic in 2020, the club at its lowest ebb in the league pyramid – project Wrexham soon shone the spotlight onto the bit players and extras: the regulars and landlord of the Turf Hotel, indie band the Declan Swans, revived local brewers Wrexham Lager.
By 2023, there were dozens of new customers beating a path to the Turf Hotel every day, many of them American, to sample what is Britain’s oldest lager and see what happens when Hollywood sprinkles its stardust on a workaday town otherwise neglected for generations.
Not all can actually get in of a match day, of course – the Racecourse Ground currently holds 12,600, including a temporary stand erected where The Kop once was – but Wrexham attracts visitors seven days a week by dint of simply being Wrexham.
With accommodation options fairly limited – even private rooms and airbnbs – those staying overnight plot up in Colwyn Bay, Chester or even Liverpool, reversing the decades-long trend of football fans trekking from Wrexham bound for Anfield to get their 90-minute fix.
Getting Around
Arriving in town, local transport and tips
Liverpool John Lennon Airport is 60km (37 miles) from Wrexham. There is no direct link by public transport. The quickest way to reach Wrexham is by bus 80A/86A from outside the airport terminal to (Garston) Liverpool South Parkway (£2, Mon-Fri every 20-30mins, Sat-Sun every 20mins, journey time 10-15mins).
From there, change for the hourly train to Chester (35mins), then change again for Wrexham General (15mins). Overall journey time from Liverpool South Parkway is around 1hr 30mins, tickets £13-£16.
There are more services to Wrexham General from Liverpool Lime Street, change at Chester or Bidston, for roughly the same cost and journey time. From Liverpool Airport, for Liverpool Lime Street take bus 500 to Elliot Street (£2, every 30mins, 40min journey time) close by.
Mainline trains to Wrexham General from London Euston require a change at Chester (overall journey time around 3hrs), as do services from Manchester Victoria/Piccadilly (overall journey time around 1hr 30mins).
Wrexham Prestige Taxis (01978 357 777) should charge around £80 from Liverpool Airport to Wrexham and offer other airport transfers, too.
Wrexham General station is on the north-western edge of the city centre a short walk away, and just over the railway lines from the Racecourse Ground. Wrexham Central station is right in town. Local buses are run by Stagecoach but nearly everything is a short, if sometimes steep, stroll away.
Based at Wrexham General station near the Racecourse Ground, Station Cars (01978 363 661) offer a reliable local service.
Where to Drink
The best pubs and bars for football fans
A worthy beneficiary of the Wrexham phenomenon has been the successful return of the city’s namesake beer, Britain’s first German-style lager, brewed from 1882 onwards. The only lager that went down with the Titanic in 1912, its fortunes have roughly followed that of Wrexham AFC.
Going under in the early 2000s, Wrexham Lager was revived by local enthusiasts and is now being sunk by the lagoon-load on match days. It’s also available at the Wrexham Lager Shop, tucked away on St George’s Crescent in town, although there’s not enough space for a full-blown taproom.
Round the corner on Yorke Street, you’ll find it served at the traditional Fat Boar pub, with its convivial courtyard and huge mural celebrating Welsh football. The same team is behind key sports bar Hill Street Social, where Wrexham Lager’s Bootlegger 1974 sits amid the taps of Moretti, Erdinger and San Miguel. Backdropped by a wall of Welsh sporting iconography, five big screens and giant projector beam match action, a pool table and dartboard also provided.
Nearby, the historic Wynnstay Arms Hotel houses a spacious, popular pub, sport screened and Guinness supped. Quality breakfasts on offer, too. Dating back further – to the 1600s, in fact – the thatched-roofed Horse & Jockey on Hope Street is named after tragic champion Fred Archer, who shot himself at 29, emaciated and heartbroken.
The pub is currently looking for new owners, if anyone knows of any passing Hollywood superstars. In similar vein, the Nag’s Head on Mount Street is of 1661 vintage, though it’s the beer garden that keeps the place buzzing in summer.
For late-night fun, Chequers on Church Street keeps punters merry with cheap shooters and cocktail jugs. From here, the High Street is lined with hostelries, starting with the sport-focused Wrexham Cwtch, its many screens set around a large, brightly coloured interior.
High Street continues into Town Hill, Wrexham’s bar quarter, starting with 1 To 5, where a party crowd gathers for affordable ensozzlement until 4am at weekends. Next door, the weekend-only Old No.7 Bar Grill is also pretty lively thanks to regular live music and Denver’s Blue Moon on draught. Sharing the same address, The Ironworks keeps its many regulars entertained with TV football, DJs and quiz nights.
Alongside, The Parish worships at the altar of indie, staging live bands, screening football and serving lesser-found brews among the 14 on tap – note the US-inspired examples from Magic Rock.
On certain nights, customers are given a wristband for a 10% discount at nearby swish cocktail joint, Craft & Tails – although you’ll see few emo shoegazers among the well-heeled clientele sipping pink sunsets here.
Where to stay
The best hotels for the ground and city centre
This is Wrexham has a database of the limited accommodation options in town and around.
The nearest lodging to the Racecourse Ground, the Premier Inn Wrexham City Centre, 400 metres from Wrexham General station, offers standard chain-hotel rooms and paid-for parking at £7/day. Ideal if you’re coming for an evening game or fancy making a night of it in Wrexham.
A notch above, the four-star Ramada Plaza by Wyndham Wrexham is also close, if slightly further out of town towards the university. Its 24-hour room service appreciated by visitors from across the Atlantic. Amenities are actually quite modest – a gym, a bar, a restaurant, paid-for parking – considering the price tag, doubles in the £100 bracket when direct-booked.
Right in town, the Wynnstay Arms Hotel sits in a Grade 2 listed building, said to be where British Prime Minister Lloyd George officially declared the end of World War I. Today it has 47 en-suite rooms equipped with WiFi and comfortable king-sized beds. There’s free parking for guests, too. Attached is one of most popular pubs in town, food served and sport screened, also open to non-guests. See above Where to drink.
