WROXHAM (NOT WREXHAM), England — Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney stare across the bar in the clubhouse at Wroxham FC. Yet it isn’t the actual Hollywood A-list owners of Wrexham FC, but two life-size cardboard cut-outs of the men who have transformed the Welsh team from non-league no-hopers into one that could reach the Premier League within two years.
But this is Wroxham, not Wrexham, and for now at least, the closest that Reynolds and McElhenney will get to this tiny club from an English village on the other side of the U.K. are the cut-outs propped in front of Wroxham’s trophy cabinet. Wrexham or Wroxham? It’s an easy mistake to make, and plenty have done just that.
“We get calls and things through the [club] website where people have clearly mistaken us for Wrexham,” James Blower, Wroxham FC chairman, tells ESPN. “Whether that’s players looking to come and play for us or people wanting the wrong merchandise.
“We had a commercial partner get very excited when we signed up. I wasn’t initially suspicious because it’s quite usual that you would want to promote a new partnership, but then it became clear when they started talking about doing a viral campaign that they thought they were going to be dealing with Ryan Reynolds. The girls in the marketing team were a little bit disappointed when it was me that they found they were going to be dealing with instead!”
Aside from the difference of one vowel — there are posters in Wroxham about “A team only one vowel away from the big time” — Wrexham and Wroxham could not be further apart, beyond the 250 miles that separate the Welsh city and the East Anglian village with a recorded population of just 1,502 in the 2021 UK Census.
Wrexham are flying high in EFL League One, having secured back-to-back promotions since Reynolds and McElhenney bought the club in February 2021. They are now two promotions away from the Premier League and their story, documented in the hit show “Welcome to Wrexham,” has caught the attention of sports fans across the globe.
Wroxham are second-bottom of the Isthmian League North, five divisions below Wrexham, and play against teams like Concord Rangers, Brightlingsea Regent and Sporting Bengal United. Tuesday’s home game against Felixstowe & Walton United at the Ginger Pickle Arena, a 2-2 draw, drew an attendance of 221. “We were pleased with that, given the weather,” Blower said, noting temperatures had dropped to -10 Celsius [14 Farenheit] with the windchill factor.
Wrexham play in red, Wroxham play in blue-and-white stripes and there really is a world of difference between the two teams, but the phone calls from confused football fans continue and bemused visitors still turn up at Wroxham’s ground wondering where on earth they have ended up.
“It’s happened to me a couple of times,” Barry Letten, Wroxham’s 78-year-old groundsman told ESPN. “On one occasion, a person drove here in his car and said, “Is this Wrexham?” “I said, “no, this is Wroxham.” And he said, ‘Oh blimey, I’ve come to the wrong ground!’
“So what happened? He stayed, but on another occasion, we had a gentleman that came down and he decided to drive back, I assumed, to Wroxham — sorry Wrexham! Now I’m getting mixed up!”
It’s not always a mistake when people turn up at Wroxham with Wrexham on their mind. “I’m here on business, so I thought might as well spend a tenner here towards Wroxham’s pockets rather than sitting in the pub drinking,” Jim Gregson, a Wrexham fan in his Wrexham shirt, told ESPN during Tuesday’s game.
“We [Wrexham] have been in the same position as Wroxham. We were on our a– and got lucky, so if Wroxham want to jump on the back of what we have done, good luck to them.”
In an attempt to cash-in on their unusual connection with Wrexham — six letters, basically — Wroxham have produced their own mini-documentary called “Welcome to Wroxham” and the ambition is to catch the attention of Reynolds and McElhenney, with the ultimate dream of hosting Wrexham in a preseason friendly.
“That’s been something actually that the Wrexham fans have come and said,” Blower said. “There’s been loads saying ‘We hope every year we draw you in the FA Cup and we want a preseason friendly.’ That would be great. But if we’re honest, that wasn’t something we thought of as maybe an outcome from this. I think our purpose is we wanted to showcase what our amazing volunteers do, how great they are for us as a club and highlight the differences between the few levels and how hard it is.”
Wroxham’s story is one that typifies football at grassroots in the UK. There are so many towns and villages that seem too small to sustain a football club, but ardent supporters, benevolent local businesspeople and selfless volunteers enable clubs to survive even the toughest financially difficulties.
Terry Baxter, the club chaplain, once performed the same role for inmates at Norwich Prison. Now in his 80s, he prepares the boardroom on matchdays, laying out sandwiches and arranging blue-and-white teacups in orderly fashion on a freshly ironed tablecloth.
“I’ve been coming here for 45 years,” he said. “I get to plenty of away games too.”
Groundsman Barry admits he can’t stay away, whether there is a game to be watched or not. “I come here most days,” he said. “Today I’ve been doing the car parking, but if there’s a need for some painting and that type of thing or unblocking drains etc, I help out. I’m a general-purpose labourer!”
In the bar, Rachel takes care of the catering — burgers, chips and cheesy fries — with her teenage children. Before the two sets of players leave after the game, she serves baked potato with beans and cheese for them all in the clubroom.
“Years and years and years I’ve been here,” Rachel said. “It feels like it anyway! It’s my social life actually. I don’t have one outside of here. I’ve always helped with local football.”
Yet Rachel is less enamoured by the prospect of the club basking in the glow of Wrexham’s celebrity. “I don’t do Hollywood glamour at all,” she said. “Definitely not.”
None of the volunteers are paid for the hours they commit to Wroxham. Only the players and manager earn money from the club, but they all have day jobs for their main source of income. Robbie Linford is a scaffolder, Rio Abodunde works in his family’s restaurant, Harry Barker is a teacher, while goalkeeper Ollie Sutton, the son of former Blackburn, Chelsea and Celtic forward Chris, works in property development.
“Our players train twice a week and play once or twice a week depending on the fixtures,” Blower said. “It’s fairly normal at this level. We’ll play a Tuesday night and they all go and do their day jobs.
“They have a pretty tough time playing football. We’re the most northerly team in this division, so they have to do a lot of travelling. Sixteen away games in our league are around a hundred miles’ away from us, so if this was a Tuesday night away game, the players would be getting back at 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning. So it’s a fair commitment from them.”
The community spirit of volunteers and part-time players ultimately binds clubs like Wroxham together. Club sponsor Riot Labs even backed an initiative to help Wroxham fans quit smoking, teaming up with Blower to make the Kenny Cooke Stand — capacity: 50 people — a smoke-free zone. The hope is that any raised profile from their mini-doc will help make the club ground a more viable community venue.
“If we could get Wrexham here, we’d fill the ground,” Blower said. “We can get 4,000 in here, and that would generate enough for us to clear the debt and buy some furniture for the clubhouse. “That would enable us to make it available beyond matchdays: that kind of thing makes all the difference at this level.”
The Wrexham dream remains just that, though. Unless Reynolds and McElhenney are drawn in by the romance and quirkiness of a Wroxham vs. Wrexham clash, Wroxham will continue to take the phone calls and redirect any lost visitors.
There is one faint glimmer of hope of attracting some of their own Hollywood glamour.
“So [Hugh Jackman’s] mum is from Norwich [eight miles from Wroxham],” Blower said. The Hollywood A-Lister, who starred alongside Reynolds in “Deadpool & Wolverine”, “had the chance to buy into Norwich in 2016. They got promoted straight after that, and he missed out. It’s definitely an opportunity here. If he wants to come and buy in here, I’m happy to take that phone call and we’ll have a conversation.
“His mum’s still local. We go to the same cinema — not together — but yeah, we go to the local cinema. He’s often spotted around here when he is back seeing her and he’s got that friendship with Ryan. So we could definitely have the Vowel Derby with Hugh on one side and Ryan on the other, or Wolverine vs. Deadpool, if you want to call it that.”
Over to you, Hugh.