“There’s no such thing as football-borne anxiety.” At first, Reynolds wondered whether he was resistant to sensation. He only caught half of Wrexham’s first few games after his and McElhenney’s takeover was completed in February 2021.
He was, by his own admission, “quite passive”. It doesn’t last. When he hit her, hit her hard. “It’s a terrifying, cyclical, prophetic hellscape that never stops or recedes,” he said, a sentence that suggests he fully understood the appeal of football. “I love every second, but it is equally suffering. Every second is pure suffering. It’s a new experience for me. I am amazed at the people who have lived in that culture their whole lives.”
Neither McElhenney nor Reynolds anticipated the extent of the emotional impact when, in late 2020, the former approached the latter with a proposal. McElhenney had spent a large part of the lockdown watching sports documentaries: the acclaimed “Beautifulland ‘Til I Die,” for one, and more importantly an HBO series on Diego Maradona. He decided he wanted to add his own production to the canon, and he wanted Reynolds — an acquaintance rather than a friend, at that level — to help bankroll it.
The result, “Welcome to Wrexham,” is heartwarming and funny and engaging, but it’s also difficult to categorize. At one point, Reynolds describes it—perhaps as a slip of the tongue—as a “reality show,” but it sounds reductive. So, too, is the faintly euphemistic term “structured reality,” a genre that recently characterized Netflix’s dazzling “Sailing Sunset.” But neither is it, strictly speaking, a documentary—not in the traditional sense, not in the way that “Sunderland ‘Til I Die” was a documentary.
There is a long-held rule among wildlife photographers and documentarians that they appear to observe rather than intervene. “Welcome T o Wrexham,” in contrast, is inherently interfering. Wrexham, drifting into the fifth tier of English football for more than a decade, was in disrepair and dismay when it was bought by two Hollywood stars.
Reynolds and McElhenney aren’t just telling a story. They are shaping it too. The example of this, most clearly, appears to be a spontaneous jump halfway through the show’s second episode. Suddenly, the spectator is at home with Paul Rutherford, Wrexham’s locally-born veteran midfielder.
Rutherford showed with a hint of pride all the work he and his wife Gemma had done in their house. It turns out that the house is about to get a little busy. The couple already has two boys; A third is on the way. Rutherford is currently making baby crib. Later, he is shown playing football with his eldest son. He carries her home on his shoulders. It is heart touching, heart touching and deeply ominous. Anyone who has seen a nature documentary in which a young giraffe is separated from the herd, or an installment of “Match of the Day” that featured a player picking up a spontaneous starting yellow card, knows Q. Something bad is about to happen.
The bad in this case comes in the last game of Wrexham’s season, a few months after the takeover. The team needs a win to make it to the playoffs. Rutherford, offered as a substitute, is sent off for a reckless challenge. He is shown in the changing room, his chest heavy, urging his teammates to win without him. they do not. Wrexham is held to a draw. Its season is over.
A caption appears. Rutherford’s contract expired the next day. he was released. This is the cold reality of football, of course, a sport that lacks an appetite for emotion and – the level that Wrexham is occupied – no money for. Countless players each season face the same fate as Rutherford, falling victim to the game’s unapologetic ruthlessness.
Reynolds and McElhenney are clear that, while they are ultimately to blame, they did not make that call. Personnel decisions are left to those on the ground at Wrexham, who know the game much better than they do. no one is hired or fired because it plays well; His commitment, Reynolds said, is simply to make the best of Wrexham. “Sports are meaningless to me until I know what is at stake for anyone,” Reynolds said.
“What did a player do to be there. What does a club mean to a community? If I think about the films that made an impact on me; Is “Field Of Dreams” A Movie About Baseball? Not necessary. It is a film about a father and son trying to connect. It’s the context that draws you in.”
At heart, of course, what Reynolds and McElhenney have done with Wrexham is certainly an inherently benign form of ownership by football’s standards. He has not put a debt burden on the club. They are not using it to try to whitewash the image of the oppressive state. They’ve given a club, and a city, reason to believe, and everything for the price of a couple of camera crews. Not owned, he insists, hinges on the success of “Welcome to Wrexham.” They are in it “for the long haul,” Reynolds said, whether spectators are there or not.
