“It’s just surreal,” says the former Wrexham midfielder Mickey Thomas, scorer of arguably the club’s most famous goal. When he helped strike down Arsenal, the reigning English champions, in the FA Cup third round in 1992, he could not have expected 34 years later to be regularly rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s biggest stars, regaling them with the story of how he smashed a free-kick past David Seaman.
In recent years, Wrexham have welcomed a glittering array of famous Hollywood guests to Cae Ras, thanks to Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, who often invite Thomas to the owners’ box. The north Wales town has become a hotbed for famous faces, all given the warmest welcome by a club enjoying a meteoric rise.
Channing Tatum, Hugh Jackman, Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd have made the trip across the Atlantic to witness how Reynolds and Mac have transformed this corner of Wales. They, however, are not as big a draw as Premier League Chelsea, who visit in the Cup fifth round on Saturday. Wrexham, occupants of a Championship playoff spot, have the capabilities to take their second top-flight scalp of a season which could end with in a fourth consecutive promotion.
It is inevitable that 4 January 1992 is mentioned; the day when fourth-tier Wrexham rocked Arsenal at the Racecourse Ground. Thomas and Steve Watkin were the heroes in an all-time giant-killing, a moment chiselled into FA Cup history. “It was an amazing result for us locally, and it sent ripples around the world,” the club historian, Geraint Parry, says. “Suddenly we had the Sydney Herald and Los Angeles Times wanting to get in contact with us. That’s when you start to realise how big a result it was. That’s what the FA Cup can do. People love the FA Cup all around the world. It is one of the great club competitions.” This level of attention is the new norm.
In 2011, then non-league Wrexham almost went out of business, saved by fans desperate to keep alive dreams of more days at Braintree and Southport, allowing new chapters to be written. The current regime was never part of the thinking. “We’ve got the world champions coming to town, so you can’t get much better than that,” says Thomas, who also spent 20 months at Stamford Bridge. “The real fans from the start, who’ve been through all the difficult times, can enjoy it more because they have seen the dark days. Now they can focus on something special that is happening at this football club – they’re getting the biggest teams here.”
As well as giving the club legendary highs, the FA Cup summed up the depths plumbed when a decade ago Wrexham were dumped out by eighth-tier Stamford. Six years later the tournament offered a sign of the club’s changed status under the current regime when, as a National League team, their initial tie and reply against Blyth Spartans in the fourth qualifying round were shown live on ESPN in the US.
Wrexham spent 15 years in non-league from 2008, playing teams “you’ve never heard of”, according to Thomas. Parry says: “We’re now a tourist attraction. The Welsh government are bringing people over, business people, trying to get people to invest in the country. One of the places they go on their guided tour around Wales is here.
“We have a little chat with them, and the first thing you say is: ‘Anybody watch the TV series?’ And you’ve got all these chancellors of universities, heads of banks, half of them put their hands up. They’re really interested and they’re keen, and it’s amazing the knowledge that they have about us. We couldn’t get people to cross the road before. Now they’ve crossed the Atlantic.”
Stadium development means a stand is absent behind one goal. It made no difference against Nottingham Forest in the third round but will mean Chelsea are not surrounded by local diehards. “We’d still be here whether we were bottom of the Fourth Division or have a chance of getting to the Premier League,” says Parry. “But it’s so nice that what we think is special at the club other people also spot now and that they are trying to help us.”
This is the first time Wrexham have reached the fifth round since 1997, when they got to the quarter-finals. As recently as 2020, they were knocked out in the fourth qualifying round by Solihull Moors. Two trips to Wembley this season, in the Cup and playoffs, is not regarded as fantasy.
Chelsea are 21 places ahead of Wrexham, whereas when Reynolds and Mac rocked up that number was 96. The real prize for those in the city, a status awarded to Wrexham in 2022, is being able to look down on Cardiff and come face-to-face with Swansea. Those at the Wrexham Trainer Revival store, surrounded by club merchandise and souvenirs, inside the Butchers Market are more focused on facing their south Walian foes than on Chelsea. They hope, though, that Chelsea fans will peruse the rails of shirts, which are popular with regular American visitors. Wrexham has become a stop-off for Americans visiting the UK and Ireland, often on trips between London and Dublin.
Walking through the city centre this week there were no obvious signs of a big match because the romanticism around the Cup is negated by the fact that big games and media are normal in these parts. Unlike in 1992, the TV cameras will be back next Friday for the visit of Swansea, with Reynolds and Mac on Sky Sports commentary, which never happened when Pryce Griffiths was the owner. Another example of fantasy becoming reality.
Wrexham shirts are the most prominent on Lord Street, whereas Liverpool, Manchester United and Blackburn shirts would have dominated in the 1990s. The Ironworks bar will be full of Chelsea fans on Saturdaytoday unless they refuse to frequent it, as Millwall’s supporters did, on account of the reference to West Ham’s nickname.
There are evocative images aplenty around the city, whether honouring the mining community or football club. Joey Jones, who played for Wrexham and Chelsea as well as being a double European Cup winner with Liverpool, adorns the side of the Turf pub, and Paul Mullin, the key goalscorer in the promotions from the National League to League One, was painted on the side of the Fat Boar. Many major achievements are marked by street art. Space will be found if another historic moment happens this weekend or in May.
“Saturday indicates how far we have come,” Thomas says. “I smile most of the days, laughing to myself, thinking: ‘God, this is a different world.’” But it is one Wrexham are firmly inhabiting.
