Ryan Reynolds made a half-joking promise to take Wrexham to the Premier League in October 2021. The room laughed. Nobody's laughing now.
Wrexham AFC sit on the edge of the EFL Championship playoff places, one win away from almost certain qualification. Win the playoffs — a single final at Wembley — and they're in the most-watched football league on the planet. They are, genuinely, four games away from completing one of the most absurd sporting climbs in English football history.
Back-to-back-to-back — and still going
To understand how extraordinary this is, consider the starting point. In 2021, Wrexham were in the fifth tier of English football, a semi-professional club in a small Welsh town that had spent years grinding through hardship. Three consecutive promotions later, they're competing in the EFL Championship — the sixth richest league in Europe — against clubs with established Premier League rosters and transfer budgets that dwarf their own.
No team in English Football League history had ever achieved three back-to-back promotions before Wrexham did it. Now they're threatening a fourth.
The cynical read is that Reynolds and co-owner Rob McElhenney simply bought their way up. The numbers don't really support that. Around £38 million has been invested in the first-team squad since the takeover, but the bulk of that came after promotion had already been secured three times over. For context, Ipswich Town and Southampton both spent considerably more than Wrexham last summer. Birmingham City, Norwich, Middlesbrough and Sheffield United were not far behind. Wrexham are still the underdog in financial terms, not just in narrative ones.
What this means for the Championship betting picture
Wrexham's home game against Middlesbrough on May 2nd is the final regular-season fixture. A win likely locks in a playoff spot. The playoff final at Wembley is a one-off, and one-off games are where odds compress and upsets happen — Wrexham's ability to perform in high-pressure moments this season makes them a genuine factor, not just a sentimental pick.
Manager Phil Parkinson deserves more credit than he typically gets in these conversations. Taking a club from the National League to the doorstep of the Premier League, in four seasons, against teams with deeper squads and longer top-flight pedigree — that's a coaching achievement that stands on its own regardless of who owns the club.
FX has already renewed Welcome to Wrexham for three more seasons. Season 5's trailer dropped this week, timed perfectly against the final push. The documentary has won 10 Primetime Emmys and built a global fanbase for a club most football supporters outside Wales had never heard of four years ago.
If Wrexham make the Premier League, it won't just be a great sports story. It'll be the most documented underdog promotion in the history of the game — every dressing room moment, every training ground decision, every wild pub celebration captured on camera. The fifth tier to the top flight. All of it on film.
