Foul-mouthed manager Phil Parkinson delivering each team talk as if he’s auditioning for the next Tarantino. Enough product placement to rival “The Truman Show.” Every single goal framed in more pain-staking slow motion than a “Baywatch” beach run.
The fifth season of “Welcome to Wrexham” still contains all the tropes which have helped turn the unglamorous machinations of lower league English football into the stuff of Hollywood fantasy. But now it has to cope with a new big baddie: the Great British Backlash which, after several years of bubbling under, has now exploded onto the surface. (And not because of co-owner Ryan Reynolds’ sycophantic way with emails.)
Over the last 12 months, Wrexham FC and its celebrity backers have felt the full force of the UK’s “build them up, knock them down” mentality, facing accusations of everything from manipulating the media to abusing public funding. The timeline of such issues means we’ll have to wait to see how, and if, they’re addressed. Nevertheless, the self-aggrandizing and self-congratulations on display in the first three episodes available for review implies humility may be in short supply.
Indeed, it’s clear from the offset that “Welcome to Wrexham” is still determined to push the plucky little underdog narrative as they enter the second tier of the football pyramid for the first time since 1982. This despite the fact only two other Championship clubs forked out more in summer transfer signings (“The GDP of all of Canada,” Reynolds half-jokes) and their net spend was higher than Barcelona!
Before the opening credits have rolled, supporter journalist Bryn Law is insisting Wrexham’s back-to-back-to-back promotions is “arguably one of the greatest stories in the history of football” and that a fourth consecutive leap to the Premier League would go down as the greatest in sport, period (with the season ending last week, you don’t have to wait to find out whether this occurred).
Meanwhile, the first question posed to Rob McElhenney (now going by “Rob Mac”) immediately after is, “What do you do after you make history?”
Reynolds, whose animated reactions to each development suggests he’s gunning for a revival of “Van Wilder,” doesn’t help matters, either. When Wrexham don’t get off to a dream start, losing their first two games against top-flight regulars by the narrowest of margins — hardly a disaster in such a notoriously difficult league — his dummy-spitting first reaction is, “So, we are going to need to spend some money!”
It’s not the only glaring sense of entitlement. The sound of boos reverberating around the Racecourse Ground so early on — this for a club who were very recently languishing in mediocrity three divisions lower — further exemplifies why Wrexham have become the new love-to-hate. “Not much of a fairytale is it?,” one supporter moans after another result doesn’t go 100 percent their way as calls for the head of Parkinson start to gain momentum. Football fans are nothing if not overwhelmingly fickle.
As well as struggling to contend with the club’s new pecking order on the field, “Welcome to Wrexham” occasionally appears to run out of content off it. There’s a touching update with Season 3’s documentary photographer now he’s shooting from inside rather than outside the stadium, yet its “Wrexham FC is religion” sentiment is football cliche 101.
There’s also a tenuous segment where executive director Humphrey Ker, also currently contributing to another highly enjoyable transatlantic crossover, “SNL UK,” finds it necessary to explain the concept of passing the ball. Then there’s McElhenney’s amiable dad, who gets several minutes to misinterpret football culture, his theory that fans don’t follow the badge but the humans who wear it, entirely contradicting the “Wrexham Till I Die” mindset the show constantly celebrates.
Nowhere is that more apparent than this season’s first two human interest stories, always the show’s most involving aspect. In Episode 1, the recipient of a heart transplant meets the family of his donor, a young Wrexham obsessive who tragically lost his life in a car accident. While in Episode 2, Mickey Thomas — scorer of unarguably the club’s most famous goal — pays tribute to the recently departed Joey Jones, a fellow local hero who began and ended his career with the club.
Once again, the show refutes the old adage, “football isn’t a matter of life and death… it is much more important than that,” but without descending into schmaltz.
“Welcome to Wrexham” also remains impressive in how it provides a wider context for those who don’t know their flat back fours from their false nines. A crash course in the recent checkered history of Sheffield Wednesday — another club promised the world by a new cash cow chairman — serves as both a cautionary tale and a testament to how Reynolds and McElhenney have continued to avoid the typical ownership villainy.
Sure, “Welcome to Wrexham” still tries in vain to make us care as much about the spreadsheets as the results. Yet it’s clear that its leading men have developed a genuine lifelong emotional connection, not just to the club but to the local community, too. Five seasons in and the idea that Wrexham FC is simply a brand extension vanity project (looking at you, Tom Brady) has been well and truly put to bed.
Of course, the pitfalls of rooting a soap opera in the world of modern football means your supporting characters are at the mercy of the transfer merry-go-round. Fan favorites Paul Mullin and Ollie Palmer are both given brief sendoffs (the former’s departure even makes Ker shed a tear). However, with seven other players leaving and no fewer than 14 coming in, this year’s cast feels it’s been reset in the style of a Ryan Murphy anthology.
On first impressions, it may take a while for the newbies to earn the same emotional investment as their predecessors. Josh Windass, a striker famed for his refusal to celebrate (“I just don’t get that happy when I score”), for example, doesn’t exactly scream reality TV star. That said, his matter-of-factness may well help to ground a show that tends to over-romanticize.
While “Welcome to Wrexham” is undoubtedly still the kind of resolutely feel-good TV which can restore your faith in humanity, it needs to acknowledge that its rags-to-riches narrative has been given the final whistle.
“Welcome to Wrexham” Season 5 premieres Thursday, May 14 on Hulu, FXX, with Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers with two new episodes. New episodes will be released weekly.
