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For the first time in 30 years Wrexham will play European football at the Racecourse Ground, with a little help from Hollywood.
Wrexham made eight appearances in the European Cup Winners’ Cup between 1972 and 1996 and their best result came when they made the quarter-finals in 1976. They also recorded a memorable victory over Porto in 1984.
Now Wrexham will play in the Women’s Champions League for the first time on Wednesday when they host Armenian side FC Pyunik in the first qualifying round.
It is the latest chapter in their rapid rise since Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney became majority owners of the Welsh club five years ago. There has been plenty of focus on the success of the men’s side, with three successive promotions from the National League to the Championship, but the women’s team have been on their own impressive journey.
Promoted to the Welsh top flight in 2023, the club were crowned Adran Premier champions for the first time in March when they ended Cardiff City’s reign by beating them 4-1 on the last day of the season.
Mark Swales, director of women’s football, is quick to praise the support of Reynolds and McElhenney.
“Rob has openly said they want the best women’s team in the world,” Swales tells Telegraph Sport. “Now, that’s ambitious, but it’s not crazy when you look at what Wrexham has done over the last five years.
“They honestly do what they say they’re going to do. What you see online is what you get. That’s not acting, that’s real. That’s not people putting on a show, they really love the town and the club.”
Swales jokes that Jenny Sugarman, the women’s team manager, has Reynolds and McElhenney on “speed dial”.
“I’ve worked at a number of football clubs and I’ve never met an owner before, let alone been able to ask them for their input and help,” Sugarman says.
“I’ve had Rob ringing players that we want to sign because he does that on the men’s side. He always says, ‘I can do that whenever you need.’ They send messages before big games. I’ve never had a conversation with an owner before, let alone had their backing and support like we do here.”
Swales also points out the importance of the club’s minority owners, Eric and Kaleen Allyn, while Sugarman adds that Michael Williamson, the chief executive, is the best she has ever worked with.
There is also Gemma Owen, who left her role as head of women’s football operations in May. Owen had been with Wrexham for 13 years and was instrumental in laying the foundations for people such as Swales and Sugarman to prosper.
“If you need something, people try to work out a way to get it for you,” Sugarman says. “I don’t think I’ve been told ‘no’ yet.”
Sugarman was previously head coach at West Brom and also spent time as assistant manager of Aston Villa before joining Wrexham last summer. Her first task was to build a team capable of competing in the Welsh top flight, with the long-term goal of winning the league and qualifying for Europe. Achieving both in her first year in charge was not part of the original plan.
“I definitely thought it would be a longer process. It was clear that this [being in the Champions League] was the ambition, but there was no timescale put on that,” she says. “We certainly didn’t think it was going to be in year one. When I arrived, I had one player under contract and I had 20 players wanting to know if they were going to get a contract.
“I was the only full-time member of technical staff or recruitment so it was about what I could achieve in that short space of time in terms of squad building. It was a bit like building a plane in the sky because you have to put all of the parts of it together.”
Wrexham’s title-winning campaign underlined the club’s ambition but they will go into this Champions League qualifying tournament as the lowest-ranked team. Should they beat FC Pyunik, they will play either Belfast club Glentoran or Latvian side Riga. Securing the hosting rights for the games was viewed as important, even if the process was challenging.
“Once the draw’s done, the four teams historically just sat around a table and then decided who wanted to host, and then everyone had to agree,” Swales says. “FC Pyunik wanted to host but they didn’t have any information. I presented everything we had and Glentoran said they wanted to come to Wrexham. The lady from Latvia turned on her microphone and said, ‘We want to go to Armenia’. So then we were in this stand-off of two v two.
“FC Pyunik couldn’t tell us where the games were going to be played. They couldn’t give us a training venue. They couldn’t give us a hotel. They couldn’t give us anything. This went on for two hours back and forth. I was throwing things at the screen by this point.”
After a weekend of deliberation, the Armenian side agreed they would travel to Wrexham. Swales says hosting was “really important” to Reynolds and McElhenney while Sugarman believes having a home crowd will give her team a significant boost.
“When the crowd get behind us, we really feel that – we felt it to win the league against Cardiff. We probably gained some new followers that day and hopefully we do the same again.
“We’re quite happy being the lowest-ranked team in the competition. We are the lowest-ranked side because we’ve never competed in Europe before as a women’s programme, but also because Welsh teams have historically not done very well. If we can drive standards, if we can raise bars, if we can challenge others to invest, then I think we’re all winning.”
The Football Association of Wales is expected to announce their new strategy for women’s football around September. Wrexham are one of four semi-professional teams in the Welsh league, but have long-term plans to become fully professional. Swales insists their ambition is not to “leave others behind” but to help grow the game and “break the glass ceiling” of what is achievable.
That is something that has become synonymous with Wrexham, especially since their Hollywood owners took over, and Sugarman is clear that her side are not playing in Europe just to make up the numbers.
“We’re not coming here just to enjoy the moment,” she says. “Every player and coach wants to test themselves against the very best.
“We want to be champions again, we want to have a team that the town is proud of and we want to be back here in the Champions League again.”
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