Wrexham fans have long wondered why a pair of Hollywood A-listers ditched Tinseltown for North Wales – and Rob Mac’s dad has now revealed the true motivation behind the move. It has been more than five years since Mac, who legally changed his surname from McElhenney last year, and Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds launched their takeover of the then-National League side.
While the pair have since steered the Red Dragons to sixth in the Championship, one game away from a historic play-off spot, their driving force remained a mystery.
Speaking on the Fearless in Devotion podcast, Mac’s dad, Bob McElhenney, described the move as being fuelled by a “social experiment.”
The journey began not with a love for football, but with the Netflix documentary Sunderland ‘Til I Die. Inspired after watching it in 2020, Mac sought a historic team to revitalise.
Despite never meeting in person, the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator reached out to Reynolds based on their mutual “vibe.” According to Bob, the sport was initially secondary to the narrative.
He said: “When we first talked about this, it wasn’t about a football club or even taking a team up. We didn’t even understand the pyramid system or anything like that.
“Rob is fundamentally a storyteller and he was looking for a good story. Any good story has both an antagonist and a protagonist – that’s what makes it work.”
The choice of Wrexham was a calculated move to see if Hollywood magic could breathe life into a struggling community. Mac sought a place where people needed a lift.
He said: “The tragedy is where the love is. If a group of people are always successful then they don’t need someone to help pick them up, they don’t need an arm around their shoulder and they don’t need to be inspired. You have to feel the tragedy so that we get the opportunity to help each other.”
Bob added: “He had this idea of what would happen if we went into a town that was really down and out…and put a spotlight on that team. This is a social experiment in a sense. He found a team and a town that was really down. It was the perfect mixture.”
At the time of the bid, the club faced a financial crisis due to the Covid pandemic. With fans locked out, the club’s primary revenue source had vanished.
Mac and Reynolds were happy to play the role of Hollywood jokers to draw attention to the town’s resilience.
Mac said: “We knew that Ryan and I would be the clowns that would be the way into the story. But ultimately, what we wanted to see was how people would respond in times of great crisis, when given an opportunity to transmute that into optimism and hope. We just feel so honoured to be a part of that process over the last five years.”
While the Welcome to Wrexham documentary has highlighted their success globally, Bob insists the risk remains real. Unlike a scripted film, there is no guaranteed victory.
He said: “It bugs me a lot when I hear people saying, ‘Is this going to be a Hollywood ending?’ In Hollywood, you know what the outcome is going to be, because you’re writing the outcome. In this situation…you don’t know what the outcome is going to be. That’s the thrill of it, but it’s also a tremendous risk.”
What began as an experiment has become a genuine obsession. Bob added: “I don’t think Rob had any idea that we’d get suckered into actually loving this team and loving the town. Winning is important, but so is the original purpose of it.”
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