The FA Cup Thread 2024

[Trollheart]

Team name: Stockport County
Home city or town: Stockport
Area: Greater Manchester
Nickname: The Hatters, County
Home ground: Edgeley Park
Manager: Dave Challinor
Currently playing in: EFL League 1
Tier: 3
First opponent in Round One: Forest Green Rovers
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup run: Fifth round
Rivals: Manchester City, Oldham Athletic, Bury, Rochdale, Crewe Alexandra, Macclesfield Town, Burnley, Stoke City, Wrexham

One of the older clubs, founded by schoolboys in 1883, Stockport County suffered a fire at their grounds in 1935 which also took with it all their records. I'm not saying there's anything suspicious about that, not at all, not me. The fire also burned down some nearby houses, so I suppose in general Stockport may not have had the greatest reputation among the locals at that time. Mind you, five years later and Hitler would do the job for them.

Customs and creditors came pointing at invoices and making the "hand it over" gesture, but Stockport showed empty inside pockets, so Customs fucked off. Like hell. They intended to wind the club up, but a last-minute sale saved their bacon. I think this is the first time I've heard of a team going backwards, from professional, full-time to amateur part-time, but that was the proposal in 2013.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Swindon Town
Home city or town: Swindon
Area: Wiltshire
Nickname: The Robins
Home ground: The County Ground
Manager: Mark Kennedy
Currently playing in: EFL League 2
Tier: 4
First opponent in Round One: Colchester United
Highest position achieved: Premier League
Giant Killing(s) Wigan Athletic (2012)
Best FA Cup run: Semi-finals
Rivals: Bristol Rovers, Oxford United, Reading, Bristol City, Forest Green Rovers, Cheltenham Town, Newport County, Gillingham

Another of the older, more venerated teams, Swindon Town are another which was founded by a churchman, The Reverend William Pitt (presumably not the Younger) in 1879, and in the true spirit of Christian charity, some of the funds from the match between them and Man United in 1911 (actually the Charity Shield, perhaps appropriately) went to help the survivors when some big ship went down in 1912, can't recall the name. Enormous or something like that. This is also interesting: (Uncle Albert voice) during the war, Swindon's ground was commandeered by the War Ministry and converted into a prisoner of war camp! It says the war "affected Swindon more than more other football clubs", but it doesn't say why, or in what way. Hmm.

Speaking of war, in 1970 (no, the team did not sign up to fight in Vietnam!) Swindon played in the Anglo-Italian Cup, and after riots and a pitch invasion in their game against Napoli tear gas had to be deployed to allow them escape to their dressing rooms. And, presumably, to the airport and back home to dear old Blighty! Oh, to see the fair shores of England once more, where the FA slapped a fine on them for illegal payments to players in 1989 and got themselves relegated, and their chairman a six-month prison sentence.

Now come on! You deserve everything you get if you decide to appoint as your manager a guy whose first name is Iffy! Yeah, apparently: Iffy Onoura, who presided over their ignominious dive from Premier League to EFL League 2. Customs went around shaking the tin - and its fist - again, but a new owner sorted that. Ah ha! Torquay United make another appearance. More trouble at the bank when financial irregularities were discovered at the club, and some players walked, fans urged the boycott of the club until the owner pissed off, the players weren't being paid and now the council was demanding rent it had not had for the ground.

They're probably not the only ones, but Swindon Town are the first club I've read about who have their own hooligan gangs (is the word hooligan even used anymore? Probably call them something like "agents provocateur" or "agitators" now), quite a few in fact, including the hilariously named Swindon Town Aggro Boys (STAB), the Swindon Southside Firm (SSF) and the Swindon Active Service (SAS). Just surprised there wasn't one with the acronym SS! And by the way, this isn't way back when: from the 1970s right up to 2006 these lunatics were ruining the sport for everyone. Whether they have since been brought under control I don't know. No they haven't; well, incidents have decreased but there was still a punch-up in 2023 that saw 4 arrests, and in 2013 a so-called fan ran onto the pitch and punched Leyton Orient's keeper.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Sutton United
Home city or town: Sutton
Area: London
Nickname: The U's, The Yellow, The Amber and Chocolates
Home ground: Gander Green Lane
Manager: Steve Morison
Currently playing in: National League
Tier: 5
First opponent in Round One: Birmingham City
Highest position achieved:EFL League 2
Giant Killing(s) Coventry City (2-1, 1989); Colchester United (1993); Torquay United (yay!) (1993); Cheltenham Town (2-1, 2017); AFC Wimbledon (3-1 (replay) 2017); Leeds United (1-0, 2017)
Best FA Cup run: Fifth round
Rivals: Bromley, Carshalton Athletic, Kingstonian, AFC Wimbledon, Tooting & Mitcham

Well, look, despite all the giant killings shown above, and the fact that they were the new AFC Wimbledon's first ever opponent on their formation (see entries on both them and MK Dons for more), the only real information I can give you on these guys is a sort of funny story. Apparently bookies had, for some reason I don't understand, given odds of 8-1 against their reserve keeper eating a pie during the match, and blow me down, but he did! He ate a pie, sitting on the bench. Allegations of being paid off (possibly, though never proven, in pies) led to the guy's resignation. Well, that's the world of association football for you: everyone wants a piece of the pie. Sorry.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Tamworth
Home city or town: Tamworth
Area: Staffordshire
Nickname: The Lambs
Home ground: The Lamb Ground
Manager: Andy Peaks
Currently playing in: National League
Tier: 5
First opponent in Round One: Huddersfield Town
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup run: Third round
Rivals: Unknown

Well! Talk about the bloom going off the rose! Tamworth signed, somehow, ex-Arsenal and Aston Villa midfielder (and noted poster boy for substance abuse) Paul Merson, he played one game (in which they lost), was dropped to the bench for the next game (which they also lost), left and a month later announced his retirement from football. The best laid plans of mice and managers, eh?

[Trollheart]

Team name: Taunton
Home city or town: Taunton
Area: Somerset
Nickname: The Peacocks
Home ground: Wordsworth Drive
Manager: Richard Luffman
Currently playing in: Southern League Premier Division South
Tier: 7
First opponent in Round One: Crawley Town **++
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s)None
Best FA Cup Run: First round
Rivals: Unknown

Oh well at least there's something I can write about them. Taunton Town hold the record for the most penalties, not, I think scored but kicked, in a game, having beaten Truro City 12-11 in a match which took place in 2019. 34 penalties were taken in all. Can you imagine that in the professional game? Not so much sudden death as death of a thousand cuts. How knackered must they, and the supporters of both sides, have been at the end! And poor old Truro City: to lose such a huge amount of penalty kicks by one! They must have been kicking themselves, although after all those penalties, another kick is probably the last thing they wanted to do!

I'm actually surprised they're in this, as it seems they were threatened with being wound up, unless they could cough up the readies for the King and his taxmen, and they couldn't, so how are they still here?

[Trollheart]

Team name: Tonbridge Angels
Home city or town: Tonbridge
Area: Kent
Nickname: The Angels
Home ground: Halcyon Wealth Longmead Stadium
Manager: Jay Saunders
Currently playing in: National League South
Tier: 6
First opponent in Round One: Harborough Town
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup Run: First round
Rivals: Unknown

Wow. These guys are so small time that they're the first team I've researched for whom Wiki had no crest on their page. A-Googling I had to go, and I found one. On the club's own website.

Never heard of a team calling themselves angels before. Would be quite funny if they held the record for the most red cards or something, wouldn't it? Well, I think it would, so there. Okay they got their name from a local hotel, called The Angel. Fair enough I guess: we've far too many devils and imps running around the place, and the Saints are probably feeling picked-upon.

Hmm. A crowd of 5,000 for your opening match back in 1947 seems very impressive; many of the teams I've read about had hundreds watching them, not thousands. And this was before they built up any sort of following. If they ever built up any sort of following.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Tranmere Rovers
Home city or town: Tranmere
Area: Merseyside
Nickname: Rovers, The White Army
Home ground: Prenton Park
Manager: Nigel Adkins
Currently playing in: EFL League 2
Tier: 4
First opponent in Round One: Oldham Athletic
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) West Ham, Sunderland and Fulham (2000); Everton (3-0, 2000); Southampton (4-3, 2000)
Best FA Cup Run: Quarter-finals
Rivals: Wrexham, Bolton Wanderers, Southport, Everton, Liverpool, Chester, Crewe Alexandra, New Brighton

One of the "grand old clubs" of English football, Tranmere, being from Merseyside, are I guess always going to be in the shadow of the two leviathans of that area, Everton and Liverpool, but they have seen the heights of the Premier League themselves. With all the stuff about World War I and II that comes up here, it's interesting to note that apparently Tranmere's players were criticised (I don't know specifically by whom) for not doing their part and signing up to be blown to little pieces in the trenches or be scattered across No-Man's Land. I imagine most if not all of these "objections" came from those who would not, or could not, fight themselves. I noted in some programme or other that a certain cohort of women took it upon themselves - during WW II I think - to present white feathers to any man they encountered who was not in uniform. A bit much, as they had the perfect excuse not to be fighting, and had the army allowed women in, I wonder would they have been in such a rush to put their lives in jeopardy?

Actually, come to think of it now, women could and did serve in World War II, as nurses, ambulance drivers, flight plotters and even anti-aircraft gunners. So what were these women going on about? Or was it the Great War they did that? And how did I get onto this tangent anyway? Oh yeah: because they mostly worked in the shipyards as well as played footy, the Tranmere players were criticised for not enlisting. Well, it takes one to know one, or something.

While we're at it, can I just take a moment to shout out to the Wiki editors, bunch of fucking nit-pickers, who make me look cavalier and tolerant. In the entry on Tranmere, it's dotted with whining notes - "primary source required" or "close paraphrasing" or "source failed" - which really pisses me off. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to write this article, and nobody has paid them, and now we have some little jobsworth cunt who wants to tear it apart because certain links don't work or may be taken nearly verbatim. And they're not getting paid either! How would I like it if someone started pulling my articles to bits on SCD or MB, writing in snide little notes and observations, a passive-fucking-aggressive if I ever heard one. Really grinds my gears, that does. It's not just one or two: they're all over the article. Fuck's sake you smarmy, superior cunt: leave the guy or girl alone! Write your own poxy article, and see how far you get!

Okay, that's out of my system now. Sorry. But I hate nit-pickers. Except for myself. I loathe me. Back to the article anyway. Showing that even the "bigger" clubs could struggle, Tranmere had financial problems throughout the 1980s and at the end of the decade went into administration. Sorry that's all I can write: constantly stepping around those fucking poxy notes, like someone following you with a red marker and circling all your mistakes, is driving me mad and I've kind of skimmed through it.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Walsall
Home city or town: Walsall
Area: West Midlands
Nickname: The Saddlers
Home ground: Poundland Bescot Stadium
Manager: Mat Sadler
Currently playing in: EFL League 2
Tier: 4
First opponent in Round One: Bolton Wanderers
Highest position achieved: Championship
Giant Killing(s) Arsenal (2-0, 1933); Charlton Athletic, Birmingham City (1987)
Best FA Cup Run: Fifth round
Rivals: Wolves, West Bromwich Albion, Shrewsbury Town, Port Vale

Paul Merson figures in the story of Walsall, too. Becoming manager in 2004, he was unable to halt their slide down the table and they were relegated. Despite this, and despite too the fact that Merson had no managerial experience prior, Walsall's board gave him the job full time. It would turn out to be another poor decision concerning this guy, as by the time fan pressure had forced the chairman to see sense, they had suffered another relegation. Merson sloped off, possibly with the contents of the drinks cabinet in his car. What a waste of time.

I guess the flipside of appointing a guy called Iffy is to give the job to someone whose second name is Money, and so the hilariously-named Richard Money (wonder if his friends called him Rich, or Richie? Or even Richie Rich?) was appointed to save the day, and more or less did, keeping the club up that season for the first time in a while. Not only that, they were in the top three for most of the season. Our Richie left in 2008, but by then the club had more or less stabilised.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Wealdstone
Home city or town: Ruislip
Area: London
Nickname: The Stones, The Royal
Home ground: Grosvenor Vale
Manager: Matt Taylor
Currently playing in: National League
Tier: 5
First opponent in Round One: Grimsby Town
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) Colchester United (1950); Hereford United (3-2, 1978); Reading (2-1, 1978)
Best FA Cup Run: Third round
Rivals: Barnet, Harrow Borough, Enfield, Hendon

Hey! It's Dulwich Hamlet again! Never thought I'd read about them after the first time. And they were involved in a thrilling, record-breaking match  against Wealdstone in 1929, which ended in a staggering 7-7 draw. After all that, the Hamlet won the replay. In 1991 Wealdstone had their ground sold out from under them, and had to ground share with Watford and other clubs till they could get another stadium to play in. 1995 was their worst year, when all they could must was a two-man team thanks to serious financial difficulties.

You really have to feel for them. After various ground sharing exercises, they finally began to get their own place built in 2003, only for their backers to go out of business the following year! The site remained unfinished for two years, after which the council said "Fuck this! We gots to make money," and sold the site to Barnet, who used it as a training ground. Wealdstone were out in the cold again. Hey, at least they had their revenge on the villagers that year, when they beat Dulwich Hamlet on penalties. And they finally got their own stadium in 2008. Yay!

[Trollheart]

Team name: Weston-super-Mare
Home city or town: Weston-super-Mare
Area: Somerset
Nickname: The Seagulls
Home ground: Woodspring Stadium
Manager: Scott Bartlett
Currently playing in: National League South
Tier: 6
First opponent in Round One: Bristol Rovers
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup Run: Second round
Rivals: Clevedon Town

Another seagull! Hey, at least these guys are called the Seagulls. But hold on: isn't that what Brighton are called too? Well, we've already established that nicknames get replicated across clubs throughout the divisions, so I guess it doesn't matter: not likely too many people are going to mistake Premier League Brighton for National League South Weston-super-Mare, now is it? But if you're not a seagull-fancier, not much more I can tell you.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Wigan Athletic
Home city or town: Wigan
Area: Greater Manchester
Nickname: Latics, Tics
Home ground: Brick Community Stadium
Manager: Shaun Moloney
Currently playing in: EFL League 1
Tier: 3
First opponent in Round One: Carlisle United
Highest position achieved: Premier League
Giant Killing(s) Carlisle United (6-1, 1934); Manchester City (1-0, 2013); Manchester City (2014); Manchester City (1-0, 2017) (Getting to be a bit of a habit, this!)
Best FA Cup Run: Final (winners)
Rivals: Bolton Wanderers, Manchester City, Preston North End, Oldham Athletic, Blackpool, Rochdale, Blackburn Rovers

How times change! In 1932 Wigan bought their stadium for a measly three grand. You'd almost pay that for rent in an expensive apartment now, certainly wouldn't buy a house, never mind a stadium. But times were different then, money bought more, and dinosaurs roamed the earth in search of the next big thing. Or was that football talent scouts? Same thing really.

You have to admire Wigan's persistence though: thirty-seven times they applied to be admitted into the Football League, and thirty-seven times they were told to sling their hook. On the thirty-eighth, perhaps worn down by successive requests, the League said okay, and they were in. And once they were in, they were staying in! Not only that, they made it to the Premier League and remained there for several seasons, even though some of these stays were due to "great escapes" and last-day survivals.

They also won the FA Cup in 2013, against high-flying Manchester City. In fact, they beat Pep's team twice in successive years, the second time in the semi-finals. Oh no I'm wrong: three times. But after they were relegated from the Premier League things started to go wrong. The club was sold and the new investor seemed a bit stingy with the funds, hardly anyone being paid and in fact half of the staff being laid off. It got so bad that the local MP for Wigan got involved and brought the situation up in the House of Commons, probably.

With points deductions, fine and a winding-up order, things were finally settled last year when the club was bought by a locally-based millionaire, who cleared all debts. Wigan had, by this time though, already been relegated from the Championship, and began their new campaign with an 8-point deduction, therefore starting the season with a negative points difference.

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Team name: AFC Wimbledon
Home city or town: Wimbledon
Area: London
Nickname: The Dons, The Wombles
Home ground: Plough Lane
Manager: Johnnie Jackson (and his clone, Jackie Johnson! )
Currently playing in: EFL League 2
Tier: 4
First opponent in Round One: MK Dons (!)
Highest position achieved: Premier League (as the original Wimbledon), EFL League 1 (as AFC Wimbledon)
Giant Killing(s) Fifth round
Best FA Cup Run: West Ham (4-2, 2018)
Rivals: MK Dons duh, Charlton Athletic, Crawley Town, Sutton United

Much of this post refers to and crosses over with the one on MK Dons, as explained in that article, so I won't go into the details of how a long-established Premier League team split, in effect, one half going to Milton Keynes and the other, this one, staying here. It's of course not that simple, but as I say, you can read the full story in the article on MK Dons. As far as the new AFC Wimbledon (which, for simplicity's sake, I will refer to here only as Wimbledon) were concerned, their new life began very much in the lower leagues, but they would soon make it to the higher tiers of English football, perhaps if only to spite MK Dons.

Not that they needed more controversy, but their manager was sacked due to gross misconduct only two years in, after he was deemed to have acted inappropriately around staff, fired people without cause and spread untruths about the board. Given that the coach was a former player from the original Wimbledon (as were many others in the team) you could perhaps theorise that he had been left behind as a kind of "sleeper agent" by the new MK Dons, to try to disrupt the new team. If this was a spy movie and not association football. Fun, though.

Initially, Wimbledon had an almost meteoric rise up the leagues, going at one point on a 78-game unbeaten streak, but when they reached the top division they did find things a little harder, flirting with play-off places, and in 2006 they faced a massive 18-point deduction for incorrectly registering a player, though this was dropped to a 3-point when they were able to prove to the FA's satisfaction that it was all just down to clerical error, and not a deliberate attempt to circumvent the rules. As if!

They were also involved - though not directly - in the 2013 match-fixing scandal, which was written about in another article, can't remember which one, but overall Wimbledon's rise through the leagues continued unabated, and although they sailed close to the relegation zone on occasion, they never fell and earned promotion after promotion, the fastest and most complete rise through the ranks in English footballing history. In 2016 they were able to shake their fists at MK Dons, who had been relegated from the Championship that season and were in the same league as them, EFL League 1. To their delight, revenge was sweet as they faced their old rivals and beat them 2-0 in March of 2017. I see they're in EFL League 2 now, so that seems to have been the first time they have been relegated, which is quite amazing. MK Dons, who they face in the first round, should probably watch out! The Gang is, it seems, still crazy after all these years.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Woking
Home city or town: Woking
Area: Surrey
Nickname: The Cardinals, The Cards
Home ground: Laithwaite Community Stadium
Manager: Michael Doyle
Currently playing in: National League
Tier: 5
First opponent in Round One: Cambridge United
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) West Brom (4-2, 1991); Barnet (various years); Millwall and Cambridge United (1997); Swindon Town (2019)
Best FA Cup Run: Fourth round
Rivals: Stevenage, Aldershot Town, Torquay United (rayy!)

I guess you won't find Bolton Wanderers on the list of Woking's rivals, as they were essentially responsible for keeping them in business. After defeating them in the 1905 FA Cup, Wanderers were so impressed by the way Woking played, being such a small team in comparison, that they played a friendly match at their home stadium, the gate receipts allowing Woking to pay their debts and remain solvent. That was nice of them; they didn't have to do that, and I'm sure it's cemented an ongoing friendship between the two clubs.

Woking went on not only to survive but to thrive, maintaining their place in the lower league for 78 seasons, something of a record I would think. Nothing lasts forever though, and in the 1980s they began to slip and slide down the leagues, but by the 1990s they were back on track. FA Cup glory beckoned too, and in 1991 they beat three National League sides and then took Second Division (EFL League 1) team West Brom for 4-2, going on to be narrowly beaten by Everton. However currently it seems Woking are - or were, at the time of the last notes in the Wiki article - in deep financial trouble, with the owner offering to sell the club for a pound. Not sure if anyone has taken that up yet.

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Team name: Worthing
Home city or town: Worthing
Area: West Sussex
Nickname: The Rebels, The Mackerel Men
Home ground: Woodside Stadium
Manager: Chris Agutter
Currently playing in: National League South
Tier: 6
First opponent in Round One: Morecambe
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup Run: Second round
Rivals: Unknown

Really there's very little I can tell you here. Every time but one Worthing have made it into the FA Cup (never getting any further than the second round) they've been beaten, and usually quite comprehensively. Other than that, they've quietly played their football in the lower leagues, and don't look too likely to be rising any time soon. Hardly Worthing my time. Sorry.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Wrexham
Home city or town: Wrexham
Area: Wales
Nickname: The Red Dragons, The Robins, The Town
Home ground: Racecourse Ground
Manager: Phil Parkinson
Currently playing in: EFL League 1
Tier: 3
First opponent in Round One: Harrogate Town
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) Shrewsbury Town, Middlesbrough, Crystal Palace, Rotherham United, Southampton (1974); Sunderland (1977); Arsenal (2-1, 1992); Stockport County, Rotherham United (1995); Ipswich (2-1, 1995); West Ham (1-0, 1997); Peterborough, Birmingham City (1997); Middlesbrough (2-1, 2000); Coventry City (2023)
Best FA Cup Run: Quarter-finals
Rivals: Chester, Shrewsbury Town, Tranmere Rovers, Crewe Alexandra, Port Vale, Cardiff City, Swansea, Newport County, Stockport County, Notts County

"Welcome to etc"

The only other Welsh team in the draw, surely everyone knows about little Wrexham now, thanks to the intervention of movie star Ryan Reynolds in buying the club (possibly after a long night on the tiles and the ingestion of suspicious substances) and its featuring in a documentary on the goggle box. Formed in 1864, they're the fifth-oldest club in England and the oldest in Wales. I find it amusing that their first game ever was against the Prince of Wales Fire Brigade: surely they could have won by default by just shouting "Fire!"? All the other team would have had to answer the call, no? Leaving the match forfeited. But enough mirth. Yes, yes it is.

Oh, maybe just one more then. In 1867 they faced Druids and beat them 1-0. What? Could the other team not conjure up some goals? Suppose the magic was gone for a spell? All right, I really will stop now. I recognise death threats when I read them in my inbox. Ah but I have to add this: after beating the magic ones and winning the trophy, the newly-inaugurated Welsh FA were so strapped for cash that they couldn't afford the cup! Imagine it: "You won lads. Sorry you can't hold up the trophy just yet, we're having a whip-round. Here's an IOU for now!"

1888 saw the rent on their ground rise to a staggering TEN POUNDS a year! Who makes that kind of money? Of course, let's remember that back then a tenner would buy you a house, or passage on a ship to the New World, so you can see how much they were being charged. This at a time when a pint was thruppence, or something. Oh look, they just keep coming. This is highly entertaining. Has any other club ever fielded a one-armed player? Wrexham did, in 1890, when Arthur Lea played for them. I've checked, and there's no indication as to whether he was in an accident, had the arm removed by surgery or was born that way, but given the time I imagine the latter might be more likely. He also worked as a postman. Quite a guy.

Oh wow! They had TWO one-armed players. No, I'm not going to say it. I'm not. You can't make me. They won't like it. I'm telling you now. Forget it. No. No way. Probably not. Oh all right then if you insist. Had they taped the two of them together Wrexham would have had one good player. See? I told you they wouldn't like it. Now look what you've done. As it happens, Lea was one of their best scorers, so there. Even played for his country, and oh my god! Almost lost his leg too! Now that would have ended his career. Can't find out anything about the other guy.

The 1980s were not a good time for Wrexham, as they were twice relegated and faced severe financial burdens. I certainly can't say I've read before of a club's chairman trying to get his own team kicked off the ground so he could sell it to developers, but that's what happened at Wrexham in 2006. Okay, seems the same thing happened at Brighton, and there the fans rose up and got the chairman fired. Here though, a 10-point deduction for being unable to pony up to the taxman ended in relegation for Wrexham. Meanwhile the diabolical chairman lost his bid to sell the ground, the court ruling it had to remain part of the club's assets, as they were now in administration. Boo! Hiss! Hoorah for the judge! Etc.

Then in 2020, as we all know, Hollywood arrived to save the day, in the shape of Ryan "Deadpool" Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, who bought the club, significantly raising its profile and winning new fans on the strength of the docuseries Welcome to Wrexham which, for many of them I suspect, was the first time they had ever heard of the club, or the town. Or, possibly in some cases, Wales. This of course coincided with a spurt in form, and Wrexham were promoted to EFL League 2, and the next season were playing in England's third tier, EFL League 1.