Are Wrexham Heading for a Third Consecutive Promotion to the Championship?

Here’s a fun pub quiz question: can you name a club that has gained three consecutive promotions in the professional ranks of the English football pyramid?

The answer is… well, nobody. That’s because it’s never happened before.

There would be an irony not lost on all those involved if it was actually a Welsh club that first achieved the feat; the local people, and more often than not, fans of Wrexham AFC are incredibly proud of their heritage in football and wider society.

Their incredible rise up the ranks of the English game is, it has to be said, indebted to the finances of one Canadian (Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds) and one American (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia creator Rob McElhenney).

They have pumped some of their considerable collective wealth into the Red Dragons (around £20 million it’s been estimated) with Reynolds himself has described owning a football club as ‘like lighting money on fire, except it doesn’t keep you warm.’

That investment has been reflected in success off the pitch, with successive promotions from the National League and League Two propelling Wrexham into the third tier for the first time in 20 years.

The ambition of the Tinseltown owners and those connected with the club extend beyond a long stint in League One… in fact, they want and perhaps need, financially speaking, instant promotion to the Championship. 

And with the Welsh side sat third in the table, at the time of writing, with 12 games of the campaign to play, can Wrexham become the first club in history to attain three successive promotions in the professional ranks of England?

Money Talks

It’s one of the golden rules of investing: buy low, sell high.

Reynolds and McElhenney acquired Wrexham at a time they were floundering in the National League, invested their money and their time into turning the club into a global ‘brand’, of sorts, and now the Red Dragons are worth considerably more than they were a decade ago.

Not that the owners will be selling up any time soon… or yet, at least.

Indeed, they continue to bankroll the project. According to Capology, Wrexham have the third-highest wage bill in League One, behind Birmingham City whose own American owner, Tom Wagner, has financed what looks set to be an instant return to the Championship and Huddersfield Town, whose playing budget is a legacy of their endeavours in the second tier.

In the transfer market, Wrexham have spent in the region of £4.5 million on new players in 2024/25; less than Huddersfield, and considerably less than Birmingham, whose £30 million outlay, including £15 million on Jay Stansfield alone, has set all kinds of League One records.

Reynolds and McElhenney are more known for comedic farce than football, of course, so they’ve been savvy in surrounding themselves with people who know the lower leagues of the English game well. 

Shaun Harvey worked in a senior role at Leeds United for a decade, helping steady the ship of the Yorkshire club at a time that they themselves had been relegated to League One. Manager Phil Parkinson made more than 500 appearances in the lower leagues, while his assistant Steve Parkin was the epitome of a bulldog defender in the 1980s and nineties with Stoke City and Mansfield Town.

There may come a time when the current senior staff team at Wrexham hits something of a ceiling; perhaps when, or if, the club reaches the Championship…

Cutting Edge

At the time of writing, third-placed Wrexham trail surprise package Wycombe by two points in the quest for automatic promotion.

It seems almost a certainty that Birmingham will win the League One title, such is their supremacy, which leaves just one automatic berth to be won… in a desperate bid to avoid the horrors of the play-offs.

There was a feeling that Wycombe’s form might dip after the loss of head coach Matt Bloomfield to Luton Town. And while the Chairboys won their first game post-Bloomfield, a 2-1 triumph at Mansfield Town, in league action since their formline reads a rather stodgier W2 D4 L1. That is not the kind of output that gets the job done at the business end of the season.

Wrexham, meanwhile, continue to march on. They went W3 D1 L0 in February while on League One duty, before succumbing to a 0-0 stalemate with Bolton to see in March, a contest in which the Welsh side created 2.01 of xG from 15 shots but yet couldn’t find the breakthrough.

That result was a microcosm of their season. Only Birmingham have conceded fewer goals than the Red Dragons in the third tier this term, but Wrexham’s attacking output of 48 goals in 33 games, at a rate of 1.45 per 90 minutes reveals their struggles in winning games comfortably.

Indeed, chance creation is something that they tend to struggle with. Wrexham’s collective xG for after 33 games played is just 39.9, which is less than a whopping 13 of their League One counterparts. 

Can you 1-0 your way to promotion? You can, although it’s a tough old business to pull off. And should Wrexham concede the first goal in a game, you can see how difficult it might be for them to get back into the contest, given their lack of attacking threat.

The irony, of course, is that the Red Dragons will need Parkinson’s expertly conservative style of football should they get promoted to the Championship. There, Wrexham will not be an anomaly in terms of their vast financial riches, so their competitive advantage will have to come out on the pitch. Whether this set of players can step up to the second tier is another matter entirely.

To win promotion in 2024/25, Wrexham will surely need to improve in the final third of the pitch too. Wycombe could yet kick on and re-establish themselves in second place, while Stockport County, in fourth, are motoring along with a current formline of W7 D1 L1.

So, unless Wrexham can find another gear this season, football trivia fans may be disappointed in their hunt for a first club to secure three consecutive promotions in England’s professional ranks. 

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