{"id":31315,"date":"2023-05-02T20:41:23","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T20:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-wrexham-paint-town-red\/"},"modified":"2023-05-02T20:44:34","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T20:44:34","slug":"soccer-wrexham-paint-town-red","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-wrexham-paint-town-red\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer-Wrexham paint town red with open-top bus parade after promotion to EFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Reuters) -Wrexham’s Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney ditched the star-studded Met Gala to join the Welsh soccer club’s open-top bus victory parade on Tuesday as they celebrated promotion to the English Football League.<\/p>\n

Wrexham last month secured a fairytale return to the EFL following a 15-year absence by beating Boreham Wood 3-1 to win the National League with a game to spare, and ended the season with a record 111 points.<\/p>\n

The Hollywood glitz has made Wrexham’s promotion one of the most unlikely and heart-warming stories for many seasons.<\/p>\n

Thousands of people gathered on Tuesday as the 159-year-old club’s fans filled the streets with red and white smoke.<\/p>\n

The size of the crowd meant the bus route had to be changed and the parade was extended before finishing at the club’s Racecourse Ground later than scheduled.<\/p>\n

Since being taken over by Reynolds and McElhenney in November 2020, Wrexham have become a club with global appeal, gaining international interest and new fans across the world. <\/p>\n

Humphrey Ker, Wrexham’s executive director, said the scenes proved again why the Hollywood pair took over the club, seeing a place with an incredible legacy and potential.<\/p>\n

“And if you can activate both of those things, you get what you have today – crowds of people coming out to celebrate a historic championship in terms of points numbers, but also, in terms of restoring what we now belong to,” he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

The Welsh outfit were the first minor league side to feature on the hugely-popular FIFA video game in the ‘rest of the world’ category, while a Disney docu-series “Welcome to Wrexham” that followed the club’s journey under the new owners was released. <\/p>\n

The club also attracted the attention of American tourists in Wales, with celebrities such as Will Ferrell and Hugh Jackman also turning up at games to show their support.<\/p>\n

Wrexham said Tuesday’s parade was also to celebrate the achievements of their women’s team, who won promotion to the Adran Premier, the highest league in the women’s game in Wales.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Tommy Lund in Gdansk; Editing by Christian Radnedge and Ken Ferris)<\/p>\n

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(Reuters) -Wrexham’s Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney ditched the star-studded Met Gala to join the Welsh soccer club’s open-top bus victory parade on Tuesday as they celebrated promotion to the English Football League. Wrexham last month secured a fairytale return to the EFL following a 15-year absence by beating Boreham Wood 3-1 to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":31316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-31315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410RH-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31315"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31469,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31315\/revisions\/31469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}