Welcome to Wrexham

[CarterNMA]

"Welcome to Wrexham" premiers tonight on FX/Hulu and I think it deserves its own thread as it could fit in multiple threads.

For those still playing Football Manager religiously this is kind of a Lower-Level Manager dream. New owners with is some kind of Sugar Daddy rating. I have no idea how much Reynolds and McEllehenney are pouring into the club but I think it would be simply amazing for them to get up to the Premier League but we have to be realistic. Maybe a fixture of League 1? (They are currently in Conference National, the fifth tier of English football.)

When I started playing FM2014 in September 2019 (yeah, late to the party as usual) I found this "Let's Play Archive" very helpful for understanding how FM works and entertaining AF. I still read it over-and-over again. I hope that habeasdorkus is watching this show!
Football Manager 2014

Anybody else excited? I know GrantDawg mentioned it over a year ago. Predictions? Both for the show and how high Wrexham go?

[RainMaker]

I saw commercials for it and was hoping it is what you described (kind of made it seem like it could be a sitcom for a minute). Looking forward to it.

Is the Sutherland show worth watching too? I believe that's on Netflix.

[thesloppy]

Wrexham has been my fm low-level club of choice for like the last two decades, so I am intrigued by this show.

[GrantDawg]

I am very excited for this show, and yes the Sunderland show is well worth watching.

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[sovereignstar v2]

+1 for the Sunderland one. There is also a good one on Queens Park Rangers called 'QPR: Four Year Plan' I bought on Amazon. Might not be available anymore, but I might be able to help find it if anyone is interested.

The Four Year Plan (Trailer) - YouTube

FC Barcelona Confidential was a good one too -- FC Barcelona Confidential - Teaser 2004 - YouTube

[sovereignstar v2]

The QPR one is a total hoot. The opposite of all these ones on Amazon where everything is happy and filtered. I can upload it somewhere, just say the word.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Is the Sutherland show worth watching too? I believe that's on Netflix.

I haven't watched the Sunderland doc, but it apparently has the novelty of the camera crew being given all the access they wanted and then everything went to shit. So, basically you get to see all the inner workings in a way that no one in their right mind would generally allow.

Originally Posted by CarterNMA

I have no idea how much Reynolds and McEllehenney are pouring into the club but I think it would be simply amazing for them to get up to the Premier League but we have to be realistic.

The good news (and one would think this is part of why R&R bought them) is that due to being in the Football League as recently as 15 years ago, they have a decent-sized stadium and reasonable training facilities, especially when compared to most of the rest of the National League. With this, and judicious inputs of investment from R&R, they can probably survive naturally without too much of an overhaul in Leagues Two and One. The key thing to watch out for in this phase would be injudicious player contracts (i.e. too long and too much).

The Championship & EPL are a different animal, however. They'll likely need a new/expanded stadium (currently leased from the supporters' trust), and significantly upgraded training grounds. Both will require some good planning ahead to happen on time.

The biggest challenge would be navigating the acquisition of footballing talent in the Championship and then turn around and do it differently for the EPL, all mostly on the expectation of greater revenues, which is where a lot of clubs make serious mistakes. And this is not even mentioning needing the right manager(s) for both scenarios.

If they go from League One to the Championship, they'll need to restock with a mix of Championship veterans who can already play at that level, but be saavy (and, again, develop plans & contact far ahead) about bringing in a number of EPL youngsters on loan to pip them over the top. Then, should they get promoted, they need to deal with likely losing most of those youngsters, and having to make decisions about which Championship veterans can temporarily hold their own in the EPL while they start taking gambles on castoffs from bigger teams and relative unknowns from overseas.

The current gold standard for this is probably Brentford but a significant difference there is having an owner with a good knowledge of the business of football and a very clear, data-driven, multi-year plan to go from L1 to the EPL. Still, it took them over a decade to do so, although they look in excellent shape now to consolidate in the EPL.

It'll be fascinating to watch how it develops over the next few years.

[bhlloy]

So fucking bizarre to see a team and ground I’ve been to on many away journeys to 20+ years ago turn Hollywood. Can only be a good thing for Welsh football though. Many decent players come from the Wrexham area.

[PilotMan]

Watched the first couple episodes after binging Sunderland (boy that was a real eye opener and so many FM tie ins for me) and I hope it's good. Rob and Ryan are so naturally funny I'm really looking forward to it.

[sovereignstar v2]

Weird show, I'm not really sure what the demographic is.

Spoiler

I have no idea how Wrexham has been doing lately or how their season ended last year. And at this point I'm going to avoid finding out.
But judging by their current position after ep8 and the kind of stuff the show is focusing on I'm guessing it ended as a pretty massive failure. I have no doubt that Ryan will leave the club with it in a better place, but I don't think this is going to be anything near a fairy tale ending. I don't remember what all was in their mission statement, but I would be pretty surprised if they get more than one promotion before they pull out and leave the club in good hands. As it is, this show does not seem like something that will last long.

[Flasch186]

I believe the show is recapping last season and not the current one but I could be wrong


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[sovereignstar v2]

No, you're right. They are currently in the 21-22 season. It's not much of a time sucker, so I'll continue watching even though I'm not super impressed with it.

[britrock88]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

Weird show, I'm not really sure what the demographic is.

Apparently pretty broad, given that to my surprise my wife sat down next to me to watch the first episode. The infographics that are an "uh-huh" to me with hundreds of hours of FM LLM in the bag are great info for an American non-sportsnik coming cold into the English pyramid structure.

Brilliant idea in that I expect the doc itself can finance investment in the team to a certain level.

[GrantDawg]

I've only watched the first three episodes so far. I can't believe the coaching hire. That was a very recognizable name to me, and all I know of soccer over there comes from FM.

[PilotMan]

Let it be said, that if I was a LL manager in FM, and suddenly had a budget increase like they had, I could totally field a suddenly dominant team in the Vanarama North.