Welcome to Wrexham to be shut down? Ryan Reynolds & Rob McElhenney told when cameras may have to disappear – with documentary series not always a welcome distraction for Paul Mullin & Co

Hollywood co-owners at SToK Racecourse have offered the Red Dragons a window to the world, with their fan base growing across the globe as Football League stars such as Paul Mullin and Elliot Lee become household names a long way outside of North Wales. A fly-on-the-wall series produced by Reynolds and McElhenney has been universally well received, with players growing accustomed to unconventional demands, but such exposure would not be to everybody’s taste.

Former Wrexham star Carlos Edwards, who spent five years with the club at the turn of the 21st Century, has – speaking in association with OLBG – told GOAL when asked if he would have embraced or hated life on the big screen: “Both to an extent, but at the same time you have to put business away from being focused on games and training. You are going to have distractions along the way. For me personally, I wouldn’t allow it in the changing room during a game or before and after a game. You want to reflect – win, lose or draw, you want to reflect after the game. To have that kind of distraction, it’s not really good. You want to just sit back, go home to your family, have a pint and reflect on the game. You have cameras and everything going on in the changing room. Everyone is different. We live in a society now where everything is cameras and social media.”

Quizzed on whether certain things do not get said that need to be due to the cameras being around, Edwards added: “I think so. I have this conversation with my wife sometimes, people are scared to speak up unless something goes absolutely wrong. It’s shouda, woulda, coulda and not saying it there and then and nipping it in the bud. At the end of the day, you have to set certain examples – you can’t just have cameras going on everywhere just to get a bit of promotion for the club. It’s good, but there are different ways and means of doing those kind of things away from the changing rooms.”

It has been easy for Wrexham to live with the added attention that television cameras bring as positive results have become par for the course. Were that situation to change, then Reynolds and McElhenney may have to rethink their approach. Edwards said on cameras being put away if collective fortunes take a turn for the worse: “That’s it. That’s the pros and cons of it. You have the cameras when you’re winning, and then you have that little dip in form and all of a sudden they don’t want the cameras in because it’s a distraction. Why wasn’t it a distraction before you had that dip in form? You need to understand that things need to be done there and then, not when it’s not going the way that you want it to. You have to set certain standards. As a manager, as a coach, you don’t want all that distraction going on behind you. You want to concentrate, because as a coach your head is already going 24 hours a day – you have agents, board members, everyone, you can’t even sleep. You have a week to prepare your team for a game and then you have in the background, the cameras will be there for the documentary before and after the game. All things like that you have to study. We have to understand that these boys have a job to do. I don’t think you can go to a corporate office when they have a board meeting and have cameras doing a documentary, so why should it be in the changing room?”

It has been plain sailing for Reynolds and McElhenney since their stunning takeover of Wrexham in the spring of 2021, with only the odd wobble being endured, and they are yet to experience any kind of backlash from a fan base that has taken them into their hearts. Football supporters can be a fickle bunch, though, and Edwards said of superstar co-chairmen needing to brace themselves for when things are not going quite so well: “You live and you learn. Until that time, they will have a dip in form and I’m hoping that it is not one of those dips where everyone starts pulling their hair out and starts pointing fingers, but when that reality hits – which at some point it will, maybe not this season – I hope that they understand that they have signed up for this and not try to take a step back. If you are in it, you have to be in it fully. If you don’t have a lottery ticket, you don’t have a chance. If you are in it, you have to stick with it in the good times and the bad times. You look at it, in League Two they are getting over 10,000 fans – it’s unbelievable.”

Wrexham are flying high in the League Two table at present, with Phil Parkinson piecing together another promotion bid. The Red Dragons claimed the National League title in record-breaking style last season – earning them an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas – and they are now just two points away from hitting the fourth tier summit, while boasting a game in hand on leaders Stockport.