Revealed: How Man Utd & England legend David Beckham inspired Rob McElhenney & Ryan Reynolds in Wrexham’s retro 1990s kit design

The Welsh outfit have incorporated a dragon theme and Gresford mining disaster tribute into the jerseys that they are donning for life in League One. They have a traditional red home shirt, black for away games – with McElhenney a big fan of that alternate colour scheme – and a gold third offering.

All three kits are being made available with a long-sleeved option this season and break away from the tight-fitting designs that have become commonplace in the modern era. Instead, Wrexham are looking to deliver throwback shirts that offer a nod to the baggy kits worn by Beckham and Co in the 1990s.

McElhenney has told the Men In Blazers podcast of how involved he and Reynolds are in the design process and why a Manchester United and England legend influenced their thinking: “Ryan and I are very involved in that – I’m sure that’s no surprise! Because we can’t get our fingers, nor should we, in player selection or formation or anything like that – even the football logistics of running the club, we trust other people to do that. However, when it comes to the kits we get very, very involved. Luckily we have an incredible team that brings us options. Shaun Harvey usually spearheads that with Humphrey. They come to us with a few different ideas for designs and then we go through and select them.

“The one thing that Ryan and I insisted upon – and this was after having seen the Beckham documentary, which we watched the weekend it came out, and wanted to get a long-sleeved version of every shirt. We wanted it to be a little bit loose and billowy in that look from the 90s that Beckham and all the players seemed to wear throughout that decade. We wanted to have something like that.”

Whatever the thought process behind the new designs was, it is clearly working. Wrexham are flying once again on the field, with Phil Parkinson – who has already overseen back-to-back promotions – guiding the Red Dragons to the top of the League One table.