Wrexham host Chelsea in the FA Cup fifth round this weekend in a tie the Reds will hope gives them a taste of what’s to come as they set their sights on the Premier League.
“What the f***?” Ryan Reynolds blurted out. “Wait, wait, wait, we’re [at] home to Chelsea?”
Wrexham’s part-owner was elated, stunned even at the club’s glamourous draw for their upcoming FA Cup fifth-round tie.
The Welsh side had beaten fellow Championship side Ipswich Town to reach the fifth round for the first time since the 1996-97 season, and their reward was gratefully received.
Chelsea at the Racecourse Ground. For some, such a draw will have felt like a fever dream.
Perhaps that sounds a tad hyperbolic when thinking about a Championship side drawing Premier League opposition in the cup. Even accounting for Chelsea’s standing in the game, there’s only 20 places between them in the English football pyramid.
But, unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few years, you will be aware that Wrexham’s ascent has been so rapid that most people associated with the club are probably still coming to terms with it. The graphic below highlights their rise through the Opta Power Rankings since their promotion to League Two.
Danny Dinsdale / Guest AuthorSure, they’re a Championship club and doing very well this season, but before 2025-26, the last campaign they spent in the second tier was 1981-82. And prior to 2023-24, they’d spent 15 successive seasons outside the Football League; it can take a while for an exciting new reality to sink in when you’re so used to the exact opposite.
So, yes, Chelsea’s opposition this weekend are – in literal terms – a Championship club, but they’re also a side who were a non-league team less than three years ago, as they were when actors Reynolds and Rob McElhenney became majority owners of the club in November 2020.
It took a couple of years to climb back into the Football League, a situation not helped by the fact there’s only one automatic promotion place into League Two. But since they finally made the jump at the end of the 2022-23 campaign, they’ve not looked back.
Two more promotions followed in successive seasons, and now they have designs on a fourth in a row.
As league football takes a back seat for this weekend, Wrexham can rest easy in the knowledge their position in the Championship’s play-off places is safe.
Sixth in the table and with a four-point cushion over Southampton having hit a fine run of form, few would bet against Wrexham securing a top-six finish and continuing their season into the play-offs.
And from then? Who knows.
Almost all the club’s dreams have come true in the past few years, and sometimes it simply feels like there are other forces at work when it comes to sporting narratives.
We’re going to stop short of referring to their story as a “fairy tale”, however. While obviously an engrossing yarn already, let’s not pretend it hasn’t been made possible by considerable investment.
That’s not to say they aren’t where they are on merit, nor should supporters enjoy their rise any less because of the money spent.
But it’s no less noteworthy, particularly when you consider their reported net spend of £33 million in the summer was greater than that of several Premier League teams.
In fact, their rumoured total expenditure was greater than that of 46 clubs from the top five European leagues (excluding the Premier League), according to Transfermarkt.
Nevertheless, spending hefty sums doesn’t guarantee success – you still have to spend it wisely, and Wrexham’s results suggest they are being led very effectively. Given the squad turnover, as highlighted below, that’s no mean feat.
Manager Phil Parkinson deserves immense credit for the job he’s done since taking over in July 2021, when Wrexham were still in the National League.
His achievement of leading them to three successive promotions was a historic first in English professional football – so it doesn’t take a genius to work out it would also be unprecedented were he to lead them into the Premier League at the end of 2025-26.
Given Wrexham’s ambitions and the investment behind them, some may have expected them to have moved on to a more glamourous name in the dugout by now, but Parkinson has made light work of pretty much every challenge in front of him at the club. Quite simply, he’s not given them any excuse to consider their options.
And that’s continued into 2025-26.
While not (yet) in contention for automatic promotion from the Championship, there’s an argument this has been Wrexham’s most impressive campaign since the takeover.
The jump from League One to the Championship is broadly considered far greater than from the National League to League Two, or League Two to League One. But here they are, making a fourth successive promotion appear far more realistic than most would have thought at the start of the season in one of Europe’s most competitive leagues.
Their form since Christmas is what has elevated them to where they are now, with their 29 points in that time better than any other team in the Championship.
What makes their campaign even more remarkable is the fact they have dropped more points from winning positions (22) than all but one other team in the top four tiers of English football (Doncaster Rovers – 25). If they improved a little on holding onto leads, just imagine where they would be.
Of course, Saturday’s clash with Chelsea isn’t especially relevant to Wrexham’s league campaign, their achievements in the Championship or their bid for promotion. But it’s a massive occasion that provides a timely reminder of the rewards their league campaign could yield.
Not that they’ve let it cloud their focus. Wrexham head into the game having won three on the bounce in the league.
“It’s ingrained in us,” midfielder Ollie Rathbone said after the win over Charlton Athletic. “The next one is the only one that matters.”
Victory for them would hardly be the most surprising result imaginable either, especially given Parkinson has previous against Chelsea, having beaten them 4-2 with League One side Bradford City in the 2014-15 FA Cup fourth round.
The Blues went on to win the Premier League title that season, contributing to the Bantams’ victory being one of the great upsets in the competition’s storied history.
Chelsea at the Racecourse Ground will provide Wrexham fans with a moment to savour and, hopefully for them, incredible memories. But more than that, it’ll give them a taste of what’s potentially to come for a club enjoying a seemingly unstoppable rise.
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