Wrexham executive director Humphrey Ker is well used to club co-owner Rob McElhenney’s eager optimism and ambition, and so could not help a wry laugh when asked about the actor’s quotes that he wants to develop the club’s Racecourse Ground up to a 45,000-55,00 seater stadium.
That’s a considerable increase from their current 12,600 stadium, with their Kop end currently home to a temporary stand.
The new series of Welcome to Wrexham will begin airing on Disney+ in the UK this Friday, 3rd May, charting (spoiler alert) the club’s successful 2023/24 campaign in League Two following their promotion from the National League last year.
Wrexham fanbase could help break through League One glass ceiling
Asked about McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds’ ambitions for the Racecourse Ground in conversation with FourFourTwo, Ker laughs: “Let’s just build a stand..let’s have a permanent stand on all four sides of the ground before we start talking about 55,000!
“They are ambitious and they want to do great things. Rob is an enthusiast and that enthusiasm is what has driven this project, so I definitely at times roll my eyes so hard they nearly out of my head when he says that – but the reality is, I did that when he said we should buy a football club at the start, and here we are.
“I did that when he said ‘oh, we’re going to go up to the Premier League’ and this, that and the other, and I’m starting to be like ‘well, maybe we could do that’, you know?
“I think what he was saying in there was that the version of the Kop stand we’re looking to build now is part of a design we’re working in to make it modular in such a way that you could replace the other stands around the stadium and wind up with a much bigger footprint than we have right now. “
Ker believes Wrexham’s strong historic fanbase could set Wrexham apart from other clubs that have come up from non-league like a rocket only to find they hit a ceiling upon reaching League One: FourFourTwo presented Crawley as one such example.
But as Ker points out, the club differ in that as well as having attracted new fans through their worldwide TV exposure and celebrity backing, they are in fact a former long-term Football League club that has just returned after years in the wilderness of non-league – perhaps more akin to a Luton Town than a Crawley.
Asked if that makes Luton an example for Wrexham to follow now having successfully gone all the way to the Premier League, Ker acknowledged the club were taking nothing for granted as they prepare for life in League One.
He added: “You always want to learn and you don’t want to think you’ve got the answers or we somehow understand football better than anyone else, because that’s certainly not the case.
“With Luton, Brighton, Brentford, those are obvious examples in recent years of clubs that have done it and done it well – and Wigan, going back further, albeit Wigan have dropped back down to League One now, but they showed a route up there.
“I think one of the big differences between us and the likes of Crawley, with the greatest of respect to Crawley, is the existent fanbase before we came in. We were getting crowds in the National League when we were circling the drain in sort of 2019/20 – when COVID put a stop to things – than Crawley were getting in League One.
“Any club that makes that journey has to grow their fanbase, grow them quick, and they usually have to compete with a lot of entrenched local interest in a Premier League or Championship club that’s nearby.
“Where we’re lucky with Wrexham is although we’re not far from Manchester and Liverpool, our catchment area is big, and we have a lot of people who are like ‘oh, yeah, Wrexham’s my second team, I’m an Everton fan but I like Wrexham’.
“What we’re starting to see is a lot of people switching that. I’ve talked to lots of people who are like, ‘I actually had a season ticket at Everton and gave it up to get a season ticket here with my kids because I couldn’t afford to get all four of us into Everton every week, but I can do that with Wrexham’.
“That’s great for us. That’s the base from which we will build any future success, is those fans.
“Wrexham fans are very sensitive to the ‘where were you when you were s***’ and all that kind of stuff, and actually we can point back to a period where we were regularly getting crowds of 35,000 when we were in what is effectively now the Championship, back in sort of 1978, 80, 81. We beat Porto in the Cup Winners’ Cup – there’s a huge history at this club.
“So everything we’ve done now, there’s a lot of focus on the here and now, but this club was a great institution long before we came along and will be after we’re gone.”
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