Looking at the blueprint that's made Wrexham a success story

Leader Live

3 days ago

I'm quite certain that the success we're enjoying is not beyond what they expected. They've always made it pretty clear off the record that the Championship is most definitely a level they expected to reach.
However, to have got there this quickly, I suspect, is a surprise to them. The only season we haven't gained promotion was the first season after the takeover and that was completely understandable.
Phil Parkinson didn't arrive until fairly late in the summer as the club rightly made sure they made the correct managerial appointment, and as a result his squad wasn't really completed until a January transfer window.
We gave Stockport County too much of a head start. In the second half of the season we were the best team in the division but couldn't quite reel them in. Since then it's been back to back to back glory. This remarkable success is drawing an enormous amount of attention from across football.
Unsurprisingly, we're already seeing clubs aping our approach. Football is particularly prone to spotting trends and then trying to copy them. Maybe all society is.
Fashions come and go. Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool win the Champions League and the Premier League respectively without out-and-out strikers. So next season we'll see teams trying to replicate that style of play. Then, of course, everything will go around again and we'll end up with big lumps up front.
It's the same off the pitch. People step in and start to invest because they see what Rob and Ryan have done and they think that's the way forward. However, all of this I would argue is surface level.
Do they understand what really makes the Wrexham phenomenon so remarkably successful? There's an awful lot of clever stuff under the bonnet.
Too many entrepreneurs, chancers and band wagon-jumpers see Rob and Ryan's success and think they can do the same, but they underestimate the planning involved in Wrexham's expansion.
Uniquely, they've turned celebrity into cash.
We were sponsored by TikTok in the National League. Just stop and think about that for a second. TikTok.
That's a huge brand. And yet they thought they could increase that exposure by taking advantage of our fame. Obviously, they paid better than the local businesses that were propping up other National League teams.
Then we've had United Airlines. Oh, the second biggest airline in the world. Expedia sponsor Liverpool… and us!
I could go on. The point is clear though. We attract the sort of blue-chip advertising that major clubs dream of.
Look across the Premier League. How many of their sponsors are bigger than our front of shirt sponsors? And let's not forget that membership of that particular 20-club cabal is a licence to print money!
It's all down to the fact that people want to be associated with Rob and Ryan. Associated with the brands they've created both for themselves and for the club.
Brands are intangible, but they have worked out how to turn them into cold hard cash for our benefit.
Also central to their success is their humility. That's definitely a quality most prospective club owners lack.
Rob and Ryan were humble enough to appreciate that although they know their business and had an excellent concept for making a club succeed, they didn't know football.
How many times have you seen a rich person take over a football club, try to get involved with the ins and outs on a day-to-day basis and mess everything up?
Everyone can name a couple of clubs that would love to have an ownership model like ours. Their wealthy owners haven't come in with the intention of doing harm, but their poor decision-making has dragged them down.
Sure, we've spent money, but we've generated much of it, and anyway, spending doesn't guarantee success. Ask any Manchester United fan.
Rob and Ryan were smart enough to employ experienced people who are at the very top of the game. If the likes of Shaun Harvey and Les Reed don't know the ropes, nobody does.
Likewise, Parkinson has been a phenomenal appointment as manager and the infrastructure we've built around him, leaning on so many experienced people's expertise, is world class.
There's no ego to Rob and Ryan when it comes to these decisions. They're happy to be business managers and allow experts to run the football side of matters and be answerable to them.
That's why they're successful, and why we're phenomenally fortunate to have them in charge.