Latest news with #GresfordDisaster
Leader Live
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Leader Live
Wrexham FC legend loved in the Racecourse 'Royal Box'
He was an eye-catching star man as Wrexham won promotion the first time the club soared into the old Second Division in 1978, he played in Europe, alongside George Best in Gareth Davies' testimonial and who will ever forget that fabulous free kick that gunned down Arsenal in the third round of the FA Cup in 1992. Saturday's promotion-clinching victory over Charlton Athletic was almost 47 years to the day that Thomas scored the opener as Arfon Griffiths' Reds routed Rotherham 7-1 at The Racecourse. And Thomas, now 70, admits Saturday's memorable match ranks right up there with his best days ever - and he even got a name-check in Reds' co-chairman and Hollywood movie star Ryan Reynolds' victory speech. Reynolds said: 'You can go all the way back from the Gresford Disaster to Mickey Thomas, who is a huge point of aspiration for this club.' Reds' legend Thomas ended up on the pitch in the after-match promotion celebrations after being invited into the Racecourse Royal Box. 'It was amazing, brilliant,' said Thomas, who managed his regular trip to catch up with his great pal and Wrexham legend, Joey Jones, as well as giving a talk at The Maesgwyn before Saturday's big game. 'I was in one of the boxes below and the fans started chanting my name. 'Ryan and Rob were on the balcony and saw me and at half-time I'd been invited up to join them. 'It was incredible; they are incredible people as are the club's new investors, Eric and Kaleen Allyn. 'It was a great day for them and, of course, the fans, who I know have gone through the tough times here.' Thomas also had special praise for manager Phil Parkinson, who he described as one of Wrexham's best signings of all time. 'Phil deserves so much praise,' added Thomas. 'To win three promotions on the trot has never been done before but he's done it and he's had to make some tough decisions - not playing fans' favourite Paul Mullin being one of them. 'But it was good to see Mullin and all the players celebrating yet another great day for Wrexham Football Club.' Thomas, who has made an amazing recovery to fight off cancer, also took a moment out to reflect on the occasion. Reynolds and co-owner Rob McElhenney described Thomas and young Reds' fan Archie White, who is battling a rare form of blood cancer, as two of the strongest people they've ever met. McElhenney shared a picture on social media of Archie with Thomas, saying: 'Two of the strongest people I've ever met. Mickey and Archie, thank you for showing us what's really important.' 'I thought I was just lucky to be there with what I've gone through,' added Thomas.
North Wales Live
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- North Wales Live
'People laughed at our Premier League ambitions - but we weren't kidding' says Wrexham AFC's Ryan Reynolds
Making a very public display of affection at Wrexham AFC's promotion celebrations at the weekend were Ryan Reynolds and his wife Blake Lively. After Saturday's match, which saw the club win a historic third successive promotion to reach the Championship, both took to Instagram to share what the club means to them. In a jubilant post, Ryan voiced his love for the city, admitting he 'feels at home here' and comparing the stadium to a 'church'. Along a series of celebratory photos, he described his pride in the club and how he agreed with the sentiment that Welsh people have the 'heart of a poet and the fist of a fighter'. Referring to those who doubted his and Rob McElhenney's Premier League ambitions, the Hollywood A-lister said no one was laughing any more. He wrote: 'We've been with Wrexham for what seems like the blink of an eye, but so much has happened. I remember the first press conference, we were asked what our goals were… and I think Rob jumped in with, 'The Premier League'. People laughed. They had every right to. It seemed insane… But we weren't kidding. 'I feel at home here. It's a place that values community, decency and history. From the respect it pays to the Gresford Disaster, to the feeling of hope and miracles created by Mickey Thomas. 'These are big reasons Wrexham is growing into what it always was. It isn't just a place with a history of ups and downs, it's also a FEELING. And a feeling is sometimes as good or better than a memory." Ryan and Rob's Wrexham AFC takeover launched an adventure which has seen the club leapfrog from non-league to the Championship via an unprecedented run of two back-to-back promotions. Saturday's 3-0 win against Charlton Athletic at the Stok Cae Ras stadium was the cue for wild celebrations as Wrexham AFC climbed into English football's second tier for the first time in 43 years. Ryan continued: 'We made history. We've been promoted for a record third time in a row. That doesn't happen without the wisdom of Phil Parkinson and his coaching staff, or the talent of Paul Mullin. 'It doesn't happen without Max Cleworth and Arthur Okonkwo. Or Mark Howard who may have one of the hardest jobs there is. I watched Sam Smith create a frightening blend between football and martial arts, scoring our second goal yesterday. 'The stadium feels like a church. I know so many of you now. Since February, 2021, I've watched babies become regulars. And some regulars depart us for good. 'We've had the honour to scatter ashes of loved ones across that field. I've even watched every available hand shovel snow off the pitch to keep a match from cancellation." Finishing his tribute, he wrote: 'Somebody said the Welsh have the 'heart of a poet and the fist of a fighter'. That's what I love about this place. I wish the whole world could visit Wrexham. Diolch.' During and after the match, Ryan, 48, and wife Blake could be seen cuddling and cheering in the stands. She later shared an Instagram post indicating she is now just as emotionally invested in Wrexham AFC as her husband. Ryan previously revealed his decision to buy 'half of a fifth-tier national football league [club] in Wales' didn't initially sit too well with his wife. But judging by her post, all is now forgiven. The Gossip Girl actress, 37, even joined the team after the final whistle as the players hugged each other in celebration. Applauding Wrexham AFC, she described how she now feels part of one big family. She wrote: 'Thank you to the entire town, everyone who flew in far and wide, and to everyone on the field and off, from groundskeepers to stewards, gift shop to PT, kit managers to self-elected chant writers. History was made yesterday not just with you, but because of you. 'I'll always appreciate the warmth and embrace that you give me and my loved ones, in a way usually reserved for family. Your passion and the ferocity of your joy is the magic. Thank you for an unforgettable day. And for being a key part of our lives every day. 'Congratulations to the entire team, their families and the one and only Phil Parkinson. You show us all that impossible dreams really can come true.' Still basking in the glow of success, Blake saluted the Wrexham AFC women's team, describing how one of the day's highlights was the sight of scores of girls on the pitch wearing Wrexham AFC shirts. She also saluted Rob and Ryan as her 'favorite crazy ones, misfits, rebels, troublemakers, round pegs in the square holes... ones who see things differently'. She added: 'Thank you for the community and elation you bring me, your family's and so many.' After Wrexham's victory, Blake posted a photo of her husband embracing co-owner Rob in the stands, adding a gushing tribute to the pair. She wrote: 'To these two men... the love and respect that pours out of you each and together exponentially grows and creates more joy, more possibilities, more magic, more history. 'This picture feels to me like a painting of all you do for so many for being so present and appreciative of every moment.' Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter sent twice daily to your inbox See what's on in your area
Leader Live
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Leader Live
Wrexham: Ryan Reynold's heartfelt post after historic day
The actor, who was accompanied by co-owner Rob McElhenney and wife Blake Lively at the Racecourse Ground, joined in the celebrations after the Dragons beat Charlton 3-0 on Saturday (April 26). The result saw wild celebrations for Wrexham fans, with thousands invading the pitch at full time. In a post this morning (Sunday, April 27), Ryan reflected on his journey with the club so far. He said: 'We've been with Wrexham for what seems like the blink of an eye, but so much has happened. 'I remember the first press conference, we were asked what our goals were… and I think Rob jumped in with, 'The Premier League.' 'People laughed. They had every right to. It seemed insane… But we weren't kidding.' The Deadpool star went on to say that he had come to 'feel at home here.' 'It's a place that values community, decency and history. From the respect it pays to the Gresford Disaster, to the feeling of hope and miracles created by Mickey Thomas. 'These are big reasons Wrexham is growing into what it always was. 'It isn't just a place with a history of ups and downs, it's also a FEELING. 'And a feeling is sometimes as good or better than a memory.' On yesterday's incredible achievement, Ryan says: 'We made history. 'We've been promoted for a record third time in a row. 'That doesn't happen without the wisdom of Phil Parkinson and his coaching staff, or the talent of Paul Mullin. 'It doesn't happen without Max Cleworth and Arthur Oknonkwo. 'Or Mark Howard who may have one of the hardest jobs there is. 'I watched Sam Smith create a frightening blend between football and martial arts, scoring our second goal yesterday.' He added: 'The stadium feels like a church. 'I know so many of you now. 'Since February 2021, I've watched babies become regulars. 'And some regulars depart us for good. 'We've had the honour to scatter ashes of loved ones across that field. 'I've even watched every available hand shovel snow of the pitch to keep a match from cancellation. 'Somebody said the Welsh have the 'heart of a poet and the fist of a fighter.' 'That's what I love about this place. 'I wish the whole world could visit Wrexham. 'Diolch.'
Daily Mirror
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Ryan Reynolds sets Wrexham's clear next target as 'impossible dream' continues
Wrexham have been promoted to the Championship after the Hollywood-owned club completed a third successive elevation under their megastar co-chairmen Wrexham co-owner Ryan Reynolds' 'impossible dream' is to continue with the Premier League now in his sights. Lapping up a third consecutive promotion alongside the club's other Hollywood benefactor Rob McElhenney after a 3-0 win over Charlton which takes the North Wales side into the Championship he stated: ''Our goal is to make it to the Premier League. "On reaching the Championship he admitted: 'It just seemed like an impossible dream, but as storytellers, you look as much as you can at the macro view of history. 'Without it I would not be here. You can go all the way back from the Gresford Disaster to Mickey Thomas, who is a huge point of aspiration for this club. And the goal was to reach that feeling – and it is a feeling. 'Paul Mullin, Ollie Palmer, this coaching staff – we have the greatest dressing room in sports, in any category I have seen before. It's all for one. And then this community, I am speechless by their passion, emotion and transformation they have helped make. 'You can look at so many beating hearts at this club and it all starts with Phil. (Parkinson)." The Hollywood backed club have continued their amazing adventure – non-league to the Championship in three seasons. Some Tinseltown writers would believe this football script is too far fetched but it's real alright as co-owners Reynolds and Rob McElhenney hugged each other and all those in grabbing distance up in the posh seats of the Stok Cae Ras. Just two years ago the North Wales club who spent 15 seasons outside the EFL playing the likes of Boreham Wood can now anticipate the arrival of Ipswich Town, Leicester, Blackburn and other Championship luminaries. Amidst the glitz and glamour manager Parkinson has quietly manufactured a winning machine to satisfy the demands of the ambitious owners who come complete with cameras and hype with the Disney + documentary 'Welcome To Wrexham'. It's his sixth promotion with four separate clubs and the cameras captured his latest most compelling rise with Wrexham back at a level they last enjoyed 43 years ago. One of that team legend Mickey Thomas watched on. It was also his wonder free-kick in the FA Cup slaying of Arsenal which helped sell the club to their Hollywood duo. Reynolds had tried to get the party started hours before the game serving drinks at the now iconic 'Turf' pub – a must stop off for the increasing number of tourists from across the Atlantic engaged by the documentary. It was soon drinks all round as Parkinson's side rose to the occasion removing any nerves and tension with an inspirational two goal burst in three minutes. Charlton boss Nathan Jones had compared a trip to these parts as an outing to the circus. Well Wrexham's lightning start saw the home fans baiting the Welshman with a chant of 'You've Seen The Circus Now Go Home', although not as polite as that! It had been some double act from Ollie Rathbone and Sam Smith leaving Charlton wondering what had hit them. First from a James McClean short corner James played in Rathbone who let fly from just outside the area, his low shot fizzing past Will Mannion. Then Mannion was left grasping thin air as a lofted through ball from James saw Smith execute the perfect swivelled volley to make it 2-0 and leave the old ground shaking to its foundations. Charton who began the game knowing that a win would enhance their own ambitions of automatic promotion didn't allow the home side and their expectant fans an easy ride but dominant in possession they lacked a cutting edge, illustrated by Tennai Watson firing straight at Arthur Okonkwo. Then came the 80 th minute killer, Max Cleworth crossing for Smith to send a bullet header past Mannion.
New York Times
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Wrexham's Humphrey Ker on his job switch: ‘I was slightly falling out of love with the whole experience'
As the man who ultimately set Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney on the path towards buying Wrexham, Humphrey Ker has enjoyed a ringside seat for the club's subsequent rise. It means he has plenty of reasons to be thankful to the Hollywood duo. That gratitude, however, does not extend to being effectively strong-armed into running next month's Manchester Marathon by Wrexham's two co-chairmen. Advertisement 'It has been exactly as much fun as I expected — which is not fun at all!' says the comedy writer and actor. 'I keep searching for this runner's high that everyone keeps telling me exists. Maybe I'll get delirious around mile 12 and suddenly start enjoying myself, I'm not sure.' A throwaway comment seized upon by Reynolds and McElhenney explains why Ker will next month pound the streets of Manchester for 26.2miles in aid of the Wrexham Miners' Rescue Project, the club's nominated charity partner for this season. At the launch of an appeal to raise £250,000 ($322,000) towards turning the historic Miners Rescue Station building — those who led the rescue attempts at the 1934 Gresford Disaster that claimed 266 lives were trained there — into a community hub, Ker quipped to the audience: 'I'm hoping we will get there without me having to run a marathon.' GO DEEPER The mining disaster that defines Wrexham to this day A few weeks later, on their regular video call with Ker to discuss club business, the two owners not only revealed they had seen the clip but also entered him to run the April 27 marathon. Oh, and they'd start the fundraising by donating £26,200 each. Five or so months of training later and the start line is coming into view. The Athletic can sense Ker's nerves from 5,000 miles away, even allowing for how wife Megan Ganz — also a comedy writer and member of the team behind It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia — will be joining him on the run. 'About the only positive thing is I can now run for an hour without stopping,' he says in an early morning call from the couple's Los Angeles home. 'When I started this process, I ran until my heart rate went over a certain level and then walked. This honestly meant I was running for one minute at a time and that was it. 'Everyone who knows me has been saying, 'You? But you hate running'. The big problem is I'm quite fat these days. I've got skinny legs and skinny arms, but carrying around the waist. I look like an avocado.' Needless to say at a club where the Welcome to Wrexham documentary cameras film every move, Ker's fundraising efforts will form part of the upcoming fourth series. He insists much of it won't be pretty, even if the support from within the club includes a delegation who plan to join him in running the New York Half Marathon on March 16. Even that landmark moment, though, will carry consequences. Advertisement 'My wife depressed me the other day by pointing out I'll have to run another half marathon the following Sunday after New York,' adds Ker with a wince. 'Just to keep me on track.' As for next month's big day, he adds: 'There's no target other than to finish. Anything that involves me propelling myself over the finishing line on my own two feet is a victory for avocado-bodied men everywhere.' Wrexham has seen a lot less of Ker this season. And not just in a physical sense amid that fitness regimen for the upcoming marathon. Compared to the 2023-24 season, when he spent months on end in north Wales working on club business, his visits have become much more fleeting. Ker was at the STōK Cae Ras for the opening day victory against Wycombe Wanderers. He then came back for a few days around the 90th anniversary of the Gresford disaster in September, as he did again during a flying visit over Christmas. Otherwise, the 42-year-old has been at home in LA. After previously spending so long apart from Ganz — and effectively putting his writing and acting career on hold — the shift has been welcome. 'I was missing my wife,' says the lifelong Liverpool fan, who famously triggered McElhenney's interest in football by urging his co-writer on Mythic Quest to watch the Netflix documentary Sunderland 'Til I Die during the Covid-19 pandemic. GO DEEPER Sunderland 'Til I Die revisited five years on - 'I know Prince William's watched it' 'I was finding the grind of it a bit harder. I was slightly falling out of love with the whole experience, in a way. 'This season, though, has been great and allowed me to get back into my other life. It's been a good year, career-wise. It's always amazing to do both things, but it has been nice to give more of a focus to that side.' Michael Williamson's appointment as chief executive officer in May last year was the catalyst for Ker to resume his life on the other side of the Atlantic. The switch from executive director to community director came at his request amid a series of key appointments designed to bolster Wrexham's leadership team. One of those was Jamie Edwards, the head of community who Ker now works alongside. Advertisement 'How the whole setup works today has definitely improved from my perspective,' he says. 'There's less stuff landing on my plate where I was previously thinking, 'I don't know what this is and I'm not responsible for it'. 'Or I was getting tagged into things (by fans on social media) and asked why we were doing it like this. I had no idea! People were still emailing me or shouting at me about things I had no control over.' There has, though, been one downside to all this change. 'I do miss being in Wrexham and I do miss being at the heart of it all,' he adds. 'It's also a weird experience now in going to the stadium and seeing all these faces who I don't recognise. And they don't know who I am.' Ker will become a much more familiar face during the run-in. He's due to return to Wales a few days after the New York Half Marathon and will stay until the season ends. But Ker is refocusing on a career that took off in 2011 after winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer. A second series of BBC sitcom Daddy Issues, starring Ker alongside David Morrissey and Aimee Lou Wood, has recently been commissioned, while Sherlock Holmes and the 12 Days of Christmas, a show he co-wrote with David Reed, starts a two-month run in Birmingham later this year. Then, there's a film Ker has written with Ganz called If I Were You that is being shot by Amazon, with other big projects also in the pipeline. Wrexham clearly have lofty ambitions of their own and, according to Ker, the club are unlikely to settle for anything other than their very best. 'Phil (Parkinson) isn't a manager who is happy with stability,' he says. 'Same for Rob and Ryan as well. If Rob has a philosophy that can be condensed into one sentence then it would be, 'Why not us?'. 'He doesn't care for conventional wisdom. He likes to break the mould. Phil, (assistant) Steve Parkin and this group of players are all the same. They want to win. It's why when people bag on them, it gets my goat. 'Being more removed from things, it's been fascinating to watch expectations evolve as the season has gone on. Back in August at the Wycombe game, I was telling everyone, 'Anything above 12th, we should build a statue of Phil'. Advertisement 'Fans were saying the same to me. But we've gone from that to now, where we've been right up at the top of the table all season and massively outperformed all expectations, and yet I'm reading comments such as, 'Can't believe we scraped past Mansfield'. Or, 'The manager is s***'.' Ker remains a firm favourite among those who only know Wrexham through a documentary streamed by FX in the United States and Disney+ in the UK, but he's also popular on the ground, be that among supporters or the players. This affection, though, has not saved Ker from some ribbing during the countdown to that marathon date in Manchester. 'The one who's made the most fun of me is (former Wrexham captain) Ben Tozer,' he says. 'Now he's no longer shackled by being a club employee, he seems to feel he can be as insolent and impertinent as he wants. 'I'm also fully aware Rob and Ryan are hoping to watch me suffer and then come out the other side, transformed. 'Me? I just want to get it all over with and, hopefully, raise some funds for a great cause.'
