Real story of redemption gets a Hollywood ending

It's 4 am on a Sunday morning, and I'm wide awake. So are the neighbors. They don't want to be, and for that I'm sorry. Well, only a little bit. The cheer was involuntary. So is the exasperated, jealous cursing as I receive a flurry of notifications on my phone. They're from my pal Neil, a resident of what is, arguably, the world's currently most high-profile footballing city, and he's sending picture after picture of him and his mate gamboling on the hallowed turf of the local soccer ground alongside 9,000 other ecstatic fans and the odd A-list celebrity. I'm not talking about some glitzy Premier League club. This is the fifth tier of the English soccer pyramid, albeit on a small patch of grass in the north of Wales. It is, of course, Wrexham AFC, the benefactor of an unlikely pair of millionaire sugar daddies, and subject of a ridiculously popular docuseries that has propelled the club, the third oldest in professional soccer, to stratospheric heights of global popularity.

I'm not the only one enduring the unsociable hour to watch this blockbuster game unfold, either. The cheers for Elliot Lee's crucial equalizer, and superstar striker Paul Mullin's spectacular solo brace, could be heard from the farthest reaches of rural Alabama to the outback of Australia.

This is the non-league soccer equivalent of the moon landing. People are tuned in from all four corners of the world to watch a moment of history being made. Wrexham's return to the English Football League after 15 ignominious years. A Lazarus tale, for sure. One fit for Hollywood? Absolutely.

The team is box-office, of that there is no doubt. It has accumulated a history-making 111 points, the most by any team, ever, in British soccer, registering a staggering tally of 116 goals and has fallen to just three league defeats all season. It has been an epic tussle, too, for that vital, single automatic promotion spot with Notts County, which pushed Wrexham all the way, itself racking up a not inconsiderable 107 points. The rivalry has been as rewarding to watch unfold as it has been stressful. The last few games, with dropped points, red cards, and a dramatic last-second penalty save to claim a critical win over Notts, all contributed to the rising tension during what co-chairman and TV star Rob McElhenney called "squeaky bum time". We've collectively watched the other co-chairman, Hollywood heartthrob Ryan Reynolds, go grey in real time.

But, I don't think a single hungover man, woman or child (it is North Wales, these things can happen) in the city would change any of it for the world. If it had been too easy, it would seem somehow underserved. There is no sense of entitlement in Wrexham.

While the focal point is the club, this is the story of a community. One that has been exploited, and broken, and forced to dig itself out of the mires of poverty and tragedy so often in its history. Their soccer club mirrors that struggle. It has endured and stood stoic. Like the community around it, in the darkest of times, it has held its head up with dignity and faced every difficulty with the steely look, gritty belligerence and courage, ripped directly from the deeply-buried-but-abundant seams of inner strength, that only down-at-heel, working-class former mining towns seem to muster.

The club, a founding member of the English third division in 1921, which has chalked up famous victories over English champions and European powerhouses alike, and was once a production line of legendary players, was so nearly wiped from existence by unscrupulous owners looking to make a quick buck by selling it for scrap. Fortunately, the club was saved by the fans, who, in 2011, remortgaged homes, surrendered their life savings, and even gave up their pocket money to keep it alive, albeit on life support, wheezing the years away in the doldrums of non-league soccer. But it was better than nothing. The same could be said of the town, which was itself impoverished and rasping in a post-industrial coma.

Then along came Rob and Ryan, and, like a transplant patient receiving a new lung, the dying city could breathe easily once more, as all of the karma bought with the emotional and financial outlay of the past two decades was repaid in full, with interest.

Reynolds and McElhenney have lived up to every promise they made. Not only did they buy the club, but also secured the land upon which the world's oldest international soccer stadium (146 years and counting, with the Welsh national side set to face Gibraltar there in October) stands. That has allowed them to begin redeveloping the dilapidated Racecourse Ground, making it once again fit for purpose as a northern hub for Welsh soccer, which is apt considering it is where, back in 1876, the Football Association of Wales was established. The two have integrated themselves into the community (Reynolds has reportedly bought property in a nearby village), they support tons of local projects, fund food banks, and fly over not just to watch the men's senior side, but also the women's (who have also won their league and been promoted this season) and powerchair teams compete. These two are in this for the long haul, and with every fiber of their beings. That much is evident, as I watch the way they celebrate the moment the cup is lifted to a chorus of the club's anthem Wrexham is the Name.

So — spoiler alert — while the second season of Welcome to Wrexham will have a fairy-tale ending, the club's first season back in the EFL will feature a Welsh derby against Newport County, the chance to exact revenge for last season's heart-stopping 5-4 playoff loss to Grimsby Town and, possibly, another epic armwrestle with Notts County, if the latter can win the playoffs. There are probably those who are even dreaming of back-to-back promotions. And why not? The club's motto is "up the town", after all.

The question now is, with its feet once again on the EFL ladder, just how far up can "the town" actually go?