Tea with Will Ferrell, visits from the King, pictures in Hollywood: Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson shares the ‘craziest’ moments of the last two-and-a-half years
The Welsh club's boss tells FourFourTwo why his time at the Racecourse Ground has occasionally been surreal
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson once guided a League Two club to a League Cup final – but he admits he’s never been as famous as he is now.
The 56-year-old first became a manager in 2003 and remarkably led Bradford City to a major cup final a decade later, but his role at Wrexham has taken things to new levels.
Although the Welsh club were in the National League when he took charge in 2021, the presence of Hollywood superstars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney as owners, plus the Welcome To Wrexham documentary, means that he’s now known by football fans on both sides of the Atlantic.
The club have had no shortage of high-profile visitors during his reign, including figures as diverse as Will Ferrell and King Charles.
“This has probably been the craziest two-and a-half years of my career, with everything that’s been going on throughout that period – whether it’s been the documentary, or Will Ferrell popping in for a cup of tea before one game, or the King coming to visit the club,” Parkinson told FourFourTwo.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“There’s always something around the corner, there’s always a real buzz about the place. It’s certainly not been dull!
“I went on holiday with my wife to Greece, and there were a bunch of Americans in the couple of places we stayed. I was shocked at how many of them had been watching the documentary and were coming to speak to me.
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“Then we went to America for our pre-season tour this summer, and that really did blow us away. It was beyond belief, almost like you had to be there to believe it, just how people had bought into our story.
“Everywhere we went, the players were getting stopped in the street: walking through Hollywood, people were asking for pictures. It was bizarre!”
Chris joined FourFourTwo in 2015 and has reported from more than 20 countries, in places as varied as Ivory Coast and the Arctic Circle. He's interviewed Pele, Zlatan and Santa Claus (it's a long story), as well as covering the World Cup, AFCON and the Clasico. He previously spent 10 years as a newspaper journalist, and completed the 92 in 2017.
