The Hollywood stars were watching from their homes in the
United States as Wrexham won 1-0 at local rival Shrewsbury, a team from one
division higher in English soccer’s pyramid, in the third round of the famous
competition on Sunday.
The Welsh club will find out on Monday its opponent in the
fourth round — or the last 32 — and there’s a good chance it will be a team
from the Premier League.
That would excite Reynolds and McElhenney, who bought
Wrexham for $2.5 million in 2021 and made the club the subject of popular
fly-on-the-wall TV documentary “Welcome to Wrexham.”
They have become keen soccer fans as a result, with
“Deadpool” star Reynolds posting a picture of himself on X, formerly Twitter,
sitting next to fellow actor Hugh Jackman while watching the Shrewsbury-Wrexham
match.
The FA Cup’s official account on X posted a video of
Wrexham’s goal against Shrewsbury, which was scored by defender Tom O’Connor in
the 72nd minute, and said the team’s fans enjoyed it. McElhenney responded to
it by posting: “You should’ve seen my living room.”
Wrexham has a strong tradition in the FA Cup, memorably
defeating then-English champion Arsenal 2-1 in the third round in 1992 for one
of the competition’s biggest-ever shocks. Wrexham reached the quarterfinals in
1997, beating top-flight West Ham along the way.
The buzz around Wrexham and its celebrity owners reached new
levels during a cup run around this time last year when the team beat one
second-tier Championship team in Coventry and then took another, Premier
League-bound Sheffield United, to a replay.
This season, Wrexham has already beaten Mansfield, Yeovil
and now Shrewsbury to reach the fourth round.
The team is also doing well in league play. It is in third
place in the fourth-tier League Two in a bid to secure back-to-back promotions.
-AP