In Wrexham, the ‘Rob and Ryan effect’ goes beyond the soccer club as tourism and investments grow
A former market and mining town in north Wales has become a new and unlikely tourist destination in Britain after its soccer team was bought by Hollywood celebrities Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney
WREXHAM, Wales (AP) — Clutching a pint of Guinness in one hand and flicking through photos on his cell phone in the other, Nestor Aguedelo laughed and joked with his wife and sister-in-law in a corner of The Turf, a pub in north Wales that has rapidly become one of Britain’s most unlikely tourist hot spots.
“We came to Wrexham because of the TV documentary,” said Aguedelo, an engineer from Bogota, Colombia. “We got to know the city because of that, and we just wanted to see it for ourselves.”
It’s a familiar story being told across this former market, mining and brewing town, whose status has been transformed after its down-on-its-luck soccer club was bought by Hollywood celebrities Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney for $2.5 million in 2021.
That notoriety has only increased since the pair launched a fly-on-the-wall TV series — “Welcome to Wrexham” — that has turned the team’s players and some of Wrexham's residents into familiar faces on screens around the world.
