Ryan Reynolds went from joy to despair and from punch-the-air ecstasy to despair.
The unlikely new love of his life – Welsh football club Wrexham – took the movie star on an emotional rollercoaster ride in a thrilling FA Cup match with an unscripted ending on Sunday.
wrexham, the fifth-tier team bought by Reynolds and fellow Hollywood actor Rob McElhenney for $2.5 million in November 2020 on the recommendation of one of its authors, conceded a 3–3 draw against Sheffield United in the fifth minute of injury time.
Reynolds and one of his daughters flew in for the fourth-round match at the atmospheric Racecourse Ground in North Wales, some 28 miles south of Liverpool, and went through a whole host of emotions as the goals scored at either end.
He’s getting used to it now.
“I’m so in love with this sport now that I actually hate it,” Reynolds, a Canadian-born actor best known for starring in the Deadpool movies, told the BBC ahead of the game.
“At every match I walk around like a caged lion.”
With 71 places between teams in the pyramid of English football, Wrexham would have come close to a big upset to continue a long line in their history. The team defeated then-English champions Arsenal in the third round in 1992 and also reached the quarter-finals in the third division in 1996/97.
This was the biggest opportunity since Reynolds and McElhenney, an American actor and director who was the creator of the TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, took charge.
Fans serenaded Reynolds, who sat in one of the directors’ boxes and stood for most of the game, with a chant of “There’s only one Ryan Reynolds” late in the game – when Wrexham were 3-2 up and what it looked like to complete a win against an opponent who was down to 10 men at the time.
Reynolds was seen walking across the field and into the dressing room to speak to the players after the final whistle.
And he has a sequel to look forward to: Wrexham and Sheffield United meet in a replay next month. Wrexham defeated another second division side, Coventry, in the previous round.
The new Hollywood owners are using Wrexham for a behind-the-scenes television series called Welcome To Wrexham, which runs on Disney+.
Reynolds said he hopes to take Wrexham to the Premier League.
“The plan now is and always has been the Premier League,” Reynolds said. “I can’t really date that. But if it’s theoretically possible to move from the fifth division to the Premier League, why shouldn’t we?
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