On May 1, a big news story came through: Wrexham's head honcho Ryan Reynolds had joined forces with Rob McHenry with the intention of upgrading the size of the club's home stadium, aiming to accommodate up to 55,000 spectators.
After two leaps forward, Wrexham are on the verge of making a name for themselves in League One next season. Thanks to the worldwide popularity of the documentary Welcome to Wrexham, the Welsh team has captured the attention of soccer fans around the world.
The historic, limited-capacity stadium only holds about 12,600 spectators. And its star owner is preparing plans for an expansion. "We have an ambitious blueprint in place for additional stands around the stadium, each of which will be carefully planned with each other," McHenry revealed. "While nothing is finalized yet, we predict the stadium will eventually hold between 45,000 and 55,000 spectators."
Reynolds envisioned, "The whole town will be immersed in soccer mania by then."
However, McHenry and Reynolds are frustrated by the "red tape" of UK building regulations. McHenry complains, "Safety regulations are necessary, but some of them seem to be there just to put up barriers."
"I have found that building a stadium in England is more complicated than anywhere else in the world. Our ultimate goal is to get into the Premier League and we have to stick to the Premier League in order to keep growing."
"But none of this is possible without community support, and there are many different paths to success. We firmly believe that only a few options are morally defensible."
Wrexham's home ground, the oldest international soccer stadium in the world, saw Wales' first home game in 1877. The development of the stadium will see Welsh soccer return to Wrexham more frequently. Since 2009, the Welsh adult men's football team has only hosted two matches at the venue, both low-attention friendly matches against Trinidad and Tobago and Gibraltar.
