Much of the conversation on the radio after the Manchester Derby on Sunday skipped right past the detail and headed straight for the big questions.
Questions of identity and philosophy. Questions of a gulf in quality. Questions of whether Erik ten Hag has a future at Old Trafford.
It's little wonder. Manchester United were embarrassed on their own turf by a Manchester City team who barely broke a sweat. United have made a woeful start by their standards and those standards are at the core of the discourse.
Chris Sutton, Robbie Savage, the utterly risible Chris Waddle and a host of other voices on Sunday night mentioned or hinted at the idea that United at home carry the onus. The expectation is that they play a certain way, that they have a particular attitude simply because they're United.
Manchester United are not special.
They're wealthy and powerful. They've been wildly successful for extended periods, and they've been both scintillating and seemingly unbeatable at times. They've had an aura, sure.
But they're not special, at least not in the sense that they have a divine right to win titles or be as good as City or play attractive football just because.
The post-Ferguson era was always likely to pose a conundrum. Smarter men than me have tried to solve it. Ole Gunnar Solskjær had a go as well.
I don't have the answer or anything close to it. They do need an answer because their expectations and their reality are currently so far apart.
One wonders whether they might benefit from understanding that they're just a football club like all the others. A massive, popular, minted football club with a history like no other, no doubt. But just a football club nonetheless.
Welcoming Welcome to Wrexham
In February 2021, two North American celebrities completed a deal to purchase a National League football club in North Wales. They promised – in deed if not word – a media circus. In the fifth tier of English football there is a cynicism about bold commitments and ambitious statements of intent. With few exceptions, these are clubs that have been burned before.
The National League, formerly the Football Conference, is in my football blind spot. It’s at once too low down and too high up for my tastes, essentially equidistant between the easy access of the Premier League (in which the team I grew up supporting play) and the eighth and ninth levels where I actually experience the sport in person.
Level five, or Step One to me, is of little to no consequence. Apart from enjoying the odd game on television, the National League is so far out of my sphere of experience that I’m wholly unable to raise an opinion even on the matter of how many promotion places the division offers into the EFL – one of the hot button issues in non-league football.
In short, and in the nicest possible way, I don’t much care. I wish its participants well and I want them to be solvent and healthy. I hope their supporters get the same joy from the game as I do. But turn the table upside down in the middle of the season and it’s a toss-up as to whether I’d notice.
So, when Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds bought Wrexham, their takeover initially inspired the usual scepticism that comes into my mind when ailing clubs are rescued by knights in shining armour and never more so than when I’ve heard of them.
There is nothing about McElhenney and Reynolds owning Wrexham that should appeal to me. I’m not Against Modern Football in any meaningful sense but I am in many ways a traditionalist and a little old-fashioned when it comes to my football values. Celebrity, documentaries and clubs spending beyond their previously sustainable means always ring alarm bells.
Yet I’ve found myself gradually coming around to Ronald McDonald and Van Wilder’s ownership of Wrexham. What makes this takeover different from others that have left a sour taste?
The first thing that should be acknowledged is that I already liked McElhenney and Reynolds. That’s not true of all football club owners and it certainly isn’t true of all celebrity club owners, most of whom are plastic, vacuous tosspots who have no idea what they’re doing and no intention of finding out.
So, there’s some bias here. Between It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and its associated podcast I spend more virtual time than is strictly advisable in McElhenney’s company. I’m a fan of McElhenney, of the show, of Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton, of Kaitlin Olson and Danny DeVito. I’ve always found Reynolds funny.
That’s not a reason to support their ownership of a lower league football club but damned if it doesn’t buy them a longer leash when it comes to my own cynicism. It would be poor form not to admit that.
The upshot is that I believe them and I believe in them, albeit while reserving the right to pull that sentiment at a moment’s notice. I’m not in favour of everything they’ve done and said at Wrexham but if we’re asking whether they’re a positive for Wrexham in terms of the bigger picture, I’m sold.
It helps that I’m late to the party. I’m interested in non-league football and Wrexham have been one of the biggest stories, so I’ve observed from afar. But it’s only relatively recently that my wife and I have rattled through the documentary.
Wrexham are now in the fourth tier. The pudding’s already been eaten and the proof must have been pretty special. The new Wrexham had already achieved big things before I sat down to watch the first episode of Welcome to Wrexham and that sure makes it easier to trust that the owners have good intentions and the smarts to bring them to fruition.
The documentary reveals a pair of owners who know what they don’t know but care a whole hell of a lot. When they’re wealthy enough to make an impact, that really is the key difference. Welcome to Wrexham is good television, raw and apparently honest, and its greatest attribute is its focus on the learning curve of owners who are aware that they have lots to learn.
It's not all sunshine and light in North Wales. The documentary has clearly been made with an American audience in mind and therefore occasionally chafes for those of us who absorbed the basics of football the better part of four decades ago.
There are some people who appear regularly in Welcome to Wrexham with whom I would actively avoid going for a pint. Out of respect for the fact they are members of the public, I shan't delve any further.
There are a number of instances of what I believe to be performative passion – inauthentic "I'm so bloody Wrexham, me!" showing off that simply doesn't ring true.
But there's also Paul Mullin. The now globally famous Liverpudlian striker is, by every measure I can dream up, a good egg. Like McElhenney and Reynolds, I find Mullin natural, engaging and easy to root for.
Then we come to Shaun Harvey, whose prolific presence in Welcome to Wrexham seems to suggest that his official role as advisor to the board undersells his influence at the Racecourse Ground.
Harvey is the documentary's puzzle. He obviously comes across well – that's how it works – but the level of access McElhenney and Reynolds appear to be serving up does give Harvey the space to reveal himself as an informed and capable administrator especially suited to leading the club in lieu of any actual expertise elsewhere at board level.
But…well, it's Shaun Harvey. The worldwide audience of Welcome to Wrexham will have no idea about his career up to this point but it shouldn’t be overlooked.
After long spells at Bradford City and Leeds United, Harvey became one of English football's most powerful officials when he was voted in as the Chief Executive of The Football League, which operates and represents the second, third and fourth tiers of the English game.
In his time in charge of The Football League, which unfortunately became the EFL by way of a rebrand under his watch, Harvey was neither popular nor respected. He was instrumental in the introduction of the dastardly EFL Trophy and oversaw the completion of a television rights deal that wasn't well received by the league's 72 clubs. The manner in which the deal was done was also criticised.
Harvey's involvement with Wrexham is presumably under the guise of Wantaway Limited, the consultancy firm of which he shares directorship with his wife, Nicola, and has other clients that include the always delightful folk at FIFA.
Welcome to Wrexham looks good on him, though, and as well it might. McElhenney and Reynolds have brought a lot to the Racecourse but success on the pitch wouldn't happen without the knowledge of Harvey and the ability of manager Phil Parkinson.
Clearly, Parkinson has also had some outrageously superior raw materials with which to work. Currently turning out alongside Mullin and Ollie Palmer, the big signings lauded by the documentary thus far, is Steven Fletcher. The Scottish striker has played for three different clubs in the Premier League and two in the Scottish Premiership, not to mention a loan spell at Marseille and 39 international caps.
Therein resides the reason I shouldn't be as amenable as I am to the Wrexham project. Mullin and Palmer should have been out of reach for a National League team. Fletcher should have been out of reach for an EFL League Two team.
That they weren't is proof positive that McElhenney and Reynolds have tilted the playing field. That, to me, tends to be a major problem. Even in this case I find it a little difficult to stomach.
But there's nothing inherently wrong with investing one's money in a football club within the parameters of the rules and my issue with outwardly ambitious ownership always really comes down to whether they're breaking the rules and whether their very involvement puts their clubs at risk when they're supposed to be custodians.
That's the crucial difference with Welcome to Wrexham. Call me overly generous and gullible and naive, accuse me of being redwashed by Hollywood, but I look at Wrexham from a distance and the one thing above all that I don't see is undue risk from their ownership.
For all the sideshow glitz and star power, McElhenney and Reynolds seem to be a force for good in North Wales and at Wrexham because they put the club before their celebrity but use their celebrity for the betterment of the club.
A cynical old fool I may be, but I wouldn't be much of a football supporter if I begrudged the Wrexham fans that. We all need to soak up and enjoy the good times. Wrexham have had many during their long history. They might just be on the cusp of the best of all.
If you enjoyed the main piece, please share this week’s newsletter using the button below.
For non-football writing and collage art, visit my website.
“He's made a connection with fans who were starting to squint at Villa, and wonder if the spark remained. He's made visiting Villa Park - often a test of endurance - a real day out flanked in optimism with the expectation of victory. He has created an expectation of brilliance, and set the bar at the club so very, very high.”
I finally made it back to Villa Park on Sunday so I know how James Rushton feels.
Salty beef extracts
Sorry, just the three this week. I’m sick.
David Squires on … Sir Bobby Charlton, Munich, glory and heartbreak (The Guardian)
‘Detail is key’: Five ways Emery has transformed Aston Villa after the dark days of Gerrard (i)
I spent a week in the Faroe Islands and witnessed a football miracle (i)
Dessert
In life, we can only hope to shine like the Lotto Zhero Gravity OG 50 Years football boot.
By the way…
High Protein Beef Paste is a free newsletter.
However, if you’ve enjoyed my writing over the years you might consider purchasing a Systematic Decline art print.
I’m open to writing commissions and artistic collaborations. Get in touch if you’d like a chat.
That’s your lot. Thanks for reading. Please subscribe if you enjoyed it and haven’t done so yet.
Don’t be shy when it comes to sharing the newsletter. If I can get a decent handful of subscribers I can sack off Twitter and isn’t that the dream for all of us?
Have a week.
I do support a National League team (Southend United) so did spend a lot of the last two seasons hoping Wrexham would win all bar two of their games so that them and their money would leave our division and give us a bit more of a chance.
And yet...I too watch this show and find myself pulling for them. Ryan and Rob really do seem like good sorts.
The programme has been interesting when moving away from the field too. There’s an episode in series two about autism which was done incredibly well.
Interesting to see how far all this goes. They’ve got a great chance of promotion this season too and as long as R&R don’t get bored the potential does seem to be massive.