Paul Rudd in Wrexham to see if pal Ryan Reynolds’ team can make it to the Football League

Wrexham fans are in dreamland as the Welsh football club owned by A-list stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney were promoted last night to the Football League for the first time in 15 years.

In a Hollywood happy ending to the season, Wrexham FC were cheered on by 10,000 fans as well as celebrity guest and pal of Reynolds Paul Rudd, who celebrated a dramatic 3-1 win against Boreham Wood.

The American actor, 54, had been spotted drinking beer and joining in on chants at the Turf Hotel pub in north Wales ahead of the crunch match on Saturday night which, despite being in the humble National League, had a global following thanks to its Hollywood owners.

Fans stormed the pitch after the final whistle blew, and as cameras turned to the co-owners, Reynolds and McElhenney appeared to shed a tear as they took in the incredible scene of Wrexham FC celebrating the monumental victory.

Wrexham needed the win to secure promotion to the Football League with one game to go – and their fans were roaring them all the way from the moment it kicked off at 6.30pm.

But the north Wales team were 1-0 down when a goal from their opponents came silenced the stands 40 seconds in. They were not behind for long thought, with Elliot Lee bringing it back to 1-1 at 14 mins.

In the second half, super scorer Paul Mullin a second AND third goal – a brilliant goal into the top right corner – putting them in the best position possible for a win and a promotion.

Even the Prince of Wales took the opportunity to congratulate the team for the huge win on Saturday night.

Taking to Twitter, Prince William wrote: ‘Congratulations @Wrexham_AFC! A club with such amazing history, looking forward to a very exciting future back in the Football League. Doing Wales proud. W.’

Following the match just as his team was about to lift the Vanarama National League Trophy, Ryan Reynolds told BT Sport: ‘I am not sure I can process what happened tonight. I am still little speechless.

‘[People ask] “Why Wrexham?”. This is why Wrexham. This happening, right now, is why. Boreham Wood showed up today. They are an incredible team. They have one of the best defences in the entire league.

‘This entire story, the reason we are all on edge of our seats is because Notts County (the team in second place in the table) are so damn good. They deserve to go up. We are rooting for Notts County. We want to see them go up.’

Rob McElhenney added: ‘I think we can hear what it feels to the town. It’s a moment of catharsis for them and celebration.

‘For us to be welcomed into their community and be welcomed to this experience, has been the honour of my life.’

Reynolds and McElhenney seemingly have become soccer fanatics since completing their out-of-nowhere purchase of the Welsh club for $2.5 million in 2021.

An offshoot of the takeover was the making of a fly-on-the-wall documentary – entitled ‘Welcome to Wrexham’.

The series charted the journey of a historic but down-on-its-luck football team run by two actors learning the ropes of sports club ownership.

With Saturday night’s win, the second season of the show will have a happy ending, with Wrexham heading back into the EFL League Two – three divisions below the pinnacle of English Football, the Premier League – for the first time in 15 years.

Wrexham is now four points clear of second-placed Notts County with one games left to play, and so is guaranteed the sole automatic promotion spot to League Two.

Wrexham boast a proud history as the third-oldest professional football club in the world, with past glories including a FA Cup win over Arsenal and a European Cup Winners’ Cup triumph against Porto.

But they had fallen on hard times as financial problems saw an 87-year stay in the Football League come to an end in 2008.

Now they are back in circumstances a Hollywood script writer would struggle to match.

Before lining up in League Two next season, glamour friendlies against Manchester United and Chelsea await in the United States thanks to the club’s new-found American following.

Supporters closer to home got their moment in the sun as they spilled onto the pitch at full-time to celebrate amid plumes of red smoke billowing from flares.

Among the spectators at the Racecourse was Paul Rudd, another Hollywood actor who was spotted drinking a beer with locals, and watched the game in the directors’ box with Reynolds and McElhenney, who was reduced to tears at the final whistle.

Reynolds is best known for starring in the ‘Deadpool’ movies, while McElhenney is the creator of TV show ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.’ One of their stated aims when buying Wrexham from the club’s fans was to lead the 158-year-old club – the world’s third oldest professional club – to the Premier League and the journey is well underway.

It is Wrexham’s first league title at any level since the old Division Three – then the third tier in the English game – in 1977 and the team has done it in style, collecting a record 110 points so far and winning 34 of its 45 games.

And, as has so often been the case with the club, the win was achieved the hard way after falling behind inside 44 seconds.

Wrexham equalized in the 15th minute then Paul Mullin, the team’s star striker, earned victory with two superbly taken goals in the second half.

With the title in the bag, Wrexham fans lapped up the final few minutes of the match that ended more than a decade of hurt. The club fell on such hard times since the turn of the century that its supporters’ trust twice had to save the team from going out of business.

Since their unlikely takeover, Reynolds (21 million) and McElhenney (1 million) have used their large Twitter followings to promote the club and brought in sponsors such as TikTok, Aviation Gin and Expedia, global brands that typically have no place at this level of the game.

The actors are also living up to the promises they made when taking over, like making improvements to the stadium and investing heavily in the women’s team. They brought in board members and advisers with experience of top-level soccer and who have made good, sensible decisions.

The industrial town of about 65,000 people, located near the northwest English border and close to the soccer hotbeds of Liverpool and Manchester, has been abuzz with excitement for the past two years.

Last season, Wrexham lost in the playoffs to miss out on promotion but made no mistake a year later to get out of the non-leagues, where some teams are semi-professional.

Wrexham finished the game to a backdrop of fans joyously singing ‘We are going up’ – with Reynolds and McElhenney joining in.

Ahead of the incredible game on Saturday night, Rudd looked like he fit right in with the Wrexham fans who all looked in good spirits, as he enjoyed a few beers from plastic cups while singing along to the football chants.

Plenty of fans stopped the Hollywood A-lister for a selfie, and his arrival even caused ‘Paul Rudd’ to trend on Twitter.

He has been in London in recent days shooting for Ghostbusters: Afterlife alongside co-cast members William Atherton and Ernie Hudson.

They were seen stepping out on the streets outside St James’ Park Tube Station to film scenes for the follow-up to the 2021 movie, alongside an iconic prop car to go with the shoot.

Backed by Hollywood pair Reynolds and McElhenney, Wrexham have proven an enormous hit – even with fans in the United States, so much so that for many, the fandom has now become a daily way of life.  

Wrexham have ended 15-year wait to win promotion from non-league, and they are preparing for a US tour this summer, where they will face Manchester United, and also have season two of Welcome to Wrexham to follow later in the year as they look to capture the hearts and minds of even more in America.

Sat in San Diego last month to announce the blockbuster friendly against Manchester United, McElhenney is convinced Wrexham can become America’s team in the coming years.

‘We said from day one we want to grow the exposure of the club and make it a global enterprise,’ McElhenney said.

‘We have been really fortunate that Americans seem to have taken to the documentary and they fell in love with the town.’

Wrexham’s players will now also share bonuses of £200,000 after securing a promotion to League Two having chosen to forgo win bonuses during the season.

On Friday Mail Sport learned that Phil Parkinson’s squad backed themselves to gain promotion at the start of the season by agreeing that they would only receive win bonuses if they were in the top three throughout the campaign, in return for getting a bigger pay-out if they achieved their ultimate goal.

The players’ negotiations with Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney were led by captain Ben Tozer, whose faith in his team-mates appears set to pay off.

Wrexham are the highest payers in the National League, where the average weekly wage is around £1000, but a promotion bonus of around £20,000-per-man will still represent a major boost to the players.

The club will also secure an immediate financial windfall from promotion, which is worth around £1million in central revenue distribution payments from the EFL, as well as benefitting from the increased global profile of league football.

Paul Mullin, who scored two of the three goals in Saturday’s match, dropped down as the then-top scorer of League Two to National League just to join Wrexham.

There has been wild speculation on the money it has taken to bring him to Wales.

He is introduced to viewers to the tune of Shane McMahon’s ‘Show me the Money’ but for Mullin – who says he still hasn’t sat down to watch the first couple of episodes – the talk around his wages is tiresome and ‘irrelevant to life’.

‘I don’t understand why people care,’ he told Sportsmail.

‘I don’t go home and ask my mates who are joiners, ‘how much are you getting?’ It’s completely irrelevant to life.

‘It’s none of their business, no-one really gives one. For me I just go and play football and enjoy it and I don’t really let that affect me. I just wanted to be with my family and Wrexham was the place for me.