A second promotion to League One, and a new series of Welcome to Wrexham on Disney Plus, has once again drawn eyes to the remarkable rise of the Wrexham FC.
But long before Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney sprinkled their own brand of Hollywood stardust on the top right corner of Wales, the story of the finances and ownership of Wrexham Football Club had all the trappings of a John Grisham novel.
Back in the early 2000s two Cheshire property developers struck on the grand scheme to buy the club, sell the ground for a retail development and get the Welsh Development Agency, along with the proceeds from that sale, to fund a new stadium on the outskirts of town.
The pair were Alex Hamilton and Mark Guterman, and to compound suspicions among the supporter base and the local community, the latter had at one time been the chairman of Wrexham’s arch rivals, Chester City, an association that ended badly.
What followed was a circus, a drama.
But though a rich source of media stories – including a colourful alternative fanzine called Dismal Jimmy – provides part of the entertaining public record of Wrexham’s history, detailed evidence given by the Wrexham Supporters Trust in their submission to a parliamentary enquiry into Football Governance – Culture, Media and Sport Committee, lays out the events as they happened.
In April 2002 a solicitor turned developer called Alex Hamilton entered into an agreement with Mark Guterman — which they called the “Wrexham Project” — to profit personally from the property assets of Wrexham AFC.
Legend had it at the time that Guterman was a front for a bunch of investors from Cheshire’s wealthy golden triangle – Alderley Edge, Knutsford and Wilmslow, hatched in the captain’s room at Mere Golf and Country Club. In 2016 Guterman called me to specifically refute this and make clear it was just him and Hamilton.
What is true is that after taking ownership of Wrexham after buying it from long term owner Pryce Griffiths, through their own investment vehicle, they set about separating the Racecourse Ground, Wrexham’s stadium, from the club itself.
In 1998 Wrexham AFC had bought a 125 lease from the brewery Marston Thomas & Evershed brewery for £750,000 in order to secure their tenure at the Racecourse Ground for a peppercorn rent.
Wolverhampton and Dudley Brewery had originally inherited the freehold to the Racecourse when they took over Marston’s Brewery in 1999.
