How close did Hollywood duo really come to Hartlepool United takeover? Wrexham executive director reveals all

The National League side have been one of the most talked about clubs in the lower leagues of English football since their American takeover in February 2021 as they strive to make a return to the Football League under former Sunderland manager Phil Parkinson. The Welsh club have even been the stars of their very own Hollywood show in the acclaimed ‘Welcome To Wrexham’ docu-series on DisneyPlus, a show inspired by Netflix hit ‘Sunderland ‘Til I Die.’

And it was that series on the Black Cats which led McElhenney and co to pursue their interest in purchasing a football club, with Hartlepool among those clubs bookmarked by the Hollywood cohort.

Speaking recently on the Tifo Football Podcast via The Athletic, Wrexham executive director Humphrey Ker has revealed Hartlepool were one of up to 10 clubs the American consortium were considering buying before completing their takeover at the Racecourse Ground.

“Rob [McElhenney] was always lightly intrigued [in football]. He’s a big sports fan,” explained Ker.

Having binged on both seasons of the Sunderland Netflix drama during the initial COVID-19 lockdown, Ker says McElhenney “was like we should do this. We should buy a football team.”

Ker added: “I continued to think this was a lockdown conversation that was just two friends jabbering about something they weren’t really going to do. [But] I had nothing else to do so I went on Wikipedia and Football Manager and Football Manager, as we know, is an incredible database of information that’s quite hard to find elsewhere and I picked out eight to 10 clubs in the National League, National League North and South and League Two.

“I think I've named some of them, so Hartlepool was one we looked at vaguely, Macclesfield was talked about. There was a couple who were talked about that were in trouble.

“We knew from the jump we wanted to find somewhere that needed a helping hand or felt like it deserved a stroke of luck, so some of the ones I looked at initially we struck off quite quickly because they were on the outskirts of London or Manchester or somewhere where you felt like there’s plenty of opportunity here already in a way, and Wrexham very quickly became top dog.

“It’s a town, like many in the UK, that’s been left behind a little bit over the last 20 years. They had a big coal and steel industry, it all went away and there was a sense that it was a place that could use a stroke of luck and something good happening.”

Current Hartlepool chairman Raj Singh has suggested on multiple occasions of late how he would consider selling the club should a suitable offer come in but, on this occasion at least, it seems things were not quite written in the Hollywood stars.