Wrexham soccer team throws its weight behind Spectrum school field project

A Welsh professional soccer team that has earned global recognition thanks to celebrity co-owner Ryan Reynolds sent an official group to Spectrum Community School on Friday to help support an artificial-turf field planned there.

Wrexham AFC is in Vancouver for a Saturday game against Major League Soccer’s Vancouver Whitecaps as part of a summer tour of North America, and sent officials and sponsors to Spectrum after hearing about the field project.

The players stayed behind in Vancouver to train in preparation for their upcoming match.

The Vancouver-born Reynolds, along with ownership partner and fellow actor Rob McElhenney, put their previously little-known squad on the map thanks to their role in promoting the sports-documentary series Welcome to Wrexham.

The series, which tells how the team rose in both name and performance since debuting in 2022, has earned Critics’ Choice and Primetime Emmy awards.

A crowd of youth soccer and football players, Spectrum staff, government representatives and others cheered loudly when the Wrexham contingent arrived on Friday.

Spectrum teacher/athletic director Dominic Butcher and outgoing principal Bruce Bidney said the vision for a new turf field to serve the school and the larger community goes back about seven years.

Bidney, a fan of the Wrexham series, said the initial idea was to have two fields and an ice rink, but they have now honed in on a single-field complex that includes a clubhouse.

He said drainage issues on the existing field lead to flooding that can make it unusable in the winter, adding there is currently no artificial-turf field in the area.

A recent anonymous donation of $2 million has put the project well within reach, said Butcher, whose connections in the soccer community helped bring Wrexham to the school.

About another $1 million is needed and will come from further donations.

Bidney said the project will be on the agenda at a Greater Victoria School Board meeting in the fall for what is hoped will be final approval, followed by a 2025 start on field construction.

Wrexham executive director Humphrey Ker — known in Britain as an actor and comedian, and also featured on the Wrexham TV series — led the team group onto the Spectrum grounds.

He said the team wanted to make the most of its stop in Vancouver, and got wind of the field project through some of the tour sponsors, who were also supporting Spectrum.

The visit not only raised awareness of the field initiative, but Wrexham tour sponsors Johnsonville and SharkNinja each presented Spectrum with $15,000 cheques.

“We were keen to get involved as much as we possibly could,” Ker said. “We want to create partnerships between our community programs and community programs that exist in the locations that we’re travelling to this summer.”

He pointed to the young people playing soccer and Canadian football just a few steps away on the Spectrum field, and said they were the impetus for the team making the trip to Victoria.

Spreading the word and “evangelizing” about soccer is important to Wrexham, Ker said.

“From a very selfish point of view we’re hoping we can steal some of your players from here in due course,” he said with a smile.

Ker said that Reynolds and McElhenney view Wrexham as “a philanthropic engine” as well as a soccer team.

“A lot of that work goes on in Wrexham, in our local community, but as we’re travelling around we want to use the power of football, or soccer, to bring people together, to help draw communities together,” he said. “A lot of that starts with grassroots football with children of this age.”