Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney were close to buying another British football club before Wrexham

When Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney completed their shock takeover of Wrexham F.C in 2020, many football fans questioned why the A-listers would want to buy a non-league club.

Some wondered whether it was a big PR stunt from the Hollywood pair, and how the films stars would fare running a football club.

However, there is no questioning that Reynolds and McElhenney have quashed all those doubters, as they led Wrexham to promotion to the football league last weekend.

After a 3-1 win over Boreham Wood, the Red Dragons secured a place in League 2 for the first time in in 15 years.

Not only that, but Reynolds and McElhenney have also invested in the local area and have even brought some of their celebrity friends to the Welsh town.

Cody Froggatt / Alamy Stock Photo

Just ask the Turf Pub, who see Hollywood punters on match days fairly often these days.

The picture for Wrexham was very different just three years ago, with the club struggling financially and languishing in the National League.

While Wrexham have been propelled them into fame, it could have been all so different had Reynolds and McElhenney chose another football club to buy.

Yeah, that's right - Wrexham were not the only club that the actors considered buying.

In fact, Hartlepool United were also considered, as Reynolds and McElhenney were inspired Netflix’s Sunderland 'Til I Die.

Wrexham executive director Humphrey Ker revealed that Hartlepool were considered as an initial option, as he used Football Manager to scour for potential clubs.

Speaking on the Tifo Football Podcast, Ker said: "[McElhenney] was like, ‘we should do this, we should buy a football team’. I continued to think this was a lockdown conversation that was just two friends jabbering about something they weren’t really going to do."

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He continued: "I had nothing else to do so I went on Wikipedia and Football Manager. 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.

"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."

Hartlepool fans will very much be asking what may have been, as they are now on the brink of relegation from League 2 - swapping places with Wrexham in the process.