Wrexham Owners Buy The Turf: Reynolds and McElhenney Purchase the Pub Where the Club Was Born

Wrexham’s ownership group fronted by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney has purchased The Turf, the historic pub adjoining the Racecourse Ground, from pub operator Admiral Taverns, the club confirmed in a statement on Monday. The deal brings the pub, the club and the stadium under a single ownership for the first time in Wrexham’s 162-year history, with the club describing it as a move to protect the future of the institution rather than a property play.

The acquisition, reported by the Associated Press and confirmed by the BBC and ESPN, was described by the ownership as a “continuation of the strategy to protect the future of the club and its interests by ring fencing key areas related to the life of the club.” The statement added that the deal “allows for the preservation of the history and traditions of the historic public house that is inexorably linked to the Racecourse Ground and Wrexham AFC Football Club.”

The pub where Wrexham was born

No other watering hole in British football carries the founding weight of The Turf. Wrexham AFC was formed inside the building — then known as the Turf Hotel — in October 1864, making the club the oldest in Wales and the pub, in the words of the club’s own announcement, “inexorably linked” to everything that followed. The Racecourse Ground alongside it staged its first Wales international fixture in March 1877 and remains the world’s oldest football stadium still hosting international matches.

The pub has since become a character in its own right, a regular feature of the award-winning “Welcome to Wrexham” documentary series that followed Reynolds and McElhenney’s 2021 takeover of the club. Matchday footage of fans spilling out of The Turf onto Mold Road has become one of the defining images of Wrexham’s rise from the National League to the Championship.

What the deal means in practice

The purchase folds the pub into the same ownership structure as the club and the stadium, which the club says will enable “further investment into the fan experience in and around matchdays” and allow the existing fan zone next to the pub to be enhanced. A planning application has already been approved to replace The Turf’s popular catering trailer with a modern shipping-container unit, improving capacity to serve supporters on matchdays.

By bringing The Turf into the group, we are securing the long-term future of the pub and with it preserving its history and that of the club.— Eric Allyn, speaking on behalf of the Allyn family, minority investors in Wrexham AFC since 2024, club statement, September 2026

Landlord Wayne Jones, the pub’s public face in the documentary series, will continue running The Turf under the new arrangement, and told the BBC he was looking forward to bringing its “unique mix of history, atmosphere and sometimes Hollywood stardust” to a new generation of supporters and locals alike.

For a club whose American owners have already rebuilt the women’s setup, expanded the Racecourse and turned a fifth-tier side into a global commercial property, buying the pub next door is a small transaction with outsized symbolism: it puts the birthplace of the club, the ground and the business under one roof. Wrexham sit mid-table in the Championship after last season’s promotion, and the ownership has signalled that consolidating control of the land around the Racecourse is a stepping stone toward any future stadium redevelopment.

Reported by Ines Kovač from club statements and coverage by the Associated Press, BBC Sport and ESPN. Cover image via Wikimedia Commons (geograph.org.uk), CC BY-SA 2.0.