Wrexham's 1-1 draw with Dagenham on the final day of the 2020-21 season ended their National League play-off hopes, with Paul Rutherford's red card evoking memories of a similar heartbreak five years earlier. The match was overshadowed by the presence of celebrity co-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, as the club's global profile continues to rise. Rutherford, now 38, reflects on the emotional fallout from that day, which led to his release and the sacking of manager Dean Keates.
Wrexham drew 1-1 at Dagenham on the final day of the 2020-21 season to end their National League play-off hopes. Sub Paul Rutherford was sent off just ten minutes into the second-halfCelebrity co-chairmen Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac were in the spotlight at the launch of the latest series of the documentary that has put the north Wales club on a global stage.
A win over Middlesbrough will secure a place in the play-offs. Anything else leaves it up to fate. This is something Paul Rutherford knows all too well; his tears in a Dagenham dressing room are a reminder that not even a Hollywood-owned club gets to write their own scripts.
It was five years ago that the wide midfielder was sent off as Wrexham failed to win on the final day of the season and saw rivals winning elsewhere take their play-off spot by a solitary point.
"It felt like my world was imploding, that I'd let a lot of good people down," Rutherford says of the images of him alone in the changing room, first angry and then in anguish, after a straight red for a rash challenge. The heartbreaking emotion was all captured by the cameras. Wrexham drew 1-1 and would remain exiled from the EFL for another year, this time with the world watching.
One of the club's longest-serving players at the time, Rutherford knew it was more than just the ambition of getting out of non-league that had been on the line. Manager Dean Keates was sacked the next day. Rutherford was released the day after, along with 10 others.
"And the rest is history," Rutherford chuckles with some hindsight humour. Now 38, his last of nearly 200 appearances in a Wrexham shirt was that day in 2021 having spent five years at the club. He had been in the maternity ward awaiting the arrival of his third son when he found out he wouldn't be going back, missing out on what would turn out to be a rapid ascent through the divisions under A-lister ownership.
"We actually thought it was going to be Russell Crowe," he laughs of the time the rumours of a film star takeover began in September 2020, with games still behind Covid's closed doors. "I can remember the talk before a friendly with Cefn Druids at the Racecourse and someone had mentioned that he'd had a grandfather from Wrexham - so we were getting bought by Gladiator.
" Liverpudlian Rutherford joined Wrexham from Southport in 2016 and made 199 appearances before his release in 2021 The squad were told a few weeks later of the closely guarded identities as the process to take control from the supporters' trust began, with all aware of what it could mean. "We'd been on a bit of a rollercoaster," Rutherford says.
"As a squad, we'd been close to promotions a couple of times, then close to going to the Conference North before Dean came in and got us organised. "There was Covid so all those fears about what it could mean for the club with the finances, and then the takeover happened. "There was a narrative that as players we knew it was good for the town and the club but not for the players, but it wasn't quite like that.
We weren't resigned to our fate.
"As a group, it actually galvanised us; we wanted to be part of the story, we wanted even more to be successful and get that first promotion, but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. " Rutherford said that he had been "realistic" about his own future, knowing deep down he was losing sharpness and had started to encounter hip problems - ones that now mean he needs a replacement.
"I was good value for money, but as soon as they could raise the wage ceiling, they could find better players," he says. "That's football. " Cue the likes of Paul Mullin and - after a play-off defeat in Phil Parkinson's first year - promotion after promotion after promotion, leading to the chance of a fourth and final one from the Championship.
For Rutherford a spell in the Welsh leagues followed, but time is now spent split between some coaching, taxiing two of his boys to football training and working in a showroom of a hardware store. All a world away from the millions on the line for the internationals in Parkinson's squad aiming for the Premier League, one that has been rebuilt season on season with £30m-plus spent last summer alone.
"But even though it's very different, it's also the same club," he says, his middle son part of the club's academy. "I've been fortunate enough to go back now and then and you see some of the same faces, good people, people who gave up their time for free to keep the club afloat. Rutherford is well qualified to judge.
Although the co-owners never reached out after his release, he was invited to sample the US adulation for his old club as part of an invitational Wrexham side in a tournament in North Carolina alongside the likes of Mark Howard, Lee Trundle and Andy Morrell.
"Honestly, it's hard to put it into words how big it's become unless you see it," he says of Wrexham's new fanbase. "It was just after the club got into League Two, and I actually said when I was out there that they would be in the Premier League in 11 years.
"I don't know why I didn't say 10, but I thought they would land in League One for a few years and then take five or six years to get out of the Championship. "To think they could do it in four is just phenomenal. I don't want to say it would be a Hollywood story, it'll be more like something out of Football Manager.
" Either way, there is a final day to script, with Rutherford a reminder that not every ending is a happy one. "It's bittersweet that we couldn't get that promotion to the league and what happened, but I can look back now and say I was one of those who played a small part in the story and be proud of that," he says.
"It was difficult at the time but hindsight gives you that context and I hope people keep that context if it doesn't happen this time. "It would only be a tiny applying of the brakes on an unbelievable journey – they're still on their way. "Howson to be first black FA Cup final official'You don't see this often! ' - Zhao pots three reds at once. Video'Surreal and amazing' - bowler takes double hat-trick
Wrexham National League Play-Offs Paul Rutherford Ryan Reynolds
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