Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac on Wrexham’s Premier League Dream, Phil Parkinson’s Leadership, and the Magic of the Racecourse Ground: Men in Blazers 08/14/26

0:00With the Amex Gold Card, earning rewards on dinner is just the beginning. Earn 4x points at restaurants and make your outings even greater by accessing over$500 in annual value on select dining and travel purchases. Living in the moment is more rewarding with the Gold Card. Apply today and learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash Explore-Gold. Terms and points cap apply. You're listening to the Men in Blazers Media Network, Suboptimal Radio. I think when you go to that stadium and you enter that church, there's been so much waves of change that have happened on that pitch. But there is one thing that has never changed, and that's football.

0:49There are great grandfathers and young people who left us too soon whose ashes have been scattered across that pitch. That's something that is so much bigger than us, and it's something that I think that the folks at the race course, the folks in Wrexham, that relationship they have with that place, I think it's one of the most beautiful things in the world.

1:09Here to speak about the challenge ahead on Season's Eve, it's a joy to welcome back Mr. Ryan Reynolds and Mr. Rob Mack. Hello, Raj. Hi, Raj. Nice to see you. It's a joy to be with both of you. It's an incredible time for your club. Earlier this week, a couple from South Central Texas announced They are moving to Wrexham purely because they fell in love with your show, fell in love with the club, the town, the people. Ryan, remind us what you said on Twitter. I think I said that I thank God they didn't watch Chernobyl. But then I realized that's probably very insensitive. I mean, Chernobyl may, in fact, now be a bustling metropolis full of life.

1:50Full of concrete? Maybe. Maybe not. I could have watched Fargo. So, you know, that's another rough, easiest place to live. There's been an accident. No need to panic. There was a fire. The couple said, welcome to Wrexham. This is quite beautiful. Gives them, quote, a feeling they haven't had anywhere in the USA. It is kind of amazing what you have been involved in. A butterfly flapped its wing in North Wales and a Zillow listing materialized in Texas. Yeah, I think so. It's a feeling, right? I mean, they said it best. It is a feeling. Feel everything, feelings, everything like great to feel what's happened in Wrexham is a feeling that has been created and shared all over the world.

2:30And I guess even a couple in Texas is not impervious to that. When you both started this journey, this Wrexham journey five years ago, could you ever have even anticipated this truly life changing impact that you would have had in not one, but two countries? Oh, wow. No, I don't think I don't think we could have ever anticipated, especially the specifics of it. But where we are has always been a part of the conversation from day one. And we knew that if we would start the journey by saying, we don't know what we're doing, but we believe our heart is in the right place and we're going to do our best and invest in this community and invest in this club, that we think good things can happen and good things have happened.

3:11They just happen on a very accelerated timeline. and that's that's a testament to the the people of Wrexham and the fact that they have all these amazing stories to tell and that people all over the world want to watch them do you have any advice for the couple from Texas Rob is there anything you think they should know wow um yes the weather can change 20 degrees and go from sunny to raining within minutes but it'll never get too hot and it'll never get too cold. I'm sold. I'm here in 98 degrees London. We're all moving to Wrexham at the end of the day. Look, we are less than a week from the start of Wrexham's season.

3:51Second straight season in the championship, the second tier. Seventh place finish last season. Highest ever in the club's 161 year history. The truth is you came agonisingly close to the Premier League playoffs. An incredible run down the back of the season meant you could qualify on the last day at home against Middlesbrough for the playoff. The game was like a roller coaster right up to the 43rd minute. Wrexham had one foot in the playoffs. Middlesbrough ruined it for all of us. They equalised. And at the final whistle, Wrexham were just one place, only with two points behind Hull in sixth place.

4:22Hull actually ended up making it to the Premier League. Gents, can you summon those emotions you felt at the end of that journey? You came so close. You fell just short. What did you experience at the final whistle? Was it disappointment? Was it relief? Was it pride? How would you describe it? All three. I feel like we're in a healthy enough way. I won't speak for Rob because we have so many things in common, but there are a few key things I think that we actually don't have in common, but help each other with. These are things that I might find deficit in that I sort of feed off of and get from Rob in a really great way.

5:03And then there are many things that he probably doesn't get from me at all. But I think I gave him COVID four years ago. That's about it. I think I have a pretty healthy sense of divorce from that kind of rabid, frothy mouth, sort of psychotic level of competition that each and every one of these players have been imbued with since the day they were born. And the staff and the coaching staff. So, you know, I found myself in a moment of obscene pride at the end of that season and, you know, feeling like here we are. Like if you could have looked at us five years ago, we could have told you we'd finish in seventh or asterisk six lace in the championship league.

5:48I think anybody would have just traded about, you know, any kind of football god gold that they've had at that stashed away at that point to be in that place. And I just kept reminding myself of that. And I felt incredibly emotional. I mean, I really I kind of broke down on the way home, just trying to get, you know, get myself together. I've been watching that that last match upstate New York and was headed back down to the city after I just found out just a complete emotional wreck. And it was just really got a sense of the whole journey for so many years to that moment. and I thought it was quite beautiful and painful, but mostly beautiful.

6:28I love that asterisk sixth. It's a hard thing to say, asterisk sixth. Yes, it is. Quite quickly. When I just landed it then, there was a sense of enormous pride, but that's not how tiny my life is. I'm not saying Irish wristwatch as many times as possible. What you just said is so true. The past five years have been so dizzying, and you are almost judged by your own high standards. There was a headline in The Guardian last week where they described your seventh place finish. They said it was, quote, a setback for the club, which was pretty sensational and quite funny. When you remember that when you took over the team, I think it was officially February 2021, they were in the 13th season in the fifth tier.

7:14But Rob, what was the biggest lesson you learned about that, I guess about life or about football from last season in that footballing knife fight played out by prison rules that is the championship? Well, that we belong there, first of all, because that was a big question going into the season. We didn't know how we were going to perform. It was such a new team. There were so many new players that Phil wanted to bring in. And we knew it was going to take time to gel, and it did. But when they did, man, did they go on a tear. And it felt like, wow, we really do belong here. And I think that's an important part of the journey to dispense with the imposter syndrome that that this this kind of success is is is not for the town of Wrexham, that it's not for for the club, because it is it really, truly is.

8:02And the fact that they were able to prove that to themselves and prove it to the club, to the prove it to the to the to the town was was really important. And then also, in the end, we actually didn't get eliminated after our game. Hull City was still playing. And if they drew or lost, then we actually still had a chance. So I flipped over. And of course, I was rooting for Hull to lose in that moment. But when they won and they cut to the stands and we were watching all of the Hull fans, supporters crying, screaming, the ownership box was all falling over themselves with excitement. And this was not to win.

8:50This was just to qualify for the playoffs. And I can't help it. I don't know if it's the softy in my heart, but like I too, echoing what Ryan's saying, I'm intensely competitive. But that fire that I felt maybe in my 20s is no longer there in the same way. I was joy. I actually, and I promise you I felt this, I was happy for them. I felt joy for them because I know what that feels like. And I was, of course, disappointed that it wasn't us. But I truly felt like, wow, somebody gets to experience that. And I wish it was us, but it's not. And I'm happy it was them. You are such empathetic men. I mean, whatever.

9:35I am 97 % made up of Schadenfreude. But you guys are like whatever the opposite. I'm sure the Germans have a word for it. But I'm fascinated by that. It's called victim. I mean, that's the problem. We're doing our best, but it is a cutthroat business. And Ryan and I are not, we're just not cutthroat. We're highly competitive. We just, we want to do it the way that we set out to do it. And it's been successful so far. So I feel like we got to keep going with that. I'm not even drinking soda right now. This is the blood of my enemies. It's warm and a little metallic. This is actually test. I'm drinking testosterone right now because I got it.

10:16I'm bulking up to be ready for the gym. You go back and look, you'll see that Rob and I, every time we've been promoted or won anything of significance in the beautiful game, we've always been the picture of stoicism. Yeah, no emotion at all. because the game's the winner. The game's the winner at the end of the day. By the way, you're drinking the blood of your enemies. You're drinking testosterone. Suddenly I might wrex them by a million.

10:43Last season, watching you, you beat Ipswich. You beat Coventry City, two teams that now are now in the Premier League. The game against Chelsea in the FA Cup where you took them into extra time. I mean, that was an ecstatic experience. And I do wonder, does watching it, the stakes have become higher? You know, the proximity to this ridiculous dream that you both had when you BS'd us all when they're in the... Oh, we're going to get to the Premier League. You are so close. Is championship football more agonising to watch? Does football get harder to watch live the higher up you get, the stakes so much more seismic?

11:19Does it almost... Does it stop feeling fun or does it feel the same? I don't know. I feel like I handle the highs and the lows a little bit better now. And not because I want to, because I have to. You know, this beard was chestnut brown at the beginning of the transfer window. And here, you know, you got to just take a step back from some of this stuff or it'll eat you alive. So I don't know. I feel like I'm a little bit more even about it because I see this sort of this whole thing so far has been a couple of steps forward, a step back, a couple of steps forward, a couple of steps back. You know, it's been that sort of cadence since the beginning.

11:58And, you know, we are making a measured and incredibly measurable difference in the town as we've gone on this journey on a football pitch. So, you know, you just sort of see how both are just benefiting so exponentially from all of this. And you can't help but kind of mitigate some of that pain that you might feel and some of those highs because you think tomorrow might be a different day, you know. So I don't know, Rob. I don't know how Rob feels. Do you enjoy it as much, Rob? Oh, absolutely. And what is it you enjoy about the watching? I would say that the games, there's just fewer goals scored.

12:34So I miss the 6-4 or 5-4 game against Dover in the National League. I do miss those big shootouts. Those are super fun. And I feel like there's a lot of nil-nil draws or 1-0 nail biters, which can still be fun, but they're not as enjoyable. And it does create a lot more tension at the end of games because you could be dominating, as we just saw in the World Cup, you could be dominating the entire game but only be up by one goal. So it does create a lot of tension at the end. But as far as stakes go, I feel like the stakes were higher in the beginning than they are now, like by a factor of 10. But only insofar as we really truly were walking into the abyss.

13:18We didn't know. We didn't even know what we didn't know. We just knew, as is well documented in the first episode, that there's a version of the story where we are villains. Villains. Like truly, we have ruined something that is beautiful in the heart of North Wales. Those were the moments that were terrifying because we just didn't, we couldn't, I don't know, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I knew that we had gone in there and done something like that. And I believe that now after five years that we've proven to ourselves and proven to the town what our intentions are and how we go about things.

13:58And so, look, you're always going to win or lose, and you're going to win and lose. It's going to go up and down, and it's going to be, you know, feast or famine. But again, as long as our foundation is there and that we are always sticking to our original mission to make the community proud, then the stakes remain exactly. Also, the expectation was, you know, set so indelibly in that first press conference when you even say the words Premier League. And there's a wave of tittering laughter that kind of extends up the stands of the press conference, out the front doors of the race course ground and across Wales.

14:41And then eventually all of the UK, you know, you go, oh, well, the expectations are not mighty. um out there and and i think that that in some ways really worked in our favor like it really allows us to have that thing i mentioned earlier where i look at and go out five years from now five years ago if you could have looked at where we are right now or wrexham afc is well known so well known that a couple in texas decide to i think burn their home to the ground i may have read the article wrong move to wales to wrexham wales north wales uh well you know i would have probably said you're crazy quick one rob what would you say ryan's best trait is as a football leader oh god uh his integrity his kindness i would actually no i would flip that i would say his kindness is number one because i think you have to start with kindness um to build integrity and his curiosity in fact you know what strike all of those i think his curiosity is number one because he is 100 % comfortable and confident to say, I don't know, which is the first step to building all of those other things.

15:55That is how you can build curiosity. But you have to be curious about how other people are feeling, how to read a room, to even understand how to build empathy and compassion. And so I would say, number one, his curiosity. Ryan, what's the worst trait Rob Mack has as a footballer? The worst trait Rob Mack has as a footballer? Raj, come on. No! It is integrity and curiosity. The worst trait Rob has. He has too much integrity. Come on, answer the question. No, I'm going to, here's the thing though. I'm going to just answer how I want to answer it because this is my podcast. Wait, no, it's not. Rob is a guy who I honestly believe that had we pursued something else together, that the factor, the X factor that made it work, the engine is Rob.

16:50I really do believe that Rob is he's an incredibly inspiring person. But and I've said this many times before on the record that if you want to get something done, tell Rob Mac that it's impossible. Just say, that's nuts, man. You can't do that. Or no, there's no way that can be done. And you'll watch a vein go in his forehead and he'll just somehow manifest a reality in which that looked easy. And I think that that to me is is is really awful. as it triggered. I'm just repackaging this. Do you know the vein he's talking about? Yeah, it's somewhere up in here. But I feel like amongst a long list of things that I've learned from Ryan and that he's reflected back to me recently that really feels good because it feels like I am learning and growing is that fewer and fewer people in our sphere are willing to say no to us.

17:51It just happens. It starts to it's insidious, but it does happen or give us the full truth or like fully read us into what a situation is. They just want to protect us, you know, from from things. And so it facilitates lots of things in our life. And in some ways, that's great. And in other ways, it's really corrosive and terrible because it doesn't give you the ability to get honest feedback and grow. So you really rely on people closest to you who you respect to give you the real, the truth. And, you know, a few years ago, I was on a call with some people in the club and, you know, I was probably being sharp.

18:29I mean, I know I was being sharper than I probably should have been. And we hung up and I saw that Ryan was calling me back and I picked it up and he said very kindly, hey, man, like we're partners in this. And I just want to point something out to you. You know, I don't like I don't love communicating to people like that. And oftentimes when you speak, you are speaking on behalf of us. And I just want to make sure you're getting that that feedback, because I don't think what you are trying to communicate is what you communicated. And I was like floored because, A, I was so grateful that he would do that and point it out because it was unconscious to me.

19:05I was sort of like pushing so hard to get what I wanted or needed in the moment that I was disregarding a lot of people's feelings. And it's not because I lack empathy, which is what he knows that. It's that I had a blind spot. And I've learned so much about how to navigate those things from him. And even though, yes, I've got lots of things I want to get done, there's a way to do it because I've seen it by example, by literally one of the greatest people in the world to do it, to build something very large and very successful, but with integrity and with a quiet voice, a very quiet voice and not a big stick, just intelligence and curiosity and integrity.

19:51I just want to note that I'm dying inside after everything Rob just said. I just want that out there. So is the audience. By the way, they're going to cut that out. They don't. Just let me say it because you can cut it out if you want. But like I have never had a friend like I have with that man right there, Rob Mack. I really haven't. And I'm not saying that just to hit the ball back after he did all those things, because Rob is the guy that cares for people. And he used an example where I would say that I care for you in a way that is that's caring, I think. Like that's how you care for someone you love is that you, you, you reflect them back in a way that maybe they're not ready for.

20:25And Rob has done that for me many times, many times in which that have like intervened in moments in my life that really helped write the course. I was clearly off. And I, it's harder and harder these days, especially men of advancing age to have friends that genuinely care about you. friends the way you did when you were 12. You know what I mean? Like that, that, that's something that I don't take for granted at all. And Rob cares when it's, when no one's looking, you know, and that's a, that's a, that's a different level of friendship. Now go on with our little talk sports. We're veering into eulogy terms.

21:03Keep going, Rob. Can you just take that whole section and just send it to me? So we have it for each other. It's a nice, it was a nice glazing back and forth across the country. And, you know, I'll end it with this. When I was just recently with Ryan, he turned to me and said, hey, buddy, you have a giant booger hanging out of your nose. And I said, oh, my God, thank God. And I did. And I wiped it off. And he's the kind of guy who will tell you when you have a booger there. We all went there a month before. Of course you did. You want that friend. This ends in a Burton Ernie bedroom situ. You know this, guys.

21:42I got to wipe the lens off, guys. This is... Oh, my God. When either of you, the graves are going down. It's like, genuinely, we just play this podcast. This is like... You know, it always gets there with you. Joke's on you. I died six years ago. How you like me now? How you like me now? God, six place asterisk in the championship. It's not so bad, guys, because at the end of the day, children watching, we're all going to die. I want to talk very quickly about Phil Parkinson, a gent who could launch a Duolingo course in swearing as a foreign language. Five years, 41 days, championships longest serving manager.

22:24I think only Mikel Arteta at Arsenal has been at a club longer than Phil. He is a singular human being. How is he different now as a leader, as a manager, than he was when you both first met him. He's grown a lot. I think he would tell you that he's grown into his role a lot. You know, I think he's a guy that doesn't, you know, I think, you know, there's this, I think a lot of the reason there's so much turnover is there's a thing called the Dunning-Kruger effect, which has kind of been something that would say, and arguably that's been the secret to our success. It's when people who basically in a nutshell overestimate their competence at things, you know, and I think that the great leaders in this world know who to draw from and know when to ask for help, know when to say, I don't know.

23:08And really they start to understand the expansiveness of their own echoing. I don't know in life, you know, and I think Phil is one of those guys who is just constantly feeding and understands that that's a, you know, that's a huge recipe for success. And I think that's, I would just venture to guess that that's, that's the operating system inside Phil Parkinson and the secret to his, I don't know how sixth year as our coach over at Wrexham AFC. Rob, I want to ask you about the incoming, the change within the squad this season. Big one, reported record signing, adding goalkeeper Anthony Patterson in from Sunderland.

23:49Clubs in the championship often try and invest heavily in strikers, on the goal scorers, on the gents who can deliver at the other end. What's had Wrexham to invest so seriously in that side of the field? Well, as you know, Rog, we try to stay away from all football-related decisions just from a strategy standpoint. We approve budgets and then we were helpful insofar as we're happy to reach out to players and we have a great relationship with all the players or incoming players to get them to understand what the culture is. But we really, truly rely on Phil. And he's done so from the very beginning.

24:27It's not that he just built a team. He built the entire culture at the club, on the pitch. And so we're just always listening to whatever he wants and what he asks. And then we try to give him the resources to go and execute on that. If you had the magical power to sign one player, any player in the world for Wrexham, who would he be? And I know you phone up the players on occasion, Rob. you're still the great seducer what would you say to them i tried yesterday i tried to seduce a a player that directs him and i did not succeed so i'm going to leave that to rob from now on i now i understand you're the great seducer rob well i guess no i don't know i think what we try to what we try to i mean what we do say um is we're we're as honest as we can possibly be which is that we want to win and we want to win right now.

25:23And, and that's what it's a funny, it's a funny thing that we're always talking about where we're just not zero sum people, but we're highly competitive. We want to win. We just, we don't want to win at all or any cost, but believe us when we say we want to win the championship, go to the premier league, become the best, because because that is what the entire endeavor of football is about. But it's not just winning. It's about becoming the best version of yourself on a day-to-day basis. And every coach, every one of the greatest players of all time, I've had the pleasure of talking to Tom Brady quite a bit about this and asked him all the same questions that everybody are always asking him.

26:10And his answers are always the same, which is you wake up every day and you try to just become a better version of yourself, become the best version of yourself, and then the results will follow. And we give people space at Wrexham to do that. And then we shine a giant spotlight on them and say, okay, all of the work that you've put in, the whole world now can watch you do that. So all of those reps when you were six and seven and eight years old and your parents were driving in the rain for three hours and investing in you to get to this moment. Well, right now, in this moment, you have the ability to demonstrate all of that work and passion and you can do it for a global audience.

26:55Here is the spotlight. Go, young man, go, is usually what we say. Something to that effect. When you look at the roster of players going into this season, I think it's just defender Max Cleworth. been part of the club longer than you have he was in the academy i think when you both took over what about wrexham feels like the same to you has the same vibe um as it did five years ago oh that's a great question i would say that it's the intimacy within that stadium oh that's exactly what i was gonna say really yeah i think when you go to that stadium and you walk through those doors and you enter that church.

27:37There's been so much waves of change that have happened on that pitch and that have happened outside the walls of that stadium in that town. But there is one thing that has never changed and that's football. And that is the thing that is on that pitch. And that is there are great grandfathers and great grandfathers and young people who left us too soon, whose ashes have been scattered across that pitch. There are, you know, it really does feel like a church and the kind of spirits of those people that it's meant so much to. So much so that they've said, the last thing I want you to do with my vessel is scattered across that pitch.