Kaleen Allyn, a director at Wrexham, has revealed that her family contemplated investing in Liverpool prior to their acquisition of minority shares in the club, which is poised to enter the Championship.
Led by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, Wrexham has recently achieved its third consecutive promotion, securing second place in the League One standings and earning a position in the second tier for the upcoming season.
The Allyns, whose medical device firm, Welch Allyn, was sold for $2 billion (£1.3 billion) in 2015, played a role in this latest success after investing in the club late last year.
Kaleen noted that Wrexham’s narrative was instrumental in their decision to invest. ‘Even when we were exploring other clubs, we expressed a desire to be genuine partners with those we collaborate with,’ Kaleen stated in an interview with The Athletic.
‘While Liverpool is an exceptional club and presented a promising opportunity, it did not align with our aspirations. We aim to be authentic partners, actively involved in the unfolding story. That is the greatest privilege.’
Wrexham’s story has reached international audiences following the takeover by Reynolds and McElhenney, who brought about a popular docu-series, Welcome to Wrexham, to raise the club’s global standing.
“We flew Grandpa Bill over because I wanted to kind of show him what it is all about,” Allyn said of the final decision to invest in Wrexham.
“By the time it came to go home, he was almost kicking and screaming because he did not want to leave. He said:
‘The community of Wrexham is the closest thing I’ve seen to what we grew up with and what we lost in upstate New York’.
“He went to the match and met Phil [Parkinson], who was very gracious. My grandfather had watched Welcome to Wrexham.
He was completely starstruck. He doesn’t really give a damn who Ryan Reynolds or Rob McElhenney is.
But Phil Parkinson? He wanted his picture with Phil and that picture is framed on the wall at his house.”