Why an NFL star fell in love with Wrexham: 'They could lose every game and I would still support this club'

At first glance, former NFL quarterback Joey Harrington's career doesn't have many parallels to Wrexham or football, a sport he quit around the age of ten.

But the third overall pick in the 2002 NFL draft insists the Welsh club's rise mirrors his own. So much so that Harrington and his family regularly wake up early on Saturdays in Portland, in the west coast state of Oregon, to watch Phil Parkinson's team play live, 7,500 kilometers away.

“If you had told me ten years ago that I would buy a season ticket to something called the Vanarama National League,” he says of the league, the fifth tier of the English football pyramid, which Wrexham won in 2022-2023, “then I would have I would have laughed at you.

“But now I get up at 6.30am every Saturday to attend the 7am (3pm UK time) match. I could never have imagined that a few years ago. But as a family we are fully involved in the club and the journey they are on.”

Harrington's own sporting journey comes with a family tree. His father John played quarterback for the University of Oregon in the late 1960s and his grandfather Bernie did the same for Portland State University about 25 years earlier. Had he not served in World War II, Bernie would undoubtedly have played in the NFL after being heavily courted by several teams, including George Halas' Chicago Bears.

Joey's three years following in his father's footsteps as Oregon's quarterback proved to be transformative for the team, as they went from “also-rans” to second in the U.S. college competition. Harrington was the key player – and a Heisman Trophy finalist in 2001 – before the Detroit Lions drafted him the following year. Only fellow quarterback David Carr (Houston Texans) and future Hall of Famer Julius Peppers (Carolina Panthers) left the board faster.

He spent four seasons in Detroit before playing with the Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints. An impressive CV by any standards, but one that gave no indication of a retirement with a small club on the other side of the Atlantic playing a completely different sport.

Join series one of Welcome To Wrexham, the documentary about the takeover of the club by Hollywood celebrities Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, and a subsequent family visit to North Wales.

“Our sons, Jack and Emmet, were at the age where you want to introduce them to international travel,” says Harrington. “To give them a perspective on the world and what's out there.

“We organized the trip by obtaining tickets for Manchester City against Liverpool through Nike (a major financier of the University of Oregon sports teams). The boys, both goalkeepers, were excited because they had focused more on football, even though everyone assumed my children would play American football.

“The plan was to spend time in London, visit some friends in Bristol and drive to Manchester. Jack, my eldest, then says: 'Can we stop at Wrexham on the way?' By now we had all seen series one of the documentary and loved it.

Wrexham were in a two-way battle for the National League title with Notts County at the time, but when the Harrington family visited the ground they were given a warm welcome, including an impromptu tour by Geraint Parry, club secretary and Wrexham's longest-serving member of staff.

“The first person we meet in the tunnel is (then Wrexham goalkeeper and former England international) Ben Foster,” Harrington recalls. “He walks right up to the boys, and I'm not exaggerating here, and starts talking to them like they're family, asking all kinds of questions.

Harrington's sons with Ben Foster (Joey Harrington)

“When he discovered their favorite position, he immediately said: 'I'm a goalkeeper too, my name is Ben'. You could see the click in Jack's eyes when he realised: 'Oh my God, this is Ben Foster, the England goalkeeper'.

'Three more steps into the tunnel and (Wrexham manager) Phil Parkinson appears. He says “hello” to the boys and then has a conversation with my wife, Emily, that she still talks about today. It's probably a conversation he's had a thousand times, a conversation he can't even remember. But the fact that he took some time to talk to Emily about the family and the boys meant a lot to me.

During the Harringtons' whistle stop tour we also met club shop staff and head groundsman Paul Chaloner before visiting The Turf, the pub next to the Wrexham home made famous by the documentary.

“Wayne (Jones, landlord) was brilliant with the boys,” he adds. “I made them feel so welcome that Jack, who remembers being 13 at the time so this is his first time in a bar, said to me, 'Dad, can we play pool? There are a lot of quarters on the table that we can use.”

“I'm like, 'No, no, no, that's not how it works.' But the man whose money it was said, 'Don't worry, you can have my lock.' At a time when the whole world was gathering in this small town in Wales, these guys treated my family as if we were the first to visit.

“I have watched professional sports at the highest level, including 10 years in the NFL. I've seen what that world looks like. So as a father, to see everyone – literally down to one person, from the club's shop staff to the guy who runs the pub and the Premier League goalkeeper who saved a PK (penalty) against Notts County a few weeks later – As I treated my children and my family, Wrexham could lose every game forever and I would still support this club.”

Autzen Stadium; Eugene, Ore. October 12, 2024.

Actor Kaitlin Olson is back at her former university for the huge college football game between Oregon, ranked third in the country, and second-ranked Ohio State. Her husband Rob joins a record 60,129 people in Oregon. As in Rob McElhenney, her co-star in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and co-owner of Wrexham.

2 years ago @Wrexham_AFC welcomed my family. On Saturday my OR&Wrexham worlds collided. ExDir @thehumphreyker runs 26.2 ahead @WrexhamMiners. To help, I will match every $ donated to his charity up to $2,620. It's a small world and kindness comes full circlehttps://t.co/DyzB8WQ2JD pic.twitter.com/1tYU2SpfFx

— Joey Harrington (@joey3harrington) October 19, 2024

Also present is Harrington, where it all started for him as a college quarterback in the 1990s. They all get to talking during the afternoon and later pose for a celebratory photo after the game that shows the trio performing the “O” hand signal that has become synonymous with Harrington's last game at Oregon before turning pro.

“This was the first time I met Rob and Kaitlin,” he says. “They were great, there was no question at all. You would never know they were Hollywood stars. They were just part of the family and were so welcoming to me and my friends.

“We were chatting to Wrexham and I showed them the photo of Ben Foster with the boys. It didn't surprise me how things were going for both of them. It is exactly how we have been treated in Wrexham, where the town, the team and the organization are following the lead of the leadership.”

Harrington and his family are yet to visit Wrexham for a match, although he hopes to put that right next year. They attended last year's friendly against Manchester United in San Diego, California, where Paul Mullin suffered four broken ribs and a collapsed lung, along with July's match between the Wrexham women's team and Portland Thorns, which attracted a crowd of 10,379. a record for the Welsh club.

GO DEEPER

Wrexham are still focused on the Premier League, but how can they afford that?

The latter came shortly after Harrington was confirmed as an investor in National Women's Soccer League club Thorns, alongside two-time Olympic decathlon Ashton Eaton and Olympic heptathlon bronze medalist Brianne Theisen-Eaton.

It's quite a turnaround for someone who readily admits he was turned away from the game for years by what he perceived as play-acting in men's football.

“I saw the boys going onto the field and a stretcher was going to be brought out to carry him away,” said Harrington, 46, who has pledged $2,620 to executive director Humphrey Ker's fundraising campaign for the Wrexham Miners' Rescue by following running the Manchester Marathon every year.

“Then he went to the sideline, where the magic spray came out and he was fine. I had no respect for that. So despite playing until fourth grade, my experiences with football were not very positive.

It wasn't until he saw Canada's Christine Sinclair, the all-time leading international goalscorer with 190 goals in 331 games, playing for the University of Portland in the early 2000s that he changed his mind.

“Christine got knocked off the ball,” he remembers. “I think to myself: 'Oh great, here comes the theater performance'. But no, she immediately got back up and elbowed the girl on the way back. Not only was she immediately my favorite player, but I also thought: 'I'm only going to watch women's football'.”

Harrington played for the Miami Dolphins in 2006 (Al Bello/Getty Images)

Welcome To Wrexham helped change that view, especially after he began to discover the parallels between his own career and the way the Welsh club's fortunes changed under Reynolds and McElhenney.

“What really resonates are the similarities with what happened at Wrexham and my own time with the Oregon football program,” he says. 'When I showed up in '97, we were considered irrelevant by everyone else. We were an afterthought. So we sat down as a group and decided to change things. We were going to win things, specifically a national championship.

“A lot of people laughed at us. But we stuck with it and things started to change. Okay, we didn't win the national championship my senior year, we finished second in the country. But to put the program in a place where we continue to be part of the national conversation was incredibly special.

“Later I got to the NFL and it was a business of, 'What can you do for me?' How am I going to get mine?', stabbing people in the back to get another year (on your contract). What I get for being in a billion dollar business.

“But my point is that I have personally experienced what can happen when you bring together a group of people who really care not only about the cause – which moves from irrelevance to the fore – but also about each other. I see the same thing at Wrexham.

“There's more to it than just putting butts on chairs, there's more to it than just scratching and clawing your way to the top. It's also about how you do it, who you bring with you and why you do it. Wrexham understands that.'

GO DEEPER

Why do American athletes buy stakes in English football clubs?

(Top photo: The Harringtons during their visit to the Racecourse Ground/Joey Harrington)