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Wrexham have achieved back-to-back promotions from the National League to League One and are now vying for top spot in the third tier as they eye further success under their Hollywood owners
Mike Walters interviews Paul Mullins
Arms spread wide, milking the acclaim like a dairy maid, Paul Mullin looked like Freddie Mercury at Live Aid.
Perched on the shelf of the main stand, with his flock going Radio Ga-Ga on the pitch after a second successive promotion, Mullin re-enacted a scene he had played out 12 months earlier. On the night Wrexham returned to the Football League with a 3-1 win against Boreham Wood, he had stood on the same spot, conducting the fans’ celebrations.
Now thousands of adoring fans were singing his praises again in an action replay of euphoria after a 6-0 drubbing of Forest Green Rovers sealed their place in League One. And for once even his Hollywood paymasters, club owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, agreed the sequel was just as good as the original. The picture is so good it’s on the front cover of Mullin’s book. Deadpool star Reynolds was so impressed by his prolific striker’s tale, My Wrexham Story, that he called it “the best book I’ve ever read. This guy is a hero.”
That’s quite a tribute from a Tinseltown idol whose movies have basically become licences to print dollar bills and whose Welcome to Wrexham documentary changed a whole town’s outlook. Mullin, 30, has loved the sprinkling of Hollywood stardust and that documentary spreading the Wrexham gospel across the Big Pond.
“It’s been a whirlwind – at first it seemed quite dumb for people to focus on things like that and I used to feel embarrassed by it,” he said ahead of the home game with Cambridge at the SToK Cae Ras. “I came here to play football and for people who don’t support Wrexham to recognise you from the documentary felt a bit strange.
“But luckily I did well enough on the pitch for the embarrassment to turn into pride and the whole story has been phenomenal. I don’t think you could have written it any better if you were writing a film screenplay.”
Wrexham are flying high again, currently in the top two, and Mullin – 105 goals in 138 starts for the club – hasn’t ruled out a third ‘Live Aid’ photo. He said: “We’re all buzzing to be up there, but it’s not even halfway through the season. We’ve done nothing yet and we don’t pay too much attention to the table.
“The photos are a nice coincidence. I don’t like being too enclosed, which is what can happen when everyone runs on the pitch, so when we won the National League I was grateful to the gaffer for taking me off with four minutes to go to keep me out of the way!
“I don’t know why, but I just don’t like feeling trapped in those situations. It was my family who told me to go and enjoy the moment with the supporters, who have been absolutely brilliant with me since I came here.
“When I came off in the Forest Green game, I was thankful again – although we were waiting on other clubs’ results at that point – and it was my brother who said, ‘Go and get the same photo as last year.’ This time round, if we get the chance to do I again, it will all be planned.”
Mullin, the best ‘poacher’ outside the top two divisions, is on course to follow the likes of Rickie Lambert, and Jamie Vardy by scoring in all four divisions. Speaking to promote Sky Bet and the British Heart Foundation’s superb life-saving campaign, Every Minute Matters*, he admitted: “I like to think I could perform at those levels if I get there.
“If somebody had told Jamie Vardy, when he was playing in the National League, that he would go on to play for England, I doubt if he would have believed them. We’ll be putting everything into trying to win promotion again this season and if it’s not meant to be, it won’t be through a lack of effort.”
Mullin’s support for Every Minute Matters will sustain the campaign’s drive for fans to learn the art of CPR. It’s barely 18 months since he was involved in his own medical drama when he suffered a punctured lung after a collision with young Manchester United keeper Nathan Bishop on a pre-season tour of the United States.
His earlier account of the incident made for frightening reading. “I was trying to breathe in but nothing was happening. I couldn’t get air into my lungs,” said Mullin. “When you are struggling for breath, with your lips turning blue, you fear the worst. I thought, ‘This could be it.’
“Ryan offered to fly my entire family out and Rob even said I could stay at his home in Los Angeles. I’m sure he has the room, but I was happy to stay out of the way. They sorted an apartment for us all instead. I had to rest up for a few weeks because I could hardly walk and it hurt every time I moved.”
Happily, Mullin recovered to score 26 goals last season, adding to the 76 he had bagged over the two previous campaigns at Wrexham. Now he is chasing another happy ending. Those Hollywood pied pipers Reynolds and McElhenney know all about those.
*Every Minute Matters aims to enrol 270,000 fans – the equivalent of filling Wembley three times – to learn lifesaving CPR with RevivR, the BHF’s free and easy-to-use digital tool in 12 months. To date, more than 100,000 have signed up. To learn CPR in just 15 minutes, visit Learn CPR in 15 minutes for free with RevivR™
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