The docuseries settles into itself just as Wrexham AFC does the same on the pitch in Welcome to Wrexham Season 5, Episode 3, “Coming Together.” All my critiques from the previous episodes, like pacing, are not only addressed but rectified in this outing. “Coming Together” slows down and gets to know the players that it raced past before. As forward Kieffer Moore and midfielder Josh Windass step up, Welcome to Wrexham really contextualizes what it means for them and the club. It’s a far more balanced approach to the show’s storytelling.
This episode also succeeds where some of the other seasons tend to struggle. Welcome to Wrexham often plays catch-up with the women’s team. The episodes backtrack months at a time to follow the women’s game in a much more condensed portion of the season, especially when compared to the men’s side. The show’s structure just favors the men’s team. So, it’s refreshing that “Coming Together” finds the women when they are only a month behind where the docuseries is with the men. It substantially shrinks that distance at the same time that the club expresses intentions to further invest in the women’s game.
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What the Support Means to Wrexham AFC
“Coming Together” also pays off the comparison between Wrexham AFC and Sheffield Wednesday in a much stronger fashion than the previous episodes. By pulling back to when Wrexham AFC was in an administration, the stark similarities and differences between the two clubs become more visible. Welcome to Wrexham is clever in how and when it includes ownership in that conversation. Both clubs’ former owners lost sight of what mattered. Welcome to Wrexham can back that footage up with what’s changed by using the only clip of co-chairman Rob Mac in “Coming Together.” In which Mac removes himself from the conversation and platforms what the town and the fans want.
The show supports that in its inclusion of interviews with the fans before and after games, and featuring critical fan-powered podcast segments. In that conversation of prioritizing fans, it’s effective for “Coming Together” to bring back the photographer and Wrexham fan, Oliver Stephen. Stephen’s explanation of how the fan experience has changed over the last two years is moving: “But if you try hard enough, for long enough, you can find joy in anything.” That sentiment also folds into the team’s story and their need to gel, get to know each other, and find joy together on the pitch. Of course, Stephen’s anecdote is specific and personal to him.
Welcome to Wrexham has always been so skilled at this. It shows how stories like Stephen’s are universal, how all those stories exist in people who are integral to the club. Stephen puts that into perfect perspective by saying, “I’m no longer observing. I’m a participant,” while describing what the Red Army chant means to the fans. Then, “Coming Together” runs with it to show what the fans mean to the players.
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When a Wrexham Team Clicks
Before it gets there, Welcome to Wrexham explores how the women’s team are succeeding where the men’s team aren’t at the moment. With new players and a new manager in Jenny Sugarman, the women’s side is trying to create a whole new identity. That’s a higher mountain to climb than the men. That feels like a familiar tale, given the general sexism thrown at women’s sports.
Relatedly, it is both impressive and maddening that Michael Williamson, Wrexham AFC’s CEO, says that they’re the “only women’s program in the Welsh league to have a dedicated women’s facility.” It’s wild – to say the absolute least – that resources aren’t more accessible or required for the safety and support of women’s football. Then again, there is hope to be had when Welcome to Wrexham includes real headlines about upward trends in the “equality and visibility” of women’s sport. “Coming Together” sets the expectations high for both the men’s and women’s teams. Even as someone who knows where both sides end, it’s exciting to imagine how the docuseries will tell those stories.
For the men, this episode finds its roots with Josh Windass and Sheffield Wednesday better than before. It felt like a shoehorned afterthought in the previous episode. Now, it’s a more natural inclusion and progression of the episode’s narrative. It’s entirely beneficial to get to know him, Kiefer Moore, and their respective families. It’s where Welcome to Wrexham excels. That connection with the players is seriously lacking in the season’s first two episodes. That fact becomes all the more unavoidable with the great job that “Coming Together” does. The threads of Windass being a team player and Moore wanting a chance come together during the Coventry City match. It’s just genius storytelling. The edit makes the tide-turning with the fans’ support palpable, aiding the team to a massive win. “Coming Together” feels like that, too, and I believe Welcome to Wrexham can maintain that momentum.
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