‘Welcome to Wrexham!’ Is my old hometown about to become a hothouse of culture?

Our critic returns to the place of his birth to find the rough old town where he grew up has been transformed – and not just by Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds buying the football team

The actor Rob McElhenney, reclining and bare-chested, gives a come-hither look as you enter the Tŷ Pawb (“Everybody’s House”) art gallery/market in Wrexham, Wales. McElhenney, famously, co-owns Wrexham football club with Ryan Reynolds and, clearly, you can’t get away from their glamour in this small city. I’ve only just got out of the taxi and here they are.

This is my first visit in years to the place where I was born. My earliest memories are set in these redbrick streets: standing on a carnival float costumed as an astronaut, going to the cinema for the first time to see Sleeping Beauty, visiting a cafe in the High Street for a rum baba. Later on, my dad would find me asleep in my seat in Wrexham football club’s Racecourse Ground, in the year we’d got season tickets in a final attempt to fill me with a love of The Game. It was money wasted – doubly so as he was an Everton fan.