Impressive? Yes. Notable? Absolutely. But is Wrexham\u2019s story a football fairytale?<\/p>\n
On World Book Day, we thought we\u2019d compare, contrast and rate the game\u2019s truly magical stories.<\/p>\n
Wrexham\u2019s Hollywood script![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-1252088975-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Wrexham co-owners Ryan Reynolds, left, and Rob Mac, right, celebrate promotion to the Football League in 2023 with manager Phil Parkinson (Martin Rickett\/PA Images via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Ridiculous rise, incredible achievements, two very likeable owners and a working-class town and club reborn<\/a> by one of modern football\u2019s most famous rags-to-riches tales.<\/p>\n But how much of a fairytale actually is it, with the big spending<\/a>, the huge sponsorship deals<\/a> and the documentaries<\/a>? It\u2019s all very fun \u2014 and retaining Parkinson as manager throughout adds an element of wholesomeness \u2014 but the very deliberate and calculated engineering of the journey takes the edge off its fairytale rating. 6\/10<\/p>\n Data rise at Brentford<\/p>\n Nothing screams fairytale like data metrics and Jordan Henderson anchoring your midfield<\/a>.<\/p>\n The dictionary definition of a fairytale speaks of magical and imaginary beings and lands. Nobody has ever called Brentford head coach Keith Andrews a magical or imaginary being.<\/p>\n However, in modern Premier League terms, the Brentford story is probably underappreciated, especially given the low budget and crowds. They are a shining example for every EFL club, but you didn\u2019t see beanstalk enthusiast Jack spending \u00a342million ($56m) on Dango Ouattara<\/a> in his particular fable, did you? 4\/10<\/p>\n Leicester\u2019s 5,000-1 title \n Jamie Vardy, right, and his Leicester team-mates celebrate winning the Premier League (Michael Regan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n We were all Leicester this time 10 years ago, weren\u2019t we? One of the greatest stories English football has ever seen, starting with a genuine great escape the season before (they were bottom of the Premier League and seven points adrift of safety at the start of April 2015) and ending when title-winning manager Claudio Ranieri was ruthlessly chopped in February 2017.<\/p>\n In between, there was Jamie Vardy\u2019s energy drink-inspired record-breaking goalscoring heroics, N\u2019Golo Kante covering two-thirds of the Earth\u2019s surface, lots of pizza, Nessun Dorma, that Vardy goal against Liverpool<\/a>, Gary Lineker presenting a TV show in just his underpants, winning at Manchester City and watching the Battle of the Bridge<\/a> that Monday night at Vardy\u2019s house.<\/p>\n Leicester had no right to do what they did, and it will probably never be repeated. They\u2019ll make pantomimes from this story one day. 10\/10<\/p>\n Bodo\/Glimt<\/p>\n As with Wrexham, there are a few chapters left in this one.<\/p>\n From the Norwegian second division in 2017 to slaying European giants Inter, Manchester City and Atletico Madrid in 2026, it\u2019s been a heck of a journey from the cold of the Arctic Circle<\/a>, where Glimt draw crowds of under 8,000 in a town with a population of 40,000.<\/p>\n The purity rating is high, with a weekly wage bill estimated<\/a> to be \u00a3150,000 for the whole squad \u2014 an amount Erling Haaland doesn\u2019t get out of bed for \u2014 but they\u2019ll need to get a bit beyond the Champions League\u2019s last 16 later this month for a higher fairytale rating. 7\/10<\/p>\n Bournemouth up the leagues<\/p>\n It never feels like there\u2019s much love for the Bournemouth story.<\/p>\n Like Wrexham, they have a handsome Hollywood actor on board \u2014 in their case, Michael B Jordan<\/a>.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s just something about \u2018Bill Foley\u2019s Black Knight Football Club consortium\u2019 that doesn\u2019t scream fairytale. And the way they powered through the leagues, backed by a mysterious Russian multi-millionaire with a financial fair play breach on the way up from the Championship<\/a>, wasn\u2019t very romantic. 2\/10<\/p>\n Greece win the Euros \n Greece stunned the football world when they won Euro 2004 (Alex Livesey\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Not a footballing miracle, given they were probably the 13th- or 14th-best nation at the 16-team tournament (above Latvia and Bulgaria, for sure), but certainly the most unlikely victory in the history of the European Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n Otto Rehhagel engineered four industrious victories against hosts Portugal (in both the group stage and the semis), France and the Czech Republic, with goals from corners winning them their semi-final and the final by 1-0 scorelines. That does take the edge off the fairytale aspect a smidge \u2014 sorry, Arsenal fans, that\u2019s just the way it is<\/a>. 8\/10<\/p>\n Nottingham Forest\u2019s European double<\/p>\n From an unfashionable, unsuccessful mid-table club in the second tier in May 1975 to English champions and European Cup winners \u2014 not once for the latter but twice, back to back \u2014 five years later\u2026 that is surely the most unlikely, never-to-be-repeated story in European football history?<\/p>\n Without spending much money, this was scouting and management at its very best, with Brian Clough and assistant Peter Taylor finding rough gems<\/a> and forging them into an unbeatable (well, for 42 games in a row) team.<\/p>\n As Clough might have said: \u201cClough and Taylor as Beauty and the Beast? Well, we know who the beauty is, young man.\u201d 10\/10<\/p>\n Wimbledon win the FA Cup \n Vinnie Jones and his team-mates celebrate their FA Cup final triumph in Wimbledon town centre in 1988 (Pascal Rondeau\/Allsport\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n A non-League club in 1977, Wimbledon had lifted the FA Cup and finished sixth in the top flight by 1988.<\/p>\n The self-styled rough and ready \u2018Crazy Gang\u2019 didn\u2019t play like they were in a fairytale; we\u2019re not sure the three bears would have set each other\u2019s clothes on fire and Snow White definitely wouldn\u2019t have grabbed Paul Gascoigne\u2019s meat and two veg<\/a>. But it was a great story nonetheless. 8\/10<\/p>\n Manchester City dominate English football<\/p>\n On the face of it, going from third-tier League One (or Division Two as it was then known) in 1999 to winning the Premier League in 2012<\/a> and then dominating English football thereafter is some fairytale, especially with a first Champions League crown to boot in 2023.<\/p>\n In reality, spending more than \u00a32billion<\/a> to do it after being bought by the Abu Dhabi United Group, a company controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the vice-president of the United Arab Emirates, is about as much of a fairytale as an episode of Black Mirror. And the big bad wolf of the Premier League may soon blow their Etihad house, down via those never-ending 115 charges<\/a>. 1\/10<\/p>\n Zambia\u2019s AFCON triumph<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-531737842-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-78173645-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2247143624-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n