When Wrexham's first Hollywood season ended in final-game tears

Manager Dean Keates was sacked the next day. Rutherford released the day after along with ten others.

"And the rest is history," Rutherford chuckles with some hindsight-humour. Now 38, his last of nearly 200 appearances in a Wrexham shirt was that day in 2021 having spent five years at the club.

He had been in the maternity ward awaiting the arrival of his third son when he found out he wouldn't be going back, missing out on what would turn out to be a rapid ascent through the divisions under A-lister ownership.

"We actually thought it was going to be Russell Crowe," he laughs of the time the rumours of a film star takeover began in September 2020, with games still behind Covid's closed doors.

"I can remember the talk before a friendly with Cefn Druids at the Racecourse and someone had mentioned that he'd had a grandfather from Wrexham - so we were getting bought by Gladiator."

Liverpudlian Rutherford joined Wrexham from Southport in 2016 and made 199 appearances before his release in 2021 [Getty Images]

The squad were told a few weeks later of the closely-guarded identities as the process to take control from the supporters trust began, with all aware of what it could mean.

"We'd been on a bit of a rollercoaster," he says. "As a squad, we'd been close to promotions a couple of times, then close to going to the Conference North before Dean came in and got us organised.

"There was Covid so all those fears about what it could mean for the club with the finances, and then the takeover happened.

"There was a narrative that as players we knew it was good for the town and the club but not for the players but it wasn't quite like that. We weren't resigned to our fate.

"As a group, it actually galvanised us, we wanted to be part of the story, we wanted even more to be successful and get that first promotion but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be."

Rutherford said that he had been "realistic" about his own future, knowing deep down he was losing sharpness and had started to encounter hip problems - ones that now mean he needs a replacement.

"I was good value for money but as soon as they could raise the wage ceiling, they could find better players," he says. "That's football."

Cue the likes of Paul Mullin and - after a play-off defeat in Parkinson's first year - promotion after promotion after promotion, leading to the chance of a fourth and final one from the Championship.

For Rutherford a spell in the Welsh leagues followed but time is now spent split between some coaching, taxi-ing two of his boys to football training and working in a showroom of a hardware store.

All a world away from the millions on the line for the internationals in Parkinson's squad aiming for the Premier League, one that has been rebuilt season on season with £30m-plus spent last summer alone.

"But even though it's very different, it's also the same club," he says, his middle son part of the club's academy.

"I've been fortunate enough to go back now and then and you see some of the same faces, good people, people who gave up their time for free to keep the club afloat.

"It's a global brand but the football club is still at the heart of it. It's kept its soul."

Rutherford is well-qualified to judge. Although the co-owners never reached out after his release, he was invited to sample the US adulation for his old club as part of an invitational Wrexham side in a tournament in North Carolina alongside the likes of Mark Howard, Lee Trundle and Andy Morrell.

"Honestly, it's hard to put it into words how big it's become unless you see it," he says of Wrexham's new fanbase. "It was just after the club got into League Two, and I actually said when I was out there that they would be in the Premier League in 11 years.

"I don't know why I didn't say 10, but I thought they would land in League One for a few years and then take five or six years to get out of the Championship.

"To think they could do it in four is just phenomenal. I don't want to say it would be a Hollywood story, it'll be more like something out of Football Manager."

Either way, there is a final day to script, with Rutherford a reminder that not every ending is a happy one.

"It's bittersweet that we couldn't get that promotion to the league and what happened, but I can look back now and say I was one of those who played a small part in the story and be proud of that," he says.

"It was difficult at the time but hindsight gives you that context and I hope people keep that context if it doesn't happen this time.

"It would only be a tiny applying of the brakes on an unbelievable journey – they're still on their way."

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