Wrexham Exchange Contracts to Buy Historic Turf Pub

Wrexham AFC’s ownership group has exchanged contracts to buy The Turf, the historic pub beside the Racecourse Ground where the club was founded in 1864.

The agreement with Admiral Taverns would bring the club, stadium and pub under common ownership, while giving Wrexham more room to expand the fan zone and other supporter activity around Mold Road. Wayne Jones will remain in charge of running The Turf day to day, so one of the most recognisable parts of Welcome to Wrexham is not suddenly about to become a polished corporate lounge with somebody charging £14 for a cocktail named after Paul Mullin.

The Turf was part of Wrexham long before television cameras arrived. The club was formed at what was then the Turf Hotel in October 1864 and players later used the building as changing facilities before heading onto the Racecourse. Supporters could watch matches from its old balcony, while generations have passed through the doors before and after games.

That connection feels especially important in Wrexham because the club’s relationship with the Racecourse has rarely been something supporters could take for granted.

The stadium was separated from the football club during the turmoil of the early 2000s, when former owner Alex Hamilton became involved in a bitter dispute over the ground and attempted to evict Wrexham. The club went into administration before the Wrexham Supporters Trust eventually took control in 2011, the same year Glyndŵr University stepped in to buy the Racecourse.

Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac’s ownership has gradually brought those pieces back together. Wrexham bought the stadium freehold from the university in 2022 and the remaining long-term lease arrangements involving the Supporters Trust were brought to an end this July.

The club paid the Trust £187,000, matching the amount supporters had put into Wrexham during the fight to save it in 2011. Protections remain in place to keep the Racecourse as the club’s home until 2115, preserving a supporter safeguard while giving Wrexham greater control over the ground itself.

The club described the Turf purchase as part of plans to:

“ring fence key areas related to the life of the Club”

In Wrexham, that wording carries more history than it probably would anywhere else.

The ownership group is already rebuilding the Kop and reshaping the stadium around it. Bringing The Turf into the same ownership gives Wrexham more control over the area supporters actually use on a matchday, from fan zones and hospitality to the spaces where people meet before walking through the turnstiles.

There is money in that, naturally enough. Wrexham have grown from a National League club into a Championship side through three consecutive promotions, crowds have increased and outside investment has followed. Apollo Sports Capital became a minority investor in December 2025, with part of its investment tied to the redevelopment of the Racecourse.

But The Turf is one of those places where the commercial explanation only gets you so far.

For anybody who watched Welcome to Wrexham, the pub became one of the easiest ways into understanding the club. You had the Hollywood owners and the promotions, but you also had Jones behind the bar, supporters packed inside before matches and a building sitting so close to the Racecourse that football seemed to spill straight through its front door.

It helped make Wrexham feel like Wrexham.

That matters even more as the club becomes wealthier, the stadium changes and people who had never heard of Mold Road five years ago now follow results from thousands of miles away. Growth can alter a football club very quickly. Keeping the places that made people care about it in the first place is a different job altogether.

The Turf has been there since Wrexham AFC began, through relegations, promotions, ownership battles and the years when supporters were simply trying to make sure there was still a club to support.

Now, after becoming one of the symbols of Wrexham’s unlikely rise around the world, it is coming under the same ownership as the club and the ground beside it.

Jones will still be behind the bar. Supporters will still walk out of the pub and into the Racecourse.

For all that has changed in Wrexham, there are some things worth keeping exactly where they are.