Phil Parkinson reaching 1,000 games in management is a testament to his longevity and expertise, but at Wrexham, it feels like just the beginning of an exciting chapter. Since taking charge in 2021 under the high-profile ownership of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, Parkinson has played a key role in the club’s resurgence, guiding them back to the Football League and turning them into genuine promotion contenders.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Since the Hollywood owners have come into Wrexham, it's fair to say that they've done
00:08really well as a club, but of course at the spearhead of that has been Phil Parkinson
00:13as manager, a man who's been around the game for so long now in English football and he
00:19is approaching of course his 1,000th game in domestic English football, in league football.
00:27Not many managers get that many games in a career given how relentless the business is,
00:32how fickle the business can be at times and so to get that regardless of what standard
00:36you're managing at is quite the achievement and to be fair to Phil Parkinson, the last
00:41couple of years or so, guiding Wrexham from the National League all the way up to where
00:46they are now in League One has been quite the achievement from him and so what can we look
00:52back on in terms of his 1,000 games and especially his most recent times at Wrexham?
00:59Yeah, obviously it's been an incredible journey for him, starting under Jose Mourinho when he was
01:04a lot younger at Chelsea, obviously was through Mourinho's glory days there and that was an
01:10amazing platform for him to learn from. So yeah, I think not many managers actually reach 1,000
01:17games as you say, especially in the EFL in England, to read off a few names, Jose Mourinho,
01:23one of them, Alex Ferguson, Jurgen Klopp, Arsene Wenger and then you look down and those are the
01:30managers at the very top of the game who undeniably have had fantastic success in England and Europe
01:36as well. But Neil Warnock in there as well, a real stalemate in the EFL, Graham Taylor had some
01:43great spells at a number of clubs, Wolves, Shrewsbury, Aston Villa as well, an amazing
01:50sort of club to join for Phil Parkinson and approaches 200 games for Wrexham as well,
01:55which is fantastic for him. He's a very tried and tested EFL manager, 62% win rate for Wrexham,
02:04which is the best in the club's history, not really a debate there and his sort of best
02:11moment as we look back on his time so far, 195 games, you've got to look at the National League
02:19winners, one of the toughest leagues to get out of and actually make that step into the EFL. So to
02:24win that outright was unbelievable, a brilliant battle with Notts County that season, promotion
02:30straight away the season after and they didn't win the league, but to come second and go straight up
02:35is unheard of really and to go back to that promotion is unbelievable. If you can then
02:40take them to the championship it would just be monumental for the club and shows how much of a
02:47brilliant feather in the hat that they have, that they have a manager like Phil Parkinson. So
02:51yeah, I mean an amazing achievement and Wrexham fans have got to be really,
02:56really happy to have Parkinson at the wheel.