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WREXHAM, Wales — It had been billed in England as the “Hollywood derby,” Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac versus Tom Brady and two American-owned clubs with Premier League ambitions, but Wrexham and Birmingham City are discovering that life in the EFL Championship is a tale of grit and struggle rather than glory and fantasy.

After a 1-1 draw at the Racecourse Ground, with Patrick Roberts earning a point for Birmingham by canceling out George Dobson’s first-half opener, Wrexham are still without a home win in the league this season, and Birmingham’s recent poor form was extended to just one win in their past seven games.

Both sides went into this season hoping, maybe even expecting, to use last season’s promotion from League One as a springboard to challenge for a top-six finish and a place in the playoffs, but as the rest of the Championship clubs prepare to play their fixtures this weekend, Birmingham sit in 11th place with Wrexham in 14th.

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A run of winning form would likely send either of them into playoff contention, but neither is showing anything like promotion form right now, despite both clubs adding 12 new players to their respective squads during the summer.

And on a night when the battering winds of Storm Amy threatened to pull the corner flags from the ground, the true nature of the Championship was borne out for Wrexham and Birmingham.

It is a hard league, one that is about endurance as much as quality, and it can be a tough watch for fans — and owners — accustomed to everything going their way.

This season was always going to be a reality check for Wrexham. No team in the English game had ever achieved back-to-back-to-back promotions, as Wrexham managed by going up from League One last season, so the prospects of going straight through the Championship and into the Premier League at the first attempt were outlandish.

The Wrexham script has been pure Hollywood since Reynolds and Rob Mac bought the club in February 2021, but for every story to be credible, it needs the odd bump in the road somewhere along the line, and that is the chapter Phil Parkinson’s team are now in the middle of.

Both Wrexham and Birmingham City will be looking to get promoted to the Premier League next season. (Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)

In the Championship, only Ipswich Town and Southampton (£50 million each), both relegated from the Premier League last season, spent more on new players this summer than the £30m splashed out by Wrexham.

Having made the giant leap from National League to Championship in just three seasons, Wrexham clearly needed that huge investment to upgrade their squad, and the overhaul has been so dramatic that only Academy product Max Cleworth remains in the team from the side that came out of the National League.

Promotion heroes such as Paul Mullin and Ollie Palmer have moved on to Wigan Athletic and Swindon Town, respectively, while Elliot Lee can’t even get himself on Parkinson’s substitute bench.

Life moves on, but Wrexham are still waiting for their new team to click into gear. At this level, despite the big summer investment, they are a workmanlike team rather than an exciting one that is going to push for promotion.

“The squad are growing together and bonding together,” Parkinson said after the game. “We are looking stronger and we will use the next two weeks during the international break to keep improving.

“But we need to start turning these draws into wins.”

Birmingham are also a work in progress with manager Chris Davies coming under pressure from supporters for the failure to sustain last season’s incessant winning form, and he responded before this game by suggesting those with promotion expectations were “deluded.”

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“The theory that we were entitled to walk into the Championship and stroll it is deluded,” Davies told reporters. “We are a team that have to compete and earn everything we get at this level.

“The last time the team was in the Championship, it finished 22nd. It’s been 10 years since the team has been in the top 10 [of this division], so this is just the reality.

“We have to understand that it’s a hard league and arguably the most unforgiving league of them all in terms of the competitiveness of the teams.”

In a show of support, Birmingham chairman Tom Wagner, who watched the game standing among the away fans at the Racecourse Ground, gave his backing to the club’s under-fire manager.

“Chris has the complete and total confidence of the board,” Wagner said. “Period. Full stop.

“We are focused on a process and I am confident the process he is pursuing will pay dividends and we will be competitors. The vast majority of people understand that.”

The problem with success, however, is that supporters and owners are rarely happy to settle for a year off. Once they have tasted the celebratory champagne, they only ever want more. But this year might be one of those down years, a season when both have to adjust to a higher level before being better equipped to make the big jump to the Premier League next time.

A year of consolidation will never be a Hollywood storyline, but even Wrexham can’t be superheroes every season.

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