He has been the goal-scoring poster boy of a Wrexham team soaring through England’s soccer leagues following its takeover by Hollywood celebrities.
There’s a giant mural of him in the center of the city.
He formed such a close bond with Ryan Reynolds, one of the club's owners, that he even appeared in the last “Deadpool” movie.
Now Paul Mullin is experiencing a negative side to Wrexham’s remarkable rise — the ambitious team looks to have outgrown him.
Mullin, the prolific striker who has been Wrexham’s player of the season in each of the last three years, hasn’t played a league game in nearly two months.
With Wrexham signing two strikers in the recent transfer window to boost its bid for promotion to the second-tier Championship, the 30-year-old Mullin has dropped down the pecking order and doesn’t even make the 18-man matchday squads for games these days.
It’s a sudden turn of events for a player who has had a leading role in the popular “Welcome to Wrexham” fly-on-the-wall documentary created by Reynolds and Rob McElhenney to follow their progress as rookie soccer club owners.
McElhenney once hailed Mullin as “one of the greatest football players in the world,” while a bromance with Reynolds saw Mullin land a cameo as the character “Welshpool” in the “Deadpool & Wolverine” hit movie.
Mullin even has written a book — entitled “My Wrexham Story” — that documents his time with the team since his transfer in July 2021, his career before moving to north Wales, and the lessons he learned from his young son’s Autism diagnosis which was the subject of an episode in “Welcome to Wrexham.”
His fall in status, then, might break the hearts of fans who have sung “Super Paul Mullin” chants inside the team's Racecourse Ground as the striker racked up more than 100 goals for Wrexham.
Chris Jones, a long-time Wrexham season ticket holder, attributes Mullin's struggles to the after-effects of undergoing minor spinal surgery during the summer, and a subsequent loss of confidence.
“He just doesn't look the same,” Jones said in a phone interview. "Whether it's that injury or a mental thing.
“You were thinking, ‘Well, is he going to get fit and come back to his best?’ But he got worse and worse. He looks like a player who is finished, who is gone."
For Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson, Mullin remains an option in an increasingly competitive squad — just not a no-brainer pick since the team signed Jay Rodriguez, a former Premier League player, and Sam Smith for 2 million pounds ($2.5 million) in January. Wrexham also has former Scotland international Steven Fletcher as a center-forward option.
“We’ve got a lot of strikers. It’s difficult," Parkinson said this month. "We can’t keep everyone involved. But we will keep assessing things, looking at training all the time and picking a team, and the bench, accordingly.”
Wrexham's squad must keep evolving. After all, the team was playing in the fifth tier — outside England's four professional leagues — just three years ago. Now, it might be a year and a half away from playing in the Premier League if the club continues on its remarkable trajectory.
With a little more than a month left of the regular season, Wrexham is in second place in League One, with the top two finishers gaining automatic promotion and the next four teams entering the playoffs.
On Saturday, Wrexham visits Exeter — with Mullin expected to be absent once again as speculation continues about his future.
Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Wrexham co-owner Ryan Reynolds, center, celebrates with members of the Wrexham FC soccer team the promotion to the Football League in Wrexham, Wales, on May 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)
FILE - A mural of Wrexham soccer club's star striker Paul Mullin is visible in the center of Wrexham, Wales, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Jon Super, file)
FILE - Wrexham's Paul Mullin reacts during the English FA Cup fourth round soccer match between Blackburn Rovers and Wrexham, at Ewood Park stadium, in Blackburn, England, Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson, File)
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) — Dozens of people are presumed dead and about 100 injured, most of them seriously, following a fire at a bar in a Swiss Alps resort town during a New Year’s celebration, police said Thursday.
“Several tens of people” were killed at the bar, Le Constellation, Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said during a news conference.
Work is underway to identify the victims and inform their families but “that will take time and for the time being it is premature to give you a more precise figure," Gisler said, adding that the community is “devastated.”
Beatrice Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire. Experts have not yet been able to go inside the wreckage.
“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Pilloud said.
Helicopters and ambulances rushed to the scene to assist victims, including some from different countries, officials said.
Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV that they were inside when they saw a barman carrying a barmaid on his shoulders. The barmaid was holding a lit candle in a bottle that set fire to the wooden ceiling. The flames quickly spread and collapsed the ceiling, they told the broadcaster.
One of the women described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from a basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door.
Another witness speaking to BFMTV described people smashing windows to escape the blaze, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside. The young man said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames and likened what he saw to a horror movie as he watched from across the street.
Officials called the blaze an “embrasement généralisé,” a firefighting term describing how a blaze can trigger the release of combustible gases that can then ignite violently and cause what English-speaking firefighters would call a flashover or a backdraft.
“This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare,” said Mathias Rénard, head of the regional government.
The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theater at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, Rénard said.
In a region busy with tourists skiing on the slopes, the authorities have called on the local population to show caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could require medical resources that are already overwhelmed.
With high-altitude ski runs at around 3,000 meters (1.86 miles) in the heart of the Swiss Alps, Crans-Montana is one of the winter sports centers of Switzerland’s ski-crazy Valais region, also home to Zermatt, Verbier and other resorts nestled in the snowy peaks and pine forests drawing winter sports enthusiasts from across the planet. The resort is one of the top race venues on the World Cup circuit in Alpine skiing and will host the next world championships over two weeks in February 2027.
In four weeks’ time, the resort will host the best men’s and women’s downhill racers for their last events before going to the Milan Cortina Olympics, which open Feb. 6.
Crans-Montana also is a premium venue in international golf. The Crans-sur-Sierre club stages the European Masters each August on a picturesque course with stunning mountains views. Le Constellation bar is about 250 meters (273 yards) down the street from the golf club.
Crans-Montana is less than 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Sierre, Switzerland, where 28 people including many children were killed when a bus from Belgium crashed inside a Swiss tunnel in 2012.
The Swiss blaze on Thursday came 25 years after an inferno in the Dutch fishing town of Volendam on New Year’s Eve, which killed 14 people and injured more than 200 as they celebrated in a cafe.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin said in a social media post that the government’s “thoughts go to the victims, to the injured and their relatives, to whom it addresses its sincere condolences.”
Thursday was Parmelin’s first day in office as the seven members of Switzerland’s government take turns holding the presidency for one year. Out of respect for the families of the victims, he delayed a traditional New Year address to the nation meant to be broadcast Thursday afternoon, Swiss broadcasters SRF and RTS reported.
From left, Mathias Reynard, State Councillor and president of the Council of State of the Canton of Valais, Stephane Ganzer, State Councillor and head of the Department of Security, Institutions and Sport of the Canton of Valais, Frederic Gisler, Commander of the Valais Cantonal Police, Beatrice Pilloud, Attorney General of the Canton of Valais and Nicole Bonvin-Clivaz, Vice-President of the Municipal Council of Crans-Montana during a press conference in Lens, following a fire that broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
A skier walks in the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
A banner stating that fireworks are prohibited due to the risk of fire is pictured near the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
