Near-retirement and a second chance at the Racecourse

As Matty James gazes up at the new Kop stand that already dominates Wrexham’s historic home stadium, despite it still being a year away from opening, a broad smile lights up his face. He has plenty to be happy about, not least the start of a new season that once again promises plenty at the Racecourse Ground.

“My wife says how fortunate I am to be at a club like this,” the 35-year-old tells The Athletic when sheltering from the sun in the main stand on Thursday, which turned out to be the hottest day of the year. “I joined Leicester at 20; they were a really ambitious club that went on to achieve so much. And now, at this stage of my career, I’m at another ambitious club to really get the fire burning in my belly.”

Limbo after Bristol City

Two years ago, James was in a very different place. Released by Bristol City after three seasons as a mainstay of their team in the second-tier Championship, the former Manchester United academy kid unwittingly found himself in limbo.

Despite playing a pivotal role in Leicester’s promotion to the Premier League in 2014 and then the great escape to avoid relegation a year later that paved the way for surely the most unlikely title success of all-time in 2016, James had no offers. Even as the 2024-25 season hoved into view, the phone failed to ring.

“I had something in my own head that I didn’t really tell my wife, my dad or my mum,” he says. “Just kept it to myself, that I was going to finish playing. Not through choice, more through others’. “I was baffled, to be honest. I’d played 43 games in the season I left Bristol City, and yet they didn’t offer me anything. They had their direction, and that’s fine. What I didn’t think would happen is that I’d then be having the same conversation pretty much everywhere — how, basically, there was a focus on youth and a need for players to have value.”

“I was 32, about to turn 33, and thinking, ‘This is mad’. I started to speak to people directly, directors and so on, and the same things would be coming back. Whether it be data, whether it be youth, whether it be adding value to a squad, whether it be a club not wanting to sign anyone over the age of 27 and not wanting any players in the squad over the age of 28.”

“I’d played 120-odd games in three years. Every day, I was committing to recovery, I was committing to eating well, committing to everything someone at the age of 20 was committing to. “It was really hard mentally, because I wasn’t ready to retire.”

Staying ready with Leicester

That stint as a free agent, which finally ended when Wrexham, then of third-tier League One, came calling in late October 2024, was not the only time James has had to dig deep into his resolve. There was also the horrific run of setbacks at Leicester, starting in May 2015 with a ruptured cruciate ligament in his left knee, that kept him out for 18 months, including the famous season when Claudio Ranieri’s side stunned football by winning the Premier League title.

A desire and determination that James credits his parents, Maxine and Lynton, with instilling in him ultimately proved to be the salvation of his career. Along with a timely offer from Leicester in the summer of 2024 to train with the then top-flight club to keep his fitness up.

“Leicester were unbelievable,” he says. “I had nine or 10 weeks training with them in the end. Really looked after me, ensuring I kept a level of fitness that meant, if a chance did come along, I’d be ready. “Four or five days a week, I’d drive down there (from his home south of Manchester). I’d speak to my family and they’d be saying, ‘Just leave it today. One day won’t make a difference’, but I couldn’t let myself think like that. I had to be all-in.”

“I needed to be ready to prove people wrong. My thinking was, ‘If I give up by not going in to Leicester, how can anyone else ask me to play a League One or Championship match?’ “Don’t get me wrong, it was hard at the end of July, it was hard at the end of August, hard at the end of September. Same at the start of October. I’m driving down there on my own, working hard on my fitness but then having nothing to build towards at the weekend.”

Players-only leadership

The offer of a trial from Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson that eventually turned into a short-term contract until January 2025 proved the merits of all that hard work. Two further extensions have since followed, the latest in January being an 18-month deal to take James to the end of the 2026-27 campaign.

There is a telling moment during the latest, fifth, series of Welcome To Wrexham that shines a light on the art of leadership in a dressing room dotted with players who have captained their former clubs. Inside just five days in April, Parkinson’s side had lost 5-1 at home to Southampton and then 2-0 at Birmingham City, the latter such a flat performance that Wrexham failed to muster even one shot on target.

Cue forward Josh Windass revealing on camera how James, as one of those who had worn the armband during the season, had approached him about setting up a meeting with just the players present.

“It’s very uncommon to have a meeting with only the players,” Wrexham’s 16-goal league top scorer last season explained to the documentary team, “but Matty and I felt we had to do anything possible to turn things around.”

Four months on from a players-only gathering that was followed by back-to-back wins against Stoke City and Oxford United, James explains his rationale at a time when the season could easily have tailed off.

“For me, there were certain things creeping in,” says the midfielder, who helped win promotion from League One in his first season at the Racecourse. “Certain thoughts, certain processes, certain words. There was too much chatter about where we were trying to go, whereas we needed to be in the present. “There were four games left and I said to the lads, ‘Look, we have an opportunity here — I get there is expectation here, but let’s not think about that; let’s approach it as a group of lads who need to deliver in that next training session, and the next match’.”

Play-off heartbreak and a new campaign

Wrexham’s push for the play-offs and a fourth straight promotion would ultimately come up short. A 3-1 defeat at champions Coventry City on the penultimate weekend was followed by a dramatic final day that saw Parkinson’s side initially drop to eighth before briefly shooting up to sixth and finally finishing seventh.

“Seventh is probably the worst place to finish in football,” he says, “other than relegation.” “Missing out really hurt, even though we had another very good season. I do believe this group, had we got in the play-offs, would have been a very, very good team.”

Wrexham have a tough start to the new Championship campaign on paper, beginning with a Welsh derby at Cardiff on Monday before trips to Millwall, Swansea City and West Ham United, with Watford, Birmingham, Burnley and Southampton also due at the Racecourse in the first eight matches.

“It’s such an exciting time,” adds James. “Cardiff is a great way to start, a Welsh derby and a great occasion. Just look at the new stand — the sheer size of it shows the club’s ambition. “I’m sure it’s the same for Callum Doyle at 22 as it is at my age. Or Bailey Cadamarteri at 21. Opportunities like this just don’t come along very often in a career. The train is moving and you want to be on it.”