The Welsh language has a word that is difficult to translate: “hiraeth” (pronounced here-ayeth). It describes a feeling of nostalgia and longing for a time that can never be recreated.
For Wrexham, a town in northern Wales, this feeling came to define a postindustrial malaise that descended in the 1980s as the last remaining coal mines closed and the furnaces at the nearby steelworks went cold.
The only thing that remained was the beloved soccer club, Wrexham A.F.C. It is the oldest team in Wales, a perennial also-ran but still an indomitable source of local pride.
“We went through so much as a town,” said Terry Richards, 56, a lifelong fan of the club as he sat at home in the team’s bright scarlet jersey. “Those were difficult times.”
Wales has its legends of heroes returning to save the day, but few could have predicted that an unlikely pair of Hollywood actors, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, would waltz into town just over two years ago and buy the…
2023-04-29 04:33:33
Article from www.nytimes.com