Paul Mullin: Wrexham goals, fame in the US and perspective – ‘everything is for Albi’

November is proving to be a good month for Paul Mullin.

There have been five goals – including a masterclass in finishing a hat-trick in Saturday’s 6-0 draw against former club Morecambe – in four games, plus a missed penalty.

Then there was last Monday’s sold-out gig at the William Aston Hall in Wrexham, where hundreds of fans gave him a standing ovation before and after, followed by a midweek appearance on BBC Breakfast to announce his new book, My Wrexham Story.

“It was quite mental,” admits the striker, who appeared on the red carpet at the recent GQ Awards after making the luxury magazine’s Men of the Year list for 2023.

Mullin is rightly proud of his achievements off the field, just as he has 88 goals since moving to North Wales in the summer of 2021. But it is his son Albi who has given him the greatest thrill.

“It was my birthday not so long ago and Albi gave me the most beautiful gift,” said Mullin, whose four-year-old son is autistic. “He is improving by leaps and bounds, especially now that he has started regular school.

‘He’s started putting words together. Not to communicate, but he can bring them together. On my birthday (November 6) Albi was at school and Karen, his brilliant one-to-one teacher, asked him what the teddy bear should do, what book he wanted him to read for Albi.

‘She was talking about a book about a party. Albi immediately starts singing ‘Happy Birthday to you’. He associated a party with ‘happy birthday’. Being my birthday, I was in tears watching the video. An incredible child.”

Anyone who has seen the second series of Welcome to Wrexham will be familiar with Albi’s story. His first year brought all the usual milestones, including walking at nine months old and imitating his parents’ actions during play.

But then everything suddenly changed. At first Albi couldn’t get out of bed for three days. He spent the next week with the toddler barely mobile as eye contact ceased and he stopped communicating.

Frantically concerned, Mullin and partner Mollie O’Brien contacted the health visitor. “Don’t worry, these things happen,” the couple was told.

A few months later, with no improvement, they insisted on a second opinion. Once again they were told not to worry. Only after Albi passed his third birthday did the correct diagnosis return.

“Albi is an incredible little boy,” says Mullin. “So happy – and that makes me most proud. He is my life. Everything I do is literally focused on him.

“My father and mother gave me every opportunity in life they could, and I want to do the same for Albi. If I had a problem, I went to them. They would solve it. Now it’s up to me as a father to solve the problems for him. But it’s just not that simple.

“What me and his mother can do is give Albi the best opportunities he can get in life. We are working very hard on it.”

A big motivation behind writing the book was the desire to share his experiences with people in similar situations. To help other parents understand that they are not alone.

It is clear from the book that there is a lot of laughter and love in the parental home. Not least how Albi has developed a trick to lead visitors by the hand to the door when he thinks it’s time to leave.

“I tell people not to take it personally,” Mullin says. “He sometimes does the same to me!”

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The phone call that would change Mullin’s life forever came as he sat in his mother’s garden.

By the age of 26, he was an in-demand striker after finishing as League Two’s top scorer with 32 goals for promoted Cambridge United. Wrexham were among a host of clubs in the hunt for the free agent and manager Phil Parkinson had made a good impression at a meeting.

However, Mullin had no intention of dropping to the fifth tier after a campaign that had gone so well in the upper division that a stand at Cambridge’s Abbey Stadium had been renamed in his honour. Get a call from Rob McElhenney, who had taken over Wrexham just a few months earlier with fellow actor Ryan Reynolds.

“The phone flashed with this number from Beverly Hills, so I went inside to answer the call,” Mullin says. “At the time I didn’t know I was going to sign for Wrexham.

“I enjoyed talking to Phil and thought he was a great manager; the kind of manager I could see myself working for. But the step back was something I wasn’t sure about.

“Rob outlined his plans and explained how he saw Wrexham getting out of the National League, building the club’s profile and hoping to be in the Championship – or close to it – within five years.

“They had had success in their careers but now wanted success in football. Rob said they wouldn’t stop for anything and I was excited. I knew joining Wrexham would mean seeing Albi every day.

“I came away from that phone call and my decision was made. I went straight back out to my mum and told everyone I was signing for Wrexham. The whole family asked: ‘Are you sure?’. I was.”

Mullin’s decision has proven to be a wise one. Not only has his goal-scoring prowess continued to flourish – the last fifteen months have produced five hat-tricks – but his fame now extends across the Atlantic.

During the players’ promotional trip to Las Vegas in May, a nightclub security guard even insisted on accompanying Mullin to the restroom in case he was mobbed by fans.

“I didn’t even know a documentary was being made until I signed,” he says. “There were cameras in my face and I wondered what was going on.

“They told me I was actually signing away my rights so they could take me in. I still had no idea what this would mean, I honestly could never have imagined what had happened.

“The boys never talk about the documentary in the locker room. We leave it in the background. That depends on the gaffer: he makes sure we know we are footballers.

“Maybe that will help change some minds about us. There’s sometimes an outside perspective where people think, ‘They’re from big Hollywood.’

“But I think people now walk away (from our games) thinking, ‘Yeah, they might be playing for Wrexham and they might have all this admiration or attention, but they don’t work half hard’.”

That work ethic and desire to prove people wrong has defined Mullin’s career. After being released by Huddersfield Town as a teenager, he joined Morecambe, initially on a £200-a-week contract.

He was in and out of the side and it eventually led to the striker hitting the weights in an attempt to bulk up. For someone whose game revolves around skill and speed, it was a mistake.

Parkinson received praise from Ken McKenna, Jim Bentley’s then assistant at the League Two club, when he asked about the striker’s character.

But after three years on the Lancashire coast it was time to move on. Things weren’t going well at Swindon Town or Tranmere Rovers and Mullin credits Cambridge manager Mark Bonner with rekindling his love for football. “Mark gave me the freedom to decide what suited me best,” he says.

The move to Wrexham brought the same level of confidence from his new manager. Now he can’t imagine being anywhere else.

“Our owners are incredible people,” he says. “At first I was quite skeptical and thought they were very nice people, because they wanted to get the best out of us as footballers. But I quickly realized that wasn’t the case. They are just nice people.”

Mullin cites the FA Trophy semi-final win over Stockport County towards the end of his first season as a prime example. Albi was brought to the match by mother Mollie, but was sick on the field after the final whistle.

“I’ll always remember Ryan coming over to rub Albi’s back,” says Mullin, patron of autism charity YourSpace and who celebrates every goal by creating an ‘A’ symbol with his fingers as a nod to his son.

“I try to make him better and say to both of us: ‘It’s terrible when things like this happen.’ It was the first time he met Albi, but when he messaged later to see how he was doing, he remembered Albi’s name. That showed how sincere he is.”

There have been few setbacks since Mullin returned north. Saturday’s win over Morecambe was his 73rd for Wrexham. A hat-trick and an assist continued his comeback from a horrific injury suffered in pre-season, when a collision with Manchester United’s Nathan Bishop left the forward gasping for breath on the pitch in San Diego.

The diagnosis of a collapsed lung and four broken ribs meant he had to stay behind in the US while his teammates flew home. He then had to sit out the first nine games of the season.

“I would say it wasn’t until the Sutton United home game that I felt remotely close,” he says of the October 24 victory over the then bottom club. “I still have some pain after matches. But during the matches things always go well. Hopefully now I can get back to where I was.”

Mullin’s goal-scoring instincts have returned, albeit with some strange hiccups, such as in the recent 2-0 defeat to Accrington Stanley when he hit the crossbar with a first-half chance and an injury-time penalty.

Not so long ago, such a miserable afternoon would have led to an equally miserable weekend. Now, though, he has an additional perspective.

“It devastated you at the time,” he says about that penalty miss. “You sit in the dressing room and wallow in self-pity, but then I go home and Albi is there.

‘He didn’t care how I was doing. But he makes me laugh by doing something stupid. I join him and the next moment I forget the game.’

Paul Mullin: My Wrexham Story (Century, £20). Out now.

(Photos: Getty Images/Paul Mullin)