November 13 – Webbsfleet United
NON-LEAGUE side Ebbsfleet United found themselves becoming unlikely internet pioneers today in 2007, as the Kent side was taken over by 27,000 keyboard chairmen when the website MyFootballClub agreed a takeover deal for the club.
The fans’ community website had been established with the aim of recruiting 50,000 fans to chip in £35 each for equal shares in a club that would see the members voting on matters on and off the field, from team selection and transfer to what sort of half-time grub should be up for grabs at the ground.
Once the 50,000 member barrier was broken they all got clicking on their mouses to decide which team to go for. Leeds United initially led the way, with Nottingham Forest and Cambridge United also being popular choices.
By August 2007 it had emerged that four clubs had approached MyFootballClub to moot the idea of a possible sale. The now defunct Halifax Town saw this as a way to escape the debt that would eventually engulf the club at the end of the 2007/08 season and they were joined, cap in hand, by Mansfield Town and Leigh RMI.
Eventually the keyboarded masses opted for Ebsfleet United, the club that had been known as Gravesend & Northfleet until May 2007, changing their name to match the Ebbsfleet International railway station, ran by their sponsors Eurostar and proving that the Fleet aren’t afraid of being branded as sell-outs.
Over 95% of the members had voted to take over the club and manager Liam Daish towed the line nicely: “As a football fan, I think the MyFootballClub idea is fantastic. As the coach, I look forward to the challenge of working with thousands of members to produce a winning team,” he opined. “My assistant Alan Kimble and myself are 100% committed to making this work.”
And to be fair to Daish, it hasn’t yet been a case of too many chefs. The Fleet made their first trip to Wembley and defeated Torquay United to win the FA Trophy for the first time in their history in May 2008 and in January Daish’s transfer plans were given the backing of the board, as more than 95% of them gave him the thumbs up.
See how Sky Sports’ most famous Torquay fan took defeat to Ebbsfleet at Wembley below and also see what else was going on today here.
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