Willie not just f**k off?

[Uros Predic]

A minor point of pedantry perhaps but I’m not sure the formation of AFC Wimbledon can primarily be ascribed to “ideological reasons”.

Indeed there is still a certain amount of friction at the club between those who do see what might be termed the ideology as paramount and those who believe it should be run and act just like most other league clubs.

I know what you're saying in terms of where the club is now, but I think its fair to describe AFC Wimbledon's point of foundation as ideological... i.e. wanting no part of the Milton Keynes nonsense and wanting to get a club back in Wimbledon.

Mention of other breakaway clubs made me think of AFC Liverpool and after my usual reflex response of bemoaning the fact that “AFC…” seems to have become a shorthand for such clubs I discovered that it apparently stands for Affordable Football Club (even more explicitly than it stands for A Fans Club at Wimbledon).

Yep, see also the shortlived AFC Barnsley, and the still going AFC Mansfield.

[Ray de Galles]

I'd characterise the point of AFCW's formation as practical as much as anything else. WFC was killed by moving the league place 80 miles away so a regeneration was needed. I'm splitting hairs though.

[Discordant Resonance]

The very point of it being run as a supporters' trust is to ensure the club doesn't become beholden to corporate interests, though whether that is any more inherently ideological than would be the case in other European leagues is another matter.

[3 Colours Red]

I think it could be considered to be ideological to an extent in a footballing culture where fan-owned clubs are a relative rarity at the professional end of the pyramid, and even more so where some of those clubs have abandoned that by selling up (Portsmouth) or relinquishing ownership (looks at own club).

[Ray de Galles]

The very point of it being run as a supporters' trust is to ensure the club doesn't become beholden to corporate interests, though whether that is any more inherently ideological than would be the case in other European leagues is another matter.

I'd also characterise that as practical, given it was the best way to avoid the fundamental problems that had bedeviled WFC for decades prior.

There's no doubt there is an ideological element behind how the club was and, to an extent, still is run but having been at the meeting where the club was formed the overriding sentiment wasn't about anything else than having a football club to watch.

[Uros Predic]

There's no doubt there is an ideological element behind how the club was and, to an extent, still is run but having been at the meeting where the club was formed the overriding sentiment wasn't about anything else than having a football club to watch.

I think we're agreeing on the same thing, but using different terms.

Maybe 'principled' would've been a better word for me to describe what I mean rather than 'idealogical'.

[My Name Is Ian]

Well, I managed to cobble this together about it yesterday. There were a couple of things that I had to leave out because I could find the right level of substantiation (I spent about half an hour trying to find a news report that they'd forgotten to apply for promotion, for example, but was unable to - someone apointed that out to me on Twitter last night), but ended up with the implied 'this guy probably shouldn't be anywhere near a football club' angle. Thanks for answering my daft questions, BTW.

I'll keep an ongoing eye on it all.

https://unexpecteddelirium.substack....internationals

[Uros Predic]

Solid work, Ian, and a sound summary.

One element I should've flagged sooner with Doncaster City is that they also appear to have aspirations to court a non-match-going audience; hence them having a YouTube channel but no website. I think they've looked at clubs like Hashtag United and seen that as a means to generate interest, and subsequently revenue through YouTube and other social sites. Since Saturday they've been crowing about how much impact (in terms of views and reach) they've had online. I can't imagine the income from these streams currently comes close to matching the match-fee outlay on the three pros though

[My Name Is Ian]

Getting people to watch streams online is extremely difficult. I saw a bit of the - hold your vomit - Joey Barton common sense watchalong stream of the Everton vs Palace match on Monday night. He's got 2.9m followers on Twitter and there were 230 people viewing. If you work to the principle of no more than five or ten percent of them paying anything at all, that's well, not many people paying anything.

But that's comparing apples with oranges.

Hashtag United came from the ideal vantage point, with a huge existing audience of primarily very online young people, and they've stalled in the Isthmian Premier with crowds for matches of just over 200. They get between 100k and 200k watching their videos but they can't live-stream their matches, and how many of them are paying much, if anything. All I know for sure is that YouTube revenues tend to be abysmal unless you're racking up millions of views. This graphic shows an estimate of what they make through YouTube advertising alone.



But it's complicated and involved. Their esports team is the money-maker, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were paying their players there more than their actual footballers. I can absolutely see why McKay likes the idea of setting up a 'shop window' for players who haven't quite made the grade at higher levels. These are the accounts they filed for the year to 2023.

[Botswana Meat Commission]

Is the “football teams on social media” thing not a bit of a saturated market? You’ve got Hashtag, one of my work colleagues seems to revel in the nonsense spouted by Marc White at Dorking that does the rounds on social media and then there is a few Sunday League teams that appear to do it with daft names like Ballerz and the like (I don’t watch any of these and I’m sure that’s the sort of name they have).

[Ray de Galles]

Very gratifying to hear fucking Hashtag United are stalling, fingers crossed they go in a downward direction soon.

[My Name Is Ian]

They're mid-table. I don't go and see them play, even if they're playing a team local to me and it's convenient. If they went up, it would be interesting because they'd fall under the National League's financial regulations, which are far stricter than what applies to leagues below that. As you can see from the above accounts, however the players there are getting paid, it isn't through Hashtag United Limited. I think the overall organisation will be okay, but it's the Esports that brings in the money and big sponsorship, rather than playing Wingate & Finchley away on a Tuesday night in front of 150 people. I could easily be wrong here, but it does feel as though they've hit a glass ceiling that could prove very difficult to break through.

I think the big problem they have is that Hashtag United isn't something you can hang something on. Very online people will, but the sort that will turn out every Saturday and Tuesday won't and that is what keeps non-league clubs ticking over. A tenner to get in, a couple of pints, a pie and chips, a programme and a go on the 50/50 is worth at least several paid YT subscriptions. You need that strong geographical link. There are a few teams like this now. I saw a team called Phoenix Sports play earlier this season, at Lancing I think, and I don't think they had any away supporters at all. They're from Bexley, but why would someone from there care about them? I just don't see it.

[3 Colours Red]

I think the big problem they have is that Hashtag United isn't something you can hang something on.

Do you think if they were called Pitsea United, they'd find it a little easier to build up support in the community?

[My Name Is Ian]

I think geographical identification is pretty important for football clubs, yeah. It doesn't necessarily have to be explicitly *in* the name (Celtic, Rangers, there are others - actually, I think it's probably less important for a Big Club generally), but for a new club starting at the bottom trying to build support, it seems to me that it's the obvious route to go down.

There wouldn't be much point calling them Pitsea because they're groundsharing. They were at Tilbury until a year or two ago, and Haringey before that. Imagine if you were local to Haringey, started watching them and got into it, only for them to fuck off to Tilbury.

I'll put it this way, if I moved to the area and was going to watch a team, I'd watch Bowers & Pitsea. It's their ground, their identity, their place. There all sorts of mock-ups on the Internet of what their followers think their ground *should* like, but I'm unaware of any current plans.

They need to bed in somewhere, get a home of their own (and not on someone else's patch), and build an offline identity, because I see obvious limits on the number of people who are going to be prepared to travel all over to watch football at that level, especially when there'll be lengthy, well-produced highlights up soon afterwards. It's a sign of their clout that they can persuade a couple of hundred to go regularly.

[Patrick Thistle]

I could see the appeal of a semi-nomadic mainly-online club playing "home" games all over the place. In one way that would work better as a concept because it gives more "fans" (followers?) the chance to see them irl.

It depends what their end game is but why be limited to a league at all? The eSports competitions happen all over the place. Just follow the competition schedule and set up games wherever you go.

[My Name Is Ian]

The FA's standardised rules don't specifically exclude such a possibility, presumably because it's so outlandish, but I couldn't imagine them or a league accepting such a proposal. It would mess away clubs around, and all clubs have to register a 'home' ground at the start of each season. Upon promotion to the EFL, clubs have to have a minimum ten year lease. Section 2 here:
https://www.thefa.com/~/media/Files/...sed-rules.ashx

[Gangster Octopus]

As we know, it's been done before. And at least Wembley are still struggling along.

[3 Colours Red]

There wouldn't be much point calling them Pitsea because they're groundsharing. They were at Tilbury until a year or two ago, and Haringey before that. Imagine if you were local to Haringey, started watching them and got into it, only for them to fuck off to Tilbury.

I just went with Pitsea as a hypothetical because that's where they're playing right now.

I do think their current name puts off more people than it attracts from their online exploits - easily dismissed due to being "that internet team".

[My Name Is Ian]

Well, that's kind of my point. A club that moves from A to B to C is going to struggle for crowds, because I don't believe that thousands who'll go wherever they're playing exist, and the FA standardised rules make having some form of geographical base part of the deal.

It's easier for clubs to move around towards the bottom of the pyramid because fewer external parties are affected. I was at that game the other week where the home team just don't play at their home ground, which is now just a clubhouse and derelict stand, with no pitch. They played a mile and a half away from 'home', a big distance in a highly localised league.

But this idea the The Internet can be a club's 'home' becomes increasingly difficult to administer the higher up the pyramid they move. By the time they're looking for promotion from the National League, it's essentially impossible. I don't like the name, aesthetically, but that besides the point. The idea that a club has to have some form of geographic 'base' is baked into the rules, even if it isn't reflected in their name.

[3 Colours Red]

I suppose I'm trying to understand in my own head what's objectionable about them other than perhaps the ungainliness of their name and their somewhat nomadic existence.

They started at what seemed to be an appropriate step of the pyramid and worked their way up. Maybe their online clout helped them attract a better standard of player to speed up that process but that's hardly a new thing - just replace clicks and YouTube view counts with cold, hard cash for yer Billericays and yer Fleetwoods.

[My Name Is Ian]

I don't have any special objections to them. I think the name is a bit cringe, but that's just a matter of 'not my cup of tea'. My issue is that, like I say, there's a glass ceiling that gets thicker and thicker the higher you go up. They've groundshared at three different grounds in five years, and there's a point at which they'll have to settle somewhere. I guess there's an argument for saying that all this moving around is avoiding infrastructural costs which other clubs would have to pay in order to grow, but I'm not sure that I completely hold with that.

The National League's rules only require a two year lease. Ground sharing is permitted, providing "the Club or club playing in the most senior competition has priority of fixtures at all times and, where sharing with a club engaged in another sport, the Club has priority of fixtures". So if they did get promoted at the end of this season they'd probably have to move again, because I'd be very surprised if Bowers & Pitsea (or the Isthmian League) would agree to to such conditions. I note that their women's team has moved around a bit, too. I do think that, if they're serious about this, they should be getting on with building a ground of their own.

They're nine points off the play-offs at the moment, so it seems unlikely for this season, but the National League rules - which are clearly based pretty closely on the FA Standardised rules - say that, "Any Ground sharing for a period exceeding thirteen (13) weeks must be in writing and a written agreement must first be approved by the Board before being entered into and (except in an emergency) must be completed by 31 March in any year to be effective for the following Playing Season" and that "A Club will not be permitted to ground share to gain promotion or to avoid relegation", though that's a bit of a muddy statement - presumably it means you can't leave an existing ground to ground share somewhere else because yours doesn't come up to scratch. But how that would work if you're already sharing and have never owned your own ground with no current plans to build one, I have no idea.