Word: club
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Stuck for the perfect gift for a sports-mad loved one this Christmas? How about buying them an English soccer club? That's what the 20,000 plus members of online venture MyFootballClub.co.uk (MyFC) will get this year when they take possession of their very own team, Ebbsfleet United, following the completion of due diligence on the purchase of the non-league side. For around $70, "owners" will take control of all aspects of running the club - both on and off the field - by voting in online polls for player transfers, team selection and tactics. Starting line-ups are decided...
...Despite skepticism over the practicality of having 20,000 owner/managers arguing over team formations, the project is groundbreaking for sports fan-club collaboration, and pioneering as an experiment in democracy. "It's a completely unique opportunity to get as close as you can to the game without actually being a player or being a manager," says Will Brooks, the 36-year-old former football journalist behind the project who puts his faith firmly in the wisdom of crowds. "Newspapers, radio phone-in shows and pundits spend hours after games talking about what team they would have picked and discussing tactics...
...Ebbsfleet board is happy to be the guinea pig, and approached MyFC when they heard they were searching for the perfect club to buy. MyFC has raised a takeover kitty of around $1.5 million so far and the Kent club on the southeastern outskirts of London was in need of investment, running a debt with home game crowds at around the 1,000 mark...
...communal call it seems a wise one. Ebbsfleet sit ninth in the Blue Square Premier league and remain in the hunt for a play-off berth for promotion to the professional English Football League. And for a place that never really existed on the map, Ebbsfleet has arrived. The club was known as Gravesend and Northfleet until May when it was renamed to match the new Eurostar station nearby which opens next week. This is handier than you might think: with MyFC members based in over 75 different countries, Eurostar is also the club sponsor. Air links are pretty good...
...regulars at the rickety Stonebridge Road stadium welcome their numerous new owners, any more than if a Russian or American billionaire had swooped in as at some Premier League clubs - after all, they didn't vote for democracy. One posting on BBC Radio 5 Live's 606 online forum, opines that non-league fans, "don't care about the Premier League or winning the FA Cup. It's about being involved in the community. MyFC doesn't seem to understand that. We are just a small club in Kent, and that is OK with us." At worst that...