I’ve written before about the MyFootballClub project at FanHouse — here and here, to be exact. Well, the project has officially gone to Phase 2. The organizers are now requesting money from those who signed up, and they’re in talks with four different clubs at the League 2 and Conference National level, though those clubs remain anonymous at the moment. When it’s all over, more than 50,000 people will be managing a real-life Association football club in England.
And I will be one them.
Keep in mind that I just got into Association football a year ago and know jack squat about managing a club. Garth at Soccernista got me to sign up for some Celebrity Bloggers Fantasy League — my first attempt at fantasy soccer — and his questionnaire to all the bloggers included something to the effect of, “If you were a Premier League manager, you would be…” I answered, “A Coca-Cola Championship manager by mid-April.”
Nevertheless, I sent in my 35 quid — now about $73, which makes me wish I had converted all my IRA money to British pounds the moment Bush and Cheney were sworn into office — because I wanted the learning experience. This is a rare opportunity to look inside the inner workings of a lower-league football club and find out what it takes to run it efficiently and get it promoted. I’m hoping to learn about how player transfers work, how on-field strategies are formed, and what sort of issues clubs face with regard to playing ground, uniforms and such. It’s hands on, it’s democratic, and who knows? I might actually be a Coca-Cola Championship manager one day.
Of course, as I submitted my cash, I thought to myself, “Man, it would really suck if this guy ran away with all the money as soon as he got it.” I don’t think that’s going to happen, though. William Brooks, who put the project together, created too much publicity for himself to get away with such a giant scam. He even got EA Sports to sponsor this grand “crowdsourcing” experiment. That alone tells us that this won’t degenerate into “crowdscousering.”
I’ll probably log into the forums this afternoon and introduce myself. This will definitely be more interesting than any form of fantasy football.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Jarrett Campbell // Aug 2, 2007 at 4:54 pm
I’m in too, as soon as they can take my overseas payment.
So which club did you vote for? I’m in for Leeds United but Forest or Cambridge both are pretty appealing too.
2 Dave // Aug 2, 2007 at 5:12 pm
There’s no way we’ll be able to get Leeds, and given their debt woes, we wouldn’t want them anyway. Too much baggage.
I think we should go for a Conference National club and try to build it into a League club. My vote was for Torquay United, but Oxford or Cambridge would be pretty good, and really, any decent club at that level is okay by me.
3 Ricardo // Oct 7, 2008 at 3:48 am
So Dave, what happened after you submitted your cash last year? Did you end up buying into an Association Football Club or did it all fall through?
Cheers
R