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9 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

And won me some money, so nice one for that. 

Fourth Qualifying Round draw for the FA Cup today. 

Nice one! It would have been quite a disaster if we had have lost to Dover to be fair!

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Won our 3rd qualifying round game 1-0 at Aylesbury on Saturday so we're in the hat for the FA Cup 4th qualifying draw later today (think it's 3:15 on Talksport 2). 

Aylesbury two divisions below us so would've been an upset if we hadn't won, thought we did edge the game and deserve the victory. 

Credit to Aylesbury (or Chesham as that's who they ground share with) a nice bar and their pitch held up well considering the poor weather. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

We've got Hungerford away tomorrow. It's cliched but you feel it's the kind of game title challengers win. Sounds a bit silly as surely every game is one title challengers should win, but I've seen enough to believe that we're good enough at home and will win an overwhelming majority of our home games. It's trips like tomorrows which will give a better insight into whether we're title challengers or perhaps just playoff contenders. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Went to Harlow Town v Waltham Abbey. Ended 3-2 to the home side, who got away with one really as they should have been held for a point, Waltham Abbey had a goal disallowed for offside despite their being at least one defender playing the striker on, which would have been quite the turnaround from being 3-0 after their keeper kicked the ball at his own defender to give away the first and some comedy defending for the other two. Both were fairly similar, two poor defences though Harlow have better attackers. 

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  • Administrator

BitCoin is making its way into the game...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59701285

Quote

 

How do you turn a team with an average home crowd of 40 or 50 people into a Premier League club?

Bitcoin podcaster Peter McCormack thinks he has the answer to that question.

He has bought Bedford FC, currently in the 10th tier of English football, and plans to persuade the worldwide Bitcoin community to provide the financial backing for his plans.

So confident is he, he believes Bedford will soon be Bitcoining it in.

"If you look at the couple of million Ryan Reynolds has put into Wrexham, what we're looking to raise would be far, far higher than that," he says.

The goals are ambitious and trying to reach them may include a name change - he has already set up a website for Real Bedford.

But Bedford FC are currently not even the biggest team in the Bedfordshire market town at the moment, with Bedford Town two tiers higher in the football pyramid, so there is an immense amount to do.

Last weekend, League Two club Bradford City turned down a takeover bid by US cryptocurrency investors WAGMI United.

So why does McCormack want to get involved in football at such a lower level? The reason is simple, he is a Bedford boy.

"I wasn't really aware of Bedford Town growing up, it wasn't something my dad would take me to go and see and I wasn't a Luton fan or a Watford fan and felt no affinity to those places. Being a kid, I picked Liverpool as my team, which is obviously a long way away," he told BBC Three Counties Radio.

"I always felt Bedford as a town could support a league club - we're a population of 134,000 people, so I always wanted to buy one of the local teams and have a go at trying to get them into the Football League."

McCormack, who said on Twitter that his plan was "to get our club into the Premier League, nine promotions" when he announced his takeover, is dreaming big, but is certainly not approaching the project as a wide-eyed innocent who cannot see the pitfalls.

"Absolutely this might not work, but if you're going to go out and do a project like this, I think you have to be ambitious, you've got to have big goals and I'm not going to take over a football club and say that my goal is two promotions," he said. "What kind of ambition is that?

"My ambition is to bring league football to Bedford, the town I'm from and the town I love, and to give something to the people around here. You have to have an ambitious target, I think it would be embarrassing not to say you want to do something good."

Bitcoin is a virtual or digital currency which can be used to buy products or services and is not controlled by governments or banks.

McCormack says 150m people around the world own Bitcoin and he intends to use his contacts to tap into that potential funding source to help the club climb through the leagues, as well as boosting local grassroots football.

"The people in the Bitcoin community are very supportive of this, they want to buy shares, they want to buy hoodies, they want to buy t-shirts. I've already closed a significant amount of sponsorship," he said.

"We've got a target revenue for year one - when I say year one I mean the rest of the season and next season - of £1.5m to £2m of revenue which we can certainly do from selling merchandise online and selling sponsorship to the Bitcoin companies, and that money would then be invested in the team and local football.

"I've been sitting down with some of the major players in Bitcoin, people who are considerably wealthy, and I've been pitching them the dream. So far, everybody I've spoken to wants to put money into this.

"We are looking to raise what would be considered a staggering amount for a club of this size."

Any change of name for the club will have to wait until the end of the season.

But how did Real Bedford emerge as an option for a new identity?

"The name itself was a bit of a joke to begin with because we thought we might have to establish a new club rather than purchase a club and so my team wondered what we might call it.

"We were just having some fun, 'let's call it Real Bedford a bit like Real Madrid' and that's kind of stuck with us," explained McCormack, who says he has already agreed one sponsorship deal worth £150,000.

"It's not 100% confirmed that will be the name next season, it might still be Bedford FC, it might be Bedford United but the name's kind of stuck and it stands out.

"It's a bit like when [David] Beckham named Miami Inter Miami. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a bit of fun with the name."

McCormack is not setting a timescale for turning his dream into Real-ity - but the project has two distinct phases: local, advancing to the National League, and national by reaching the Premier League.

And manager Jason Goldman and assistant Martin Wells now have the task of guiding Bedford FC to the first step towards it, promotion from South Midlands League Division One.

Any pressure they may now be feeling will not have eased following Saturday's 6-1 defeat by Northampton Sileby Rangers, which left Bedford seventh in the table.

Speaking before the game, McCormack said he had assured Goldman he would not interfere with the "day-to-day running" of the team.

"He's responsible for the team and results, but I will give him any support he requires. If he explains to me the players we need to sign then I will help him go out and sign those players," he continued.

"That said, it's a results business and he and the players will know that we're in this to climb through the leagues, to bring league football to Bedford, and we will put the people in place who can do that."

McCormack admitted he has gone into the project "fairly green" and is still coming to terms with what is involved in running a football club.

But he said: "My role in this is really marketing and fundraising to give a platform to climb through the leagues.

"In terms of the day-to-day running I'm surrounding myself with people who are experienced in running football clubs, who understand non-league football."

McCormack plans to "outreach internationally" to help the club turn the dream into a reality - but if financial support is not going to be a problem, what is?

"The one thing we can't guarantee is results on the pitch," he added.

"You know what football is like. You might have the best players, but you still might not gather the results. That's the unknown variable for us, but financial support for the club and grassroots football in Bedford, that bit is pretty easy."

 

Somewhat conflicted in this as I don't agree with non-football personnel taking charge and owning football clubs. Doesn't sit right with me and it's a cancer that happens at the elite level, let alone at this very low level of the game. So maybe now it's become unavoidable. But on the other hand, this is my hometown and if someone is trying to increase the reputation of the town, and effectively 'put us on the map' in footballing terms, then who am I to go against that? The new owner says he's 'surrounded himself with football people' to help him run the club, so I just hope for his sake, but more importantly the club's sake, that it's not a wasted venture. 

It would be interesting to see how things pan out if they do get promoted and come up against the 'bigger' Bedford Town FC. 

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10 minutes ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59920281

Linking with @LFCMike above, this should be fun.

Surely these points in that article should mean Chester are right to carry on as they were?

  • Land registry records confirm that the whole site is within the administrative area of Cheshire West & Chester Council
  • The land of this now fan-owned club owned by Cheshire West and Chester Council
  • Games are policed by Cheshire Constabulary
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4 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

Surely these points in that article should mean Chester are right to carry on as they were?

  • Land registry records confirm that the whole site is within the administrative area of Cheshire West & Chester Council
  • The land of this now fan-owned club owned by Cheshire West and Chester Council
  • Games are policed by Cheshire Constabulary

I thought the same, especially as they apparently had the same scenario last year, but the Welsh Government need to show that they're doing something after all.

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