Dorking on the rise: Wanderers boss on investing in Championship dream
The National League has long been the gateway to English football’s professional divisions and has recently been at the centre of an international portrayal of the beautiful game.
Wrexham’s promotion from the division – which this season spans Fylde to Southend, Gateshead to Eastleigh – was documented in a series commissioned by their celebrity owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny, but they were not the only side to have cameras tracking their club.
Dorking Wanderers, in their second National League campaign, were founded in 1999 and have achieved 12 promotions in 23 years, from the 17th to the fifth tier of English football. They’ve done the same.
Dorking in on the act
And with Wrexham showing the division how an influx of cash can be the difference between league safety and an FA Cup run, Dorking are getting in on the act.
Now the club are offering fans the chance to be part of the aspiring outfit, with up to 30 per cent of the club’s ownership up for grabs from 7pm this evening.
“It was a bunch of friends who started a park team, a Sunday morning side, and in the last 23 years we’ve built a couple of grounds along the way,” Dorking Wanderers’ owner, chairman and manager Marc White told City PM
“We’re now in the National League with the TV money and the commercials that come with that. We’re just now looking to kick the club on somewhat so we’re doing a fan ownership scheme. It’s our next chapter.
“We need a first team training ground, we need better facilities for our academy. To be a football league status club [you need] that day to day stuff, everything off the field in particular has to improve.
“We took the decision, which wasn’t just about investment, to bring in people with added value. In football clubs you need litigation lawyers, builders, all these people that, when they join the journey, can really help us for the next decade.”
Wanderers online
The Wanderers, who are yet to win in their opening two games of the season, have already been doing things differently.
The club’s YouTube docu-series Dorking Uncovered has over 75,000 subscribers on its parent channel Bunch Of Amateurs while the club’s TikTok channel outperforms many teams in divisions above them.
“From a digital point of view, we’re probably bigger than Championship clubs,” White added. “From our personal point of view, it’s just been a way that people can follow the story and because we’ve come from the very lowest level, we want to keep that story real.
“If I’m down the pub restaurant in the High Street, that’s just me. Every manager does the same thing, they just don’t have a camera.”
Custodians
Sheffield FC were founded in 1857 and are the oldest club in the United Kingdom, according to Fifa, and are now in the seventh tier. Dorking were founded 142 years later and are eyeing a place in the English Football League.
But White is under no illusions as to where the club can be, and recognises that it will not always be his job to take Dorking forward.
“Football is at the heart of the community, and you are only ever a custodian of a football club. It will be there after me,” he said.
“We want to take the club as far as we can, League One or the Championship. We don’t want to convince anybody they’re going to retire out of being a shareholder but if there was one story to get involved in, it’s ours.
“I know what is going to happen, we will have an FA Cup run of sorts, we’re going to increase our profile and keep going forward. That’s the plan.”