Dag & Red owner ‘doing things the right way’ as Ryan Reynolds and Wrexham dominate headlines

Dag & Red owner Peter B Freund talks about ‘doing things the right way’ as Ryan Reynolds and Wrexham dominate headlines.

Some might forget that there is high profile consortium in the National League, however these lot say they are doing business differently in what is one of the toughest leagues to get out of in English football, if not the world.

The Daggers currently sit 7th, the last playoff place, taking 26 points from 15 games played. Last season they finished 12th and the season prior to that 17th, so it’s fair to say on and off the pitch things are improving.

“I wish we had a documentary crew with us from the start,” says Peter B Freund via football.london.

While this isn’t maybe a dig per-say at Wrexham’s Hollywood owners, Freund, who is a minority owner of the New York Yankees took over Dagenham & Redbridge in 2018 when the club was in dire-straits, he doesn’t find it difficult to highlight the contrast in approach.

Plenty of managers have talked about the spending at the top tier of Non League football – more recently Grimsby Town’s owner took issue with, seeing a group of clubs splashing the cash to try and finally win promotion back to the EFL.

Dagenham are said to be ‘far from paupers’ and while they could chose to overspend, Freund and a consortium which includes ex-Manchester United keeper Tim Howard decided to no to.

“There’s a satisfaction in doing things the right way,” he says ahead of this weekend’s fixture when they host Yeovil. “We don’t want to be the highest-paying, coddled, elitist club. We want to be gritty, grinding, the hardest-working. Because then it feels better when you get three points.”

Freund understands the attraction to life in the fifth tier being documented, especially if you’re a big name or famous face down in the depths at non league in towns and stadium you wouldn’t normally see them.

“It was a bit like when you taste scotch for the first time and you hate it but then you grow an appreciation,” he said. The realness and rawness of it all absorbs him more with each transatlantic trip, and the scale of how much it means to supporters really hit home during the pandemic when he realised how closed turnstiles had an impact far greater than financial.

“Football at this level is a human story, that’s why Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought Wrexham,” he goes on. “It’s not because they decided Wrexham was the greatest football club on earth, it’s because it’s a human story, a story of a club with potential and people who bleed it. And that should be documented, it should be on television.”

Just because you spent a lot of money doesn’t exactly guarantee you promotion. After all Sutton United managed to upset the pre-season odds and gain a place in the Football League after being crowned champions last season.

“Maybe Wrexham will go on and win the league this year or win the play-off final at Wembley but the reality is they are spending at least double what we’re spending and currently below us in the table,” he continues. “I watched Salford overspend from the seventh tier to the fourth. So money helps but there’s no guarantee. Look at it over the seasons we’ve been here, would I have been better off spending £4million in year one and get promoted instead of spending £1.5million every year?

“The fun of the National League is you can’t buy promotion. In the Premier League you can tell who the top six clubs are going to be, it’s pretty easy. But the beauty of this league is every Saturday you don’t know. No matter what you spend and who you bring in you don’t know. We’re not in the bottom half of spending but we’re not going to be in the top few teams either.”

Peter B Freund had talks with promising manager Daryl McMahon earlier this week, sounding out a potential signing, however heard that the footballer’s current club were demanding a £50,000 transfer fee. “It wasn’t that I can’t afford it, it just didn’t make sense for that player,” Freund says, conceding there will be other clubs willing to pay the asking price. “You just have to do what your gut tells you and what’s right and wrong. It’d be easy to do it but we’re not going to out of principle more than anything else.

“Wrexham are easy to pick on but whenever there’s a new club in town with new owners who are spending, that’s where the agents and players have a reference point. As soon as they hear a club has done that, it creates a new baseline. The reality is there are enough teams spending that if I don’t do it someone else probably will. And that’s OK.”

It would seem that he has a great relationship with McMahon, and that he is the right man to get them back in League Two since 2016.

“If we’re going to try and compete with teams that have double and triple our budgets it’s important we have stability and a long-term objective and plan,” he says of the club’s current standing.

Freund is certain that the Daggers squad could compete in the top half of League Two, however is reluctant to make any forecasts around promotion.

The owner’s favourite part of the match weekend is having the change to talk with the manager along with his coaching staff and the players 24 hours before kick off.

He doesn’t want to be a distraction on matchday so will only feature at selected matches from time to time..

“I love standing there,” Freund says on being at the training ground. “It’s the biggest thrill for me. I understand I am technically a football chairman and they are my employees but the fact is I like these guys personally. I have got to know a big group of them and I really love them. It’s not all about business at this level.”

The owner also gets a catchup from the club’s long-serving managing director, Steve Thompson, who says, is “a true friend, who epitomises everything that’s right with English football. He’s honest, sincere and the club is his life.”

It’s not rare to hear chants of “God Bless America” and “USA! USA!” from the Dagenham faithful, but does know how things can change quickly from those watching on in the stands.

“When they turn on me, they know I’ll go away so really they are the smartest fans,” he says before laughing to enforce that he was not being entirely serious. “But the reality is we’re not Arsenal, we’re not Sunderland. We’re a small club. When I do something, I do it with my heart. That’s what I’ve done.

“I’ve made a commitment to come in, spend reasonable money. I was committed to being competitive every season and I have failed on that front. We had a good second half of last season and I feel pretty confident about our squad this year. But more than anything it was about taking pride in the club.

“I care. I live and breathe it every Saturday. I mean more or less everything I say on Twitter. I try to listen as much as I can. Fans aren’t always right either, there were calls last year to sack Daryl. It takes patience but I try to be responsive, listen.”

It was when he watched Brentford at Griffin Park that he got hooked on the idea of owning his own English club. At the time, “Matthew [Benham, the Bees owner] would tell people they would be promoted to the Premier League and you’d think to yourself, ‘I don’t think so.’“

“It was out of thin air,” he says on reports came in for an attempt to buy Aston Villa for around £75million who were in the Championship then. “He [a broker] used my name because I was kicking tyres. That created a narrative in the press that was totally shocking to me. It’s a fantastic club, I’d love to go hang out with Prince William and watch a match from the directors’ box at Villa Park. But that’s not happening because I didn’t have £75million to burn or whatever it sold for at the time.”

Instead Dagenham were in freefall and really needed help after Glyn Hopkin chose to stop bankrolling the club in early 2018. Supporters were able to keep raising funds for the future of the team, then a prospect was put to Freund following a lucky meeting between Thompson and an intermediary, Steve Horowitz, who played a part in getting Fenway Sports Group to Liverpool as well as the Wrexham deal, the New Yorker did his due diligence and saw a club in a part of London that was likely to see a surge of future investment as the city continues to grow outwards.

“The reality is where I landed was where I needed to be,” he says. “I like to control things, I like to be in charge. I don’t like to be a passive investor. I’ll gladly be a passive investor in a Premier League club but the reality is this is perfect for me.”

“We don’t have TikTok on our shirts,” he adds, another reference to Wrexham, who display the social media corporation’s logo on their shirt. “Our businesses are incredibly loyal to Dagenham and Redbridge but our kit sponsor is a chain of funeral homes. It’s a very real and important business but it’s not TikTok.

“This is more of a passion than a business. Anybody who believes they are going to make money at this level of football is fooling themselves. It’s easy to think we can sell on a couple of players and create real value down the road but for me it’s not about that. I have no illusions we’re suddenly going to go from writing cheques for £1million a year to making £1million a year. That’s just not going to happen. And we don’t have TikTok as a kit sponsor so…”