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Dagenham & Redbridge owners reveal ambitious plans for the club who ‘fit’ underdog brand

Dagenham & Redbridge owners reveal ambitious plans for the National League club who ‘fit’ the Club Underdog ethos and brand.

The owners, under the banner of Club Underdog, have outlined ambitious plans to get the club back into the English Football League (EFL), with League One being the initial aim.

This vision comes with a strategic approach that leverages the club’s identity as an underdog, a theme that resonates with their multi-club ownership model which includes teams like Ascoli and Campobasso in Italy, where they’ve already demonstrated success in promotion. They also have Swiss club FC Locarno, and Brooklyn FC in America under their banner.

The new owners, particularly Daniel Hall, have expressed a clear desire to see Dagenham & Redbridge return to League Two and eventually League One, of which they spent just one season in back in 2010/11.

This ambition is not just about sporting success but also about community impact, aiming to “help raise Dagenham up” through the club’s success.

The branding around “Club Underdog” seems to be a central theme. This branding not only plays into the narrative of the club’s current status in football but also ties into a broader strategy of the North Sixth Group.

This strategy involves identifying with and uplifting teams and communities that might be seen as underdogs, thereby creating a unique identity and fan connection.

They’ve since fell down the leagues and have been stuck in the National League since 2016.

Six months ago the club was bought by Club Underdog, a subsidiary of US-based company North Six Group.

“We have a history of buying teams that we think are underserved and have potential,” said new club chairman Daniel Hall to BBC Radio London.

“That’s the whole ethos behind our Club Underdog brand and certainly Dagenham fits that metric very nicely.

“I think there’s a ton of potential both on the field and also off the field in terms of how we can benefit the community, help raise Dagenham up, and help create something that’s greater than the sum of its parts.”

“We actually took over Campobasso in the Italian fifth tier, so the same spot Dagenham is in right now,” London-born Hall said.

“The same spot Wrexham was in, or was when Ryan [Reynolds] and Rob [McElhenney] took over there, and we took them to Serie C, which is the League One equivalent – the third tier in Italy.

“We’ve had a lot of success there.”

Hall also talked about the “benefits on and off the field” for Dagenham being under multi-club ownership, along with a “pathway” for bringing in players both by generating talent and recruiting from overseas teams they run.

The Daggers currently sit 13th in the National League after 16 games played. Hall said the “primary focus has been getting squad performing well and we are still working on that”.

He added: “We have a plan for this year and we have a plan for the next five years.

“We can’t promise anything. The best laid plans often go awry. You can throw money or not throw money at a problem and it may or may not work out.

“There’s a lot of luck involved in getting teams promoted, but certainly we would love to see Dagenham, in the short-term, in League Two, and we would also love to see Dagenham in League One.

“When we were in League One just over a decade ago, it was fantastic and the fans were happy, the fans were going to the games. There was so much engagement. It lifted the community.

“I was in London at that point as well, so I saw all this first-hand. To recreate that, to do it again, would be fantastic. We obviously can’t put a timeline on that but we are aiming to be a league club rather than a non-league club sooner rather than later.”

Hall highlighted the importance of running the club sensibly and not just “throwing money at a situation and not succeeding, then getting into trouble”.

“We want to be competitive but we want to be smart as well,” he said.

“We are certainly willing to invest and we have invested. But we want to do so in a sustainable manner.

“We’re also focused on being smart in terms of the players we recruit. Our sporting director [James King] has a great knowledge of the game from the National League South through to League One.

“We’re here to win, we’re here to be competitive, but we’re here to do it in a sustainable way.”

Here’s how fans reacted as the Dagenham & Redbridge owners reveal ambitious plans for the club who ‘fit’ the underdog brand…

@christof88: Great interview. Would love to see @BBCLondonSport more interested in us again in the long term. Come on the journey with us!

@OnceADagger: Interesting listen here. Speaks pretty well on financial sustainability in football yet also that we have a short term goal to get into League Two. Not sure how you can achieve one without abandoning the other in this division

@DaggerOncea: It was a good listen. I still think they have a plan with the Club which is trying to get the balance of supporting the Manager whilst not just chucking money at it. Not easy. I think the goal of L2 is just that, a goal and a wish. No promises made.

@OnceADagger: Yeah I don’t think they’re stupid, much less bravado than the previous owners which i prefer. I think they must have a strategy to achieve sustainability and promotion. But I really don’t know how it will be possible

@Diggerthedog1: They have a plan and that plan is not to just throw silly money it like the previous owners, building up off the field both commercially and a youth set up is only a good thing and should promotion ever follow we will be in a much better position than last time.

@Dazzarogers: All for ambition but it’s all a bit rich when we’re mid-table in the National League, struggling for consistency.

@christof88: Love this kind of insight! Future idea for when we’ve got a bigger media team – could interview pieces be podcasts? Simple to export the audio & distribute for free, better to listen to on the go. Appreciate it’s easier said than done though. I work in comms, I know how it is 😅

@DaggerOncea: Excellent catch up. Its a tough League to compete in let alone get out of. Its usually very fine margins that make the difference, we aren’t that far away.

@ArnoldJohn8834: I’m pleased to hear Daniel and his positive attitude. I don’t think recruitment has been well thought out especially fitness levels. I hope to be proved wrong and we climb the table but looking at recruiters elsewhere e.g FGR, Barnet I think mid table is the ceiling this term ⚔️

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