A font, a a muppet, a fraudster, a clumsy person, a Judas, a bribe-taker. A good boy, a boy, a maestro, a beauty. For the crowd at Real Bedford Football Club on a sunny August evening, the referee achieved all of these things in the space of half an hour. Bedford supporters, separated from the football field by a twisted metal railing of about a meter, held a continuous dialogue with the players throughout the match: “Number 3! Number 3! shouted Simon, a particularly vocal supporter, “That was a fucking exquisite touch!” Number 3 returned a knowing smile and a thumbs up.
This is semi-professional non-league English football: the ninth rung of the national ladder, where players are paid tens of pounds a week, not tens of thousands, and where matches attract at best a few hundred spectators. The regulars know each other well: most of them live and work nearby. The match was a replay of an earlier match against FC Clacton, from a coastal town 100 miles away, the winner of which would progress to the next round of the FA Cup, the oldest knockout tournament and the most prestigious in England. The previous meeting ended in a full-scale brawl and a 2-2 draw.
Football at this level is rarely glamorous, but Real Bedford’s new owner and chairman, Peter McCormack, has big ambitions to take the club to the Premier League, the elite of English football. McCormack, who took over the club in April 2022, first made his money in advertising, then by investing in Bitcoin and producing Bitcoin-related content. He is a prominent member of the cryptocurrency community, through his podcast, What Bitcoin Didand his plan is to turn his position in the crypto world into an international fan base and a lucrative sponsorship for Real Bedford.
This match, like all home matches, is broadcast live on YouTube. The club has established supporters groups across the world, from Ghana and Tanzania to China and Cambodia. The club badge and shirts feature the Bitcoin logo, with the aim of making it something all Bitcoiners can rally behind. And renowned sponsors followed, such as Gemini, the crypto exchange managed by the Winklevoss twins.
Rags to riches stories are rare in English football, and the mixing of crypto and sports has already led to hostilities between clubs and their fans. But McCormack is convinced this time will be different, and he’s taking a decidedly practical approach to prove it.
McCormack had agreed to host me at the game, but it quickly became apparent that he would not be able to complete our first interview. Three hours before kick-off, he was busy preparing the merchandise, organizing the locker room playlist and removing boxes of equipment from the trunk of his car. Later I asked a few questions while he arranged the parking lot, but the rest would have to wait. “I’m sorry. You ask someone else to do something, they won’t do it right,” he said over his shoulder, as he ran to intercept another wayward driver .
