Dorking Wanderers FC smashes Seedrs target

By Tom Kilkelly

17 August 2023

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Dorking Wanderers FC, the grass-roots football club, is on the cusp of breaking into the English Football league.

To fund its ambitions the club started a fundraising campaign on Seedrs, hoping to raise £180,000 for the business. As of today the club has raised £260,308, with a total of 452 investors.

This overperformance puts the club in strong steadings to achieve its ambition of transitioning to the level required to consistently compete for promotion.

The club wants to invest in a number of revenue-generating commercial infrastructure projects including the development of academy and community playing facilities, plus food and beverage services and hospitality upgrades that will generate commercial revenue opportunities and improve matchday and community experiences.

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Dorking Wanderers is also looking to generate a number of different revenue streams through commercial operations.

For the operations to work at a Vanarama National League level, the club needs at least £2 million for commercial infrastructure projects, with the aim to give the club new ways to make a more significant income, to support growth on and off the pitch.

The club predicts that increases in attendance and targeted significant growth in digital audiences will play a large part in generating this money for the team.

Club Manager, Owner & Chairman, Marc White, said: "We have gone from paying a fiver on a local park to having 1,000 active members.

"We never really had a plan and we just pieced things together as we went along, but perhaps 12 to 14 years in we started to have these little pipe dreams.

"We were the beneficiaries of Dorking FC being disbanded, but Dorking is a small market town and everyone wants the best for each other. Some of the people who worked at Dorking FC are now involved with our club.

"It was, over time, an ever-expanding hobby, but it became properly serious when we reached the National League."

By Tom Kilkelly

Tom Kilkelly started working as a freelance journalist for The Business Magazine following his graduation from UCL in 2022.

During his studies Tom became very interested in the works of Irish authors including Samuel Beckett and Flann O'Brien (Brian O'Nolan).

His current role as a freelance business reporter is his first exposure to the world of business journalism. Working at TBM has given Tom the chance to really get to grips with the goings-on in the business hive that is the South East.