The boy in the yellow kit simply could not keep still. Stood behind the temporary metal railings, he hopped from foot to foot, eyes bulging and his cheeks fit to burst. ‘He’s going to think you’re about to wee yourself,’ his dad remarked from over his shoulder.
If it were not already obvious who the grinning eight-year-old was so excited to see, the open page of the matchday programme clutched in his hand gave it away.
‘I’m going to get him to sign the picture of his face,’ the lad beamed as he pointed to the profile of Dagenham & Redbridge’s new minority shareholder. Not a star player, not even caretaker manager Andy Carroll, but the YouTuber, rapper and social media megastar KSI.
He was by no means alone. Hordes of young fans gathered in anticipation for the arrival of their favourite influencer and at just before 2.30pm on Saturday afternoon, the black Mercedes pulled into Victoria Road.
Up went the cheers as the door swung open and the frantic clamour for autographs and selfies began. ‘Thank you SO much,’ declared another wide-eyed boy after KSI scribbled on his programme and put his arm around him for a picture. ‘I can’t believe I’ve actually seen you.’
For the next five minutes, KSI scrawled on programmes and shirts and posed for photo after photo. A football match was starting in half an hour, one in which Daggers striker Stan Leech would score a first-half hat-trick in a 3-1 win over Hampton & Richmond Borough to keep alive the club’s National League South play-off hopes, but it was already clear who was the main event and what was the sideshow.
Daily Mail Sport attended Dagenham & Redbridge’s win over Hampton & Richmond last weekend, and saw first-hand the outpouring of love for new minority owner KSI
The YouTuber, rapper and social media megastar posed for countless photos with Daggers fans, spanning multiple generations
KSI, real name Olajide Olatunji, is one of the most recognisable people on the planet for anyone under the age of 25 and now he’s a Britain’s Got Talent judge even some of the oldies know him, too. Four weeks ago, KSI bought a 20 per cent stake in Dagenham & Redbridge. ‘Reaching the Premier League would be a dream,’ he declared. ‘And I believe it is 100 per cent doable.’
Quite the declaration for a team that has spent only nine seasons in the Football League in its 34-year history, from the latest in the string of celebrities to invest in football clubs. NFL star Tom Brady at Birmingham City, Snoop Dogg at Swansea, Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan at Bournemouth, all following in the footsteps of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney at Wrexham, who aren’t far away from achieving it.
Like their Netflix smash hit Welcome to Wrexham, KSI plans to turn the adventure into a documentary that will air in the summer on his YouTube channel entitled Race To The Top.
It was on said channel on Saturday, with the permission of the club and National League rights holders DAZN, that KSI streamed the match for free to his 17.6million subscribers.
When KSI’s investment was announced, Google searches for Dagenham & Redbridge spiked by 1,782 per cent from 11,000 the previous week to 207,000. The club’s post on X of KSI in a Dagenham shirt was viewed more than a million times.
Striker Stan Leech (pictured) scored a first-half hat-trick in a 3-1 win, though the game at times felt like a side show
Daily Mail Sport bumped into John Grabowski on Saturday, the slick American who fronts the Happy Fan Group consortium that bought the club in February, and asked just how much extra interest KSI has inspired since his arrival.
‘Well, you’re here,’ he replied.
For nearly three hours from when the Mercedes door first opened, a cameraman aimed his lens at KSI, wearing his Dagenham away shirt, and filmed whatever he did, wherever he went.
Cameras in the gantry provided the classic broadcast angles while a drone secured some arty shots from the sky. Those who watched online followed the action while KSI reacted in a box in the bottom corner of the screen.
By midnight on Sunday, the stream had more than 316,000 views. The highlights on Chelsea’s own channel from their Premier League defeat by Everton had 207,000.
At its peak on Saturday afternoon, more than 12,500 tuned in. As the lad sat next to me in the press box remarked: ‘That’s more than you can fit into Bournemouth’s stadium.’
All for a game in the sixth tier of English football.
And, so, we arrive at the strange and uneasy dilemma at the heart of it all.
Leech scores his third goal, in front of a Dagenham crowd that has had a major upturn in numbers since KSI’s investment
‘I was very apprehensive, and still am in many ways, but I can’t deny that it has injected so much energy and enthusiasm back into the club,’ says supporter Joel Page of the takeover
‘He’s putting Dagenham on the map,’ season ticket holder Tom Robertson tells Daily Mail Sport.
‘It really has brought the place to life,’ added lifelong supporter Joel Page, who runs the prominent Dagnificent! fansite. ‘I was very apprehensive, and still am in many ways, but I can’t deny that it has injected so much energy and enthusiasm back into the club.’
Dagenham’s average attendance this season before KSI’s arrival was 1,429. In the three games since, all of which he’s attended, it’s 2,028.
More eyeballs will hopefully translate to more sales and more sponsorships for a club that just posted losses for last season, when they were relegated from the National League, of £1.6million.
Even the most hardened back-in-my-day football purist would find it hard to deny there was a bounce and a buzz about the place.
But at what cost? How much of itself must Dagenham sacrifice to achieve it? A proud working-class club in east London now inescapably part of the never-ending churn of the content machine. Is it worth it? Does it even matter?
For Dagenham is a community that, in recent times, has been scarred by scandals and false dawns. It is not even a year since another YouTube star, Egyptian Marwan Serry, joined as an owner only to cut ties less than a week later and threaten legal action after the club sacked fellow influencer and new director Salma Mashhour inside three days over controversial social media posts about the Israel-Gaza conflict.
In the summer, having been relegated to the sixth tier for the first time since 2000 under former Manchester United defender Ashley Young’s brother Lewis, Dagenham announced they had been taken over by a Qatari consortium. That didn’t happen either.
KSI streamed the Hampton match to his subscribers, with the feed attracting hundreds of thousands of views
Even the most hardened back-in-my-day football purist would find it hard to deny there was a bounce and a buzz about the place on Saturday
So, among the adults at least, any excitement is tempered with at least a sliver of caution. ‘It is exciting, of course, but there is always the fear that you could lose what makes you, you,’ adds Page. ‘You don’t want it to become an extension of KSI. You want the football to stand alone. I’d rather stagnate as Dagenham than succeed as something else. You want to keep the heart of the club at the core of everything.’
For as much and Reynolds and McElhenney bought into Wrexham for their own financial interests, no one can argue they haven’t embraced the community around them.
‘I think that’s important,’ Carroll tells Daily Mail Sport after notching up his second successive win since replacing Lee Bradbury in the dugout. ‘I was at West Ham for seven years, I know the area, and I know the people around here. You need that.
‘We have that at the minute and I only think it’s going to get better and bigger. We’ve got everyone involved. That’s what we want to do as a club.
‘Everything KSI does, he does it 100 per cent. He’s started that way here as well. You can see what he attracts. He’s an energetic fella and he’s bringing that to us as well.’
What’s more difficult to gauge, however, is where the balance tips between what he attracts and from what he distracts.
As soon as the first Dagenham goal went in, all eyes and phone cameras turned on KSI, sat a few rows in front of us, and who had missed Leech prodding the ball in from close range because he was busy responding to comments coming through on the tablet strapped to his wrist.
Most of those comments were viewers begging for a shoutout. Another wonders if KSI might pay his school tuition fees. A few did suggest he might provide some commentary while others pitched ideas for potential summer signings.
Caretaker boss Andy Carroll – who was appointed by KSI – insists it’s important the high-profile owners embrace the Dagenham community
One name frequently proposed was that of Sak Hassan, the Wealdstone midfielder who featured for KSI’s side Prime FC in this season’s Baller League, the influencer-driven six-a-side competition on Sky Sports.
When Wealdstone released a statement to confirm they hadn’t been approached for permission to allow Hassan to participate nor been made aware of his involvement, KSI responded by posing for pictures with his Prime FC players all wearing vests with the statement emblazoned across the front and shared them all over his channels.
‘My heart sank a bit,’ adds Page. ‘It’s very much at odds with what he said about wanting to grow the non-league game. It almost felt like he’s waging war on another non-league club. But, at the same time, what did we expect?’
Because, after all, content is king.
The other concern is how long KSI plans to stick around. When we put the question to Grabowski as to why KSI wanted to invest, he smiled and said he was just keen to grow the game. That old chestnut. KSI says he chose Dagenham because he used to play as them in his early days as a YouTuber when he streamed himself playing the video game FIFA.
Dagenham’s win left them 12th in National League South and four points off the play-offs with five games to go. The race to the top is unlikely to start this season.
‘Come October or November next year, and things are not going our way, whatever league we are in, we know he could pull out at any time and it could all come crashing down,’ adds Robertson, before asking if we could help him secure a selfie.
For now, at least, there’s no sign of that. On his stream, when he wasn’t wildly celebrating or answering phone calls from another social media megastar known as IShowSpeed, KSI updated viewers on scores from around the division and what impact that had on the table.
Despite his very public antics at games, KSI has also been working hard away from the cameras
He’s on the phone to fellow investor, injured player, now caretaker boss Carroll every day as they plot their way up the divisions. KSI plans to attend Dagenham’s next game, away at Hornchurch, on Good Friday.
He’s made a few trips to the club in midweek when the cameras aren’t on him and attended the opening of a council youth centre last week.
And yet it was unlikely a coincidence that he stepped out of his Mercedes with a bottle of his own Prime energy drink gripped in his hand.
The final word, then, is perhaps best left to the steward in the high-viz coat posted on the touchline a few yards away from Dagenham’s new main attraction: ‘I’m just here for the ride, I don’t know where it will lead.’
