Dagenham owners aiming for League One dream

Dagenham & Redbridge currently sit 13th in the National League

Dagenham & Redbridge's owners say they would "love" to take the club back to League One.

The Daggers have only ever experienced the heights of the third tier of English football once in their history in the 2010-11 season before they were relegated to League Two.

Since further relegation in 2016 they have been plying their trade in the National League and are among the non-league sides in FA Cup first-round action this weekend with a visit to Crewe Alexandra.

But six months ago the club was bought by Club Underdog, a subsidiary of US-based company North Six Group, whose aim is to return the east London side to the EFL.

“We have a history of buying teams that we think are underserved and have potential," new club chairman Daniel Hall told BBC Radio London's sport show earlier this month.

"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.”

Club Underdog became owners of Dagenham & Redbridge in May 2024

Club Underdog also owns four other teams, including Campobasso and Ascoli in Italy, Swiss club FC Locarno, and Brooklyn FC in America.

“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 said there are "benefits on and off the field" for Dagenham being under multi-club ownership, including a "pathway" for bringing in players both by generating talent and recruiting from overseas teams they run.

'We would love to see Dagenham in League One'

Dagenham & Redbridge are in their ninth season in the National League since being relegated from the Football League in 2016

Dagenham are 13th in the National League after 16 games and 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 also emphasised 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.”