The MyFootballClub project was a good idea, but it was always doomed to failure. Not failure in the sense of it going bust, but they were never going to make the Premier League and are most probably likely to only flirt with any real success and for real success read 'getting into the football league'.

Why am I blogging about this now though? Well, I signed up and paid over my money the first time of asking because I didn't read the small print. Had I read the small print, I'd have known that I wasn't actually owning anything and that actually there is nothing in it for me, apart from a few clicks and access to a forum and today I received a marketing letter asking me to pay more money.

When I signed up, it was quite exciting and I was, foolishly, under the impression that I did actually own part of the club, after all, my money was going to go towards buying a football club, but actually, me paying over the money when I joined up doesn't actually entitle me to anything and for me to continue getting these increasingly annoying emails they want me to pay another £35.

Well, it's not going to happen and I suspect a few feel the same way if the traffic statistics from compete.com are anything to go by. Traffic to the site has gone up very recently, mostly I suspect, because of these annoying emails, but generally the trend is a downward one.

If you are a local supporter of Ebbsfleet United, I can understand paying over the money, but if you're not, then I fail to see the point. Sure, you could have become a supporter over the last year as I'm sure some have, but I haven't and even if you had I just can't get my head around, giving money away for nothing, other than access to a forum and the odd vote on who should be playing. The voting for who plays opens up another can of worms all together, so I'm not even going down that road today.

The thing is, I think it's done wrong. Sure, it's the first time it's happened in this country, but I still think it could have been done better. Where is the reward, or anything, for me paying another £35 over to them. Let me be a little more specific; what's in it for me?

As far as I can see, I pay the money over and I've got access to a forum that is too happy clappy and reminds of that fictional forum from the West Wing, lemonlyman.com. If I really want that, there are plenty of free forums to pick from and if I wanted to, I could still visit the club website to see where the club is in the league.

Like I said, it was a good idea but I just can't see it working as there really is nothing in it for me and according to the stats from MyFootballClub, at 11am this morning only 4,095 people had renewed of the 32,000 that originally signed up. Doesn't look good with only two days to go and that figure might also include people that signed up for more than one year.

Will be another interesting one to watch though.