“The supporters are often giving me their opinions on which players should and shouldn’t start games,” Liam Daish, the Ebbsfleet United head coach, said. “Now they can have their say.”

Well, not exactly. They can join the end of a queue of overnight experts 20,000 long, stretching from Switzerland to North Carolina, via Malawi, Qatar and Australia. They can pay their 35 quid, plus a £7.50 administration fee, and vote for transfer targets and tactics and who should play up front. They can be part of the great democracy that is MyFootballClub.co.uk. And they can store in a happier place the memory of the club who were Gravesend and Northfleet, who now rest at the mercy of an unwieldy selection committee of people who have never attended a game, but have the capacity to sink this local institution, with all the thought and careful deliberation that is usually reserved for eviction night on Big Brother.

A club with a history dating back to 1890, when Northfleet United were formed – Gravesend United came three years later, the two merged in 1946 and the unpopular name change to Ebbsfleet happened only last summer, after a sponsorship deal with Eurostar – is the latest victim of our interactive obsession. From January, when the purchase will be completed, the members of MyFootballClub.co.uk (or YourFootballClubScrewed, as it should be called) will make all decisions involving Ebbsfleet’s drive for promotion from the Blue Square Premier. Daish will be in charge of a team he has not picked, utilising tactics that are not his, taken from a squad he will be unable to shape. He may think, therefore, that he is absolved of responsibility and safe, but the nature of this beast suggests it will soon be his job that is put to an online show of hands, unless he gets out first, which he will do if he has any sense, along with any half-decent player. Yet this, we are smugly informed, is the future. No, it isn’t. It’s the road to Hell.

“We will live the adventure that is Ebbsfleet United,” one MyFootballClub subscriber said. Adventure? That is somebody’s football club you are talking about there, pal, so mind his grief. And no, it is not yours, too. One eighth of the price of a season ticket does not give you bragging rights equal to the 930 diehards who turned out to watch Ebbsfleet lose at home to Forest Green Rovers on November 3. To them, this is not a novelty Christmas gift, or a diverting hobby, but part of their soul. When MyFootballClub members are bored and no longer renewing, too busy to vote or distracted by X Factor again, the 930 will still be there, shivering, dispirited, wondering what went so wrong that their club were reduced to this.

It used to be that we entered fantasy football leagues or played computer games and that was enough. There was a sense of proportion. We talked as if we knew more than the England manager, and we still do, but rational folk privately accepted that football was best left to professionals.

Not any more. The age of wrongheaded empowerment has bred a generation that genuinely believes it can pick the team without watching a match, or a training session, and knows more about players than a man who made more than 300 first-team appearances for Portsmouth, Coventry City, Cambridge United and Birmingham City, and played five times for Ireland.

Birmingham City are no great advertisement for how to run a football club right now, but their co-owner, David Sullivan, talked sense when he explained that modern transfer business is too complex for a club to signal their every intention with a time-consuming online vox pop. Deals can be hijacked; decisions are needed in minutes. Then there are issues surrounding fees, wages and payments to agents: will MyFootballClub make the minutiae of every proposed transfer available to its members to better inform their decision? If so, there will be a heightened risk of failure as rival clubs know exactly what bid or financial package needs to be matched. If not, the members will be voting in the dark. It is an insane way to operate.

There is already a culture clash on the fans’ forum. MyFootballClub members bounding in with the joy of the new, thinking their money will be welcomed, only to be robustly rejected by longstanding loyalists, who believe a football club of 117 years’ standing deserve more than to be some computer nerd’s experiment. “I am so incensed by the way people who know absolutely sod-all about football can suddenly come in and take over a club, risking all the hard work that the true fans of Ebbsfleet have given to get us where we are today,” one said.

As MyFootballClub members talked up the possibility of greater investment and promised to attend at least one match this season – you know, when Ebbsfleet are away, and a bit nearer to home - one poster summed up the feelings of true supporters everywhere. “Beware of geeks bearing gifts,” he wrote.

Agent sticks to his guns

Barry Silkman, an agent, is refusing to cooperate with the Quest inquiry, which claims to have outstanding queries concerning deals in which he was involved. Silkman argues that, as Quest has already cleared all club officials of taking backhanders, he cannot be accused of paying any. He has a point, which is more than the Quest inquiry does if this is the standard of its logistic powers.

Grant in a fog over rain

Avram Grant has a sneering, condescending manner that endears him to few at press conferences. Fair enough. After the criticism he received when he first took the Chelsea job, a cordial relationship is hardly to be expected. But when an African reporter was politely explaining to him why the African Cup of Nations could not be played in summer to fit in with the European season, as Grant wishes, his patronising nature was indefensible. Told that a summer tournament would coincide with Africa’s rainy season, his lip almost curled. “In Europe, we play in rain,” he said.

No, we don’t. We play in showers, and the occasional heavy one. We play when it is spitting or, at worst, pouring. We do not play in rain as it is experienced on the African continent. Ghana, hosts of next year’s African Cup of Nations, has an average of 198mm precipitation in June, when Grant suggests the tournament is played, which is four times what Britain receives in December. Last June, in a freak British summer, an average of 140mm fell countrywide and Sheffield disappeared. This was still almost a quarter short of what Ghana receives in an average summer month.

Perhaps Michael Essien would like to take Grant back to his home when the season ends and demonstrate. Alternatively, he could replicate the drama of African rainfall in Grant’s office. A full bucket of water resting on a door slightly ajar should do it.

The game’s not bent

It is a testament to the fundamental honesty of football that Israel, with nothing to play for, overcame Russia in Tel Aviv on Saturday. The sport has its faults, but this basic trust is the reason Wembley holds 80,000 and could take more and the track and field venue for the London Olympics will be reduced after the event to the same capacity as the home of Wigan Athletic.

Bruce has had his full

So Birmingham City still do not have Carson Yeung’s money, but in the turmoil and uncertainty he has caused, Steve Bruce, the manager, has now as good as jacked it and will soon work against the club for a leading rival, Wigan Athletic. Chinese takeover? I wouldn’t trust this lot to organise a Chinese takeaway.

martin.samuel@thetimes.co.uk