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The Pyramid — Edition 4
Edition 4 — a National League club that can afford to say no to £1m, plus a takeover bidding war with itself, a suspended club, and this week's Burger Index.
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Edition 4 · 10 August 2026
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The first proper weekend of the season is in the books: the Carabao Cup first round got under way, non-league clubs returned to action, and the FA Cup preliminaries delivered the first early stories from the bottom of the pyramid.
Alongside the football, we've got a busy set of finance stories to get through. This edition has a non-league club that can afford to say no to £1m, a shareholder clause turning one man's takeover into a bidding war with himself, a National League club suspended before its season could begin, and the real story behind talkSPORT's most-repeated football finance anecdote.
Plus, a 152-year-old club revived for £15, the real-world story behind "fair play", and this week's Burger Index.
Here's the roundup.
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The Lead Story
How Boreham Wood can afford to say no to £1m
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Djurgårdens have had two bids rejected for winger Abdul Abdulmalik, with the latest offer coming in around the £1m mark. For a National League side, turning down a seven-figure sum looks extraordinary on the surface.
We pulled the filed accounts to see why it's entirely plausible — and what the balance sheet tells us about the cost of keeping a star player.
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Read the full story →
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The Pyramid — Edition 4 · Also in this edition
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Also in this edition
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How West Ham's pre-emption rights turned Křetínský's takeover into a bidding war with himself
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Daniel Křetínský's agreed deal for the Gold family's stake has been overtaken by a higher offer from Amanda Staveley's consortium. The mechanism deciding what happens next isn't drama — it's a standing pre-emption clause in West Ham's own articles of association, doing exactly what it was built to do.
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Read the full story →
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Ebbsfleet suspended — the accounts saw it coming
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Ebbsfleet United's suspension by the National League over unpaid HMRC liabilities looked like a shock to most of the football world. It wasn't, if you'd read their accounts.
A going-concern note explicitly dependent on continued support from a Kuwaiti parent company, almost £7m owed to related group companies, and more than £15m in creditors due within one year were all filed before this week's crisis.
The next set of accounts is due at Companies House by 28 August. We break down what the last filing tells us — and what the next one needs to answer.
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Read the full story →
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What we actually know about how Simon Jordan lost Crystal Palace
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Simon Jordan talks about losing Palace on talkSPORT more than almost anything else in his back catalogue. We went through the contemporaneous reporting from January 2010 to look at the mechanics of the collapse: who was actually owed what, how the administration was triggered, and how ownership later passed to Steve Parish's consortium.
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Read the full story →
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A student bought East Sheen FC for £15
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Registering the name cost £15. The story since has reached tens of millions of views online — a level of attention a defunct 19th-century amateur club could never have imagined getting in its original lifetime.
We look at how it happened, and the GoFundMe campaign now helping turn that attention into an actual football club.
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Read the full story →
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The most Ted Lasso club in football isn't fictional
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A goalkeeper who stepped aside for a penalty because he didn't believe deliberate fouls could exist in football. He died at the Somme on the same day as the man who had replaced him on tour.
The remarkable true story of amateur ideals taken to their absolute limit.
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Read the full story →
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The GTM Playbook Behind Warmly's Acquisition
Warmly ran pipeline, outreach, and lead scoring on autopilot for hundreds of startups — before a single sales hire.
HubSpot acquired them for it. Now the cofounders are walking you through the exact system, live, before they disappear into product. Join the Builder Session on August 12.
Apple’s Starlink Update Sparks Huge Earning Opportunity
Apple just secretly added Starlink satellite support to iPhones through iOS 18.3.
Mode’s EarnPhone already reaches 490M+ users that have earned over $1B, and that’s before global satellite coverage. With SpaceX eliminating "dead zones," Mode's earning technology can now reach billions more in unbanked and rural populations worldwide.
Their global expansion is perfectly timed, and investors like you still have a chance to invest in their pre-IPO offering at $0.52/share.
With their recent 32,481% revenue growth and newly reserved Nasdaq ticker, Mode is one step closer to a potential IPO.
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Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur.
The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.
The Pyramid — Edition 4 — Burger Index #4
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🍔 Burger Index #4
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Chelmsley Town at Pack Meadow
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Our first tier 10 fixture — as far down the pyramid as we go. £4 for the burger, free entry, and a two-tier gap between the club that owns the ground and the club that actually played there.
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6.7 out of 10 →
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The platform is coming
Deeper club intelligence, alerts, and saved views — register your interest and we'll tell you the moment it's ready.
Register your interest →
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That's the roundup for this week. If you've got a club whose numbers don't add up, a takeover clause worth unpacking, or a non-league burger that needs investigating, hit reply and let me know.
Arthur Lewis
The Pyramid
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Warmly Ran GTM With No Sales Team. Here's How.
That's what Warmly proved. They defined ICP, scored buying intent, and surfaced the right accounts before a human ever touched a lead. HubSpot noticed.
