In 1897, Joseph B. Swan, a farmer in Colorado (USA), announced that he had harvested a potato 76 centimetres long and almost 40 kg. The potato was so impressive that they decided to give it a first and last name: Maggie Murphy.
The event quickly became popular. It started with a publication in the local newspaper, accompanied by a photograph of Swan carrying the herculean potato, and then found its way into scientific publications (such as Scientific American) or popular publications (such as Ripley's Believe it or not!).
But nothing was real. The potato didn't exist and the photo was a set-up organised by W. L. Thorndike, editor-in-chief of the local newspaper, to promote a street fair.
Thus, Maggie Murphy went from being the name of a historic potato to the name of a hoax: The Maggie Murphy hoax.
If we travel almost 130 years to the present day and to the south of England, we find another Maggie Murphy, the CEO of Lewes FC, who only a few days ago announced that she would be stepping down at the end of the season.
But this Maggie is truly something big.
Why should I care?
On a sporting level, Lewes FC is not a football club that makes a big impact. Neither its men's team nor its women's team play in the English Premier League. But on a storytelling level, it is quite the opposite.
Lewes FC is a different club. But not the kind that says it's different. It is truly different, from the core, and that is something very rare in the world of football. They call themselves Equality FC and they live up to it, because they distribute their resources equally between the men's and women's teams. Same salaries, same budgets, same pitch.
I don't want to dwell too much on this either, so if you are interested in finding out more, you can reply to this email or watch the documentary they have produced to tell their vision.
The face of equality.
A different kind of club needed a different kind of CEO to give it the impetus it needed to move forward on the path less travelled. And that's where Maggie Murphy comes in.
I met Maggie in Seville at the 2022 World Football Summit. She was part of the panel Building a sustainable business case for women's football and she stole the show. Every time she spoke there was a reaction in the audience. It was like when Messi grabs the ball, the spectators' bodies tense up, because they know something is about to happen.
Maggie not only stood out for her eloquence and conceptual clarity in explaining her and Lewes FC's vision, but also for the emotion she put into her words. Despite the fact that football is a very passionate business, industry talks tend to be rather rational. This is not the case with Maggie.
After the talk, I wrote to her on Linkedin to find out more about her work. It's complicated for someone like Maggie to have time to meet with a stranger who writes to her out of the blue, but, as I said before, a different club starts with a different CEO.
We met later that day, I peppered her with questions and she didn't bat an eyelid. She told me about how they work at Lewes FC, the role of Premier League clubs in promoting women's football, the importance of persuasion over imposition, the role of her family, all the countries she played football in and when she broke a Guinness World Record on Kilimanjaro (for the highest altitude football match).
So, I started following Lewes FC, learning more about the history behind Equality FC and ended up becoming an owner.
Last year I came up with an idea that I felt could work really well with the message that Lewes FC conveys and I wrote to Maggie. Again she was very welcoming and put me in touch with the club's commercial director to see the viability of the project.
And now?
Lewes FC is so much more than Maggie Murphy, but it's hard to imagine the club without her. In every talk and every event she reflects the passion, honesty, kindness and rethinking that also defines Lewes.
It's one of the club's great strengths in terms of communication and it makes true that branding principle that says that every person who works with a brand has to live and express its values. I can't think of a better fit than Maggie with Lewes FC.
I don't know whether she is stepping down as CEO because of the normal wear and tear of leading such a club, whether it is linked to the failed deal with Mercury 13 or whether she is going someplace else, from where she can continue to convince more people to rethink football and do it differently.
What is clear to me is that you have to pay attention to what she does in the future, it's going to be worth it.
Great read!