Dun good: Shrewsbury football team's new sponsor is major US writer

Dun Cow FC, a Division Four team in the Greenhous League, boasts Stephen Dubner as its benefactor – all thanks to a cheeky email.

Dubner is the man behind Freakonomics Radio, a New York-based podcast which is downloaded around five million times per month.

The host, who also published the wildly successful Freakonomics series of books alongside economist Steven Levitt, began sponsoring the club at the start of this season after receiving a message out of the blue from Alex Simpson, the son of Dun Cow manager Paul Simpson.

And now, after putting his hand in his pocket to the tune of several hundred pounds, he has been to visit the team in person.

"It would be fair to say I had never heard of Shrewsbury. I don't know if I'd ever heard of Shropshire," Mr Dubner said as he soaked in the surroundings of the Abbey Foregate pub which hosts the team.

He said he was paying a whistle-stop visit to the county town with his son Solomon – the proud owner of an encyclopaedic knowledge of European football – as part of a family holiday.

The father and son took in the more decorated footballing surroundings of White Hart Lane, where they watched Spurs beat Norwich, and The Emirates Stadium to catch Arsenal versus Bournemouth over the festive period.

"I get a fair amount of emails every day from people I don't know with different proposals or questions to do with Freakonomics," he said.

"Many are interesting or unusual but this one a little more so as it was requesting sponsorship of a football club.

"If it weren't for Solomon I probably wouldn't have paid attention, as he has been the football evangelist that's gotten everyone more interested in the sport.

"I went online to try to find out who this institution is, and couldn't find that much, but I realised Alex was a teenager and that made me more inclined to think about it seriously because I have children of my own and like the idea of people taking initiative in things they care about."

Paul and Alex met the Dubners at Wembley Stadium after England took on Lithuania in October last year, and that meeting has led Dun Cow's red and white striped shirt to bear the Freakonomics radio slogan.

It stands alongside the club's other sponsors, car dealership Greenhous and Shrewsbury-based butchers AF Davies, whose names are carried on the club's training jackets.

The Twitter account for Dun Cow, which was founded in 2014, boasts followers in Texas, San Francisco and New York – among other American cities – plus South Africa, Indonesia and Australia.

"I thought it was a good cause and a fun cause," Mr Dubner said.

Dun Cow FC - @duncowfc

Stephen Dubner - @freakonomics

"My work philosophy is things should be either intellectually stimulating, fun and/or profitable, as you have to pay the bills even a a writer.

"This definitely appealed to the intellectually stimulating and fun elements. It's not something I'm looking to profit from, which is great, but as long as I hit two of the three then great.

"It fits in only because our whole aesthetic is follow the fun. In terms of the empirical, analytic part of what we do, not very much.

"One thing I've learned from working with my co-author Steve Levitt is it's a great thing to organise your work around things you really enjoy. It seems like a no-brainer but it turns out it's not.

"I have the luxury of doing for a living what I really like to do, and I realise that's a luxury, and not everybody can do that, but I do think whenever possible it's a great idea to take something you really enjoy and to turn that into your work if you can. To me that's what writing and radio and journalism is.

"The Dun Cow arrangement is fun, it gives me something to talk about. On my other podcast, Question of the Day it's come up once or twice.

"As a writer you're always looking for a way to make your brain turn a little to the left or to the right.

"It's been a lot of fun, and I'm delighted to see the club doing so well this year and I'll claim total credit for the sponsorship being behind that."

The tie-up does appear to be working nicely for the club, which plays its home games at Springfield football pitches, on Mereside – a "lovely" home ground, according to the Freakonomics star.

Dun Cow entered the winter break in second place, with 25 points under their belt, as it scraps for promotion from a competitive division that encompasses sides from around Shrewsbury.

"I guess I knew of Sunday league theoretically, as we have equivalent leagues in the States," Mr Dubner added.

"Pub leagues, mostly softball, the adult slow version of baseball, we all play.

"What seems different here is that in what looks to be a casual league from a distance, I'm impressed and surprised at the degree to which it's taken seriously and approached professionally.

"If you're doing something purely out of love and as a hobby, it's great to take it seriously.

"It seems this club puts a priority on showing up sober and working hard, and treating the game as the important thing. You want to play it well and you want to win.

"That's different to showing up to drink and have fun. I'm not against that, but I appreciate the mindset that goes into what you love to do and treating it seriously.

"The fact that there's a father-son combination with a young guy putting this much effort into a game is also really appealing.

"I love playing sports, baseball was my best sport. The other things I did as a kid – playing music, collecting stamps, whatever it was – it's fun to try hard to be good at something. I appreciate when people do that, whatever level they are at and whatever they are doing."

He continued: "When I say it on the show I try to make it sound legitimate and sincere, that it's something we do for fun, but some people are sceptical, they think it's some experiment. But occasionally somebody writes to us and say that sounds fun; we would like to follow them too."