THERE are approximately 4,603 obsessive fans of the forgotten Eighties prog-rock band Marillion in the United Kingdom. If they were evenly distributed across the country, they would struggle to host a convention in a moderately sized pub backroom. Instead they have combined forces and exploited the vulnerability of the singles charts to send the Genesis copyists back into the Top Ten for the first time in 17 years.

Steve Hogarth, who replaced Fish as lead singer, urged fans to buy three copies each of Marillion’s latest single You’re Gone in an internet campaign attacking the soft underbelly of the charts. A link to the HMV website, offering two different CD versions of the single, was attached and the fans needed no further encouragement. By Sunday, 13,808 sales had been recorded, enough to send You’re Gone to No 7.

Now a record which had no radio or television support has qualified for a Top of the Pops appearance. Marillion find themselves one chart position ahead of the media darlings Franz Ferdinand.

Practically a registered charity, Marillion funded their latest album by raising £250,000 through online subscriptions from fans, who they name-checked in the album sleevenotes. Twenty years ago Marillion might have expected You’re Gone to increase its sales after forcing its way into the national consciousness, but they are no fools. They know that their self-released single will disappear from the chart as quickly as it arrived, so no need to waste millions, as major record companies do, pressing up 200,000 copies of singles destined for second-hand record exchanges.

The “guerrilla raid” on a declining singles chart is the latest way for ageing groups to remind the world they still exist. This year a punky anthem called 45RPM by a hitherto unknown band called the Poppyfields edged into the Top 30. It transpired that the band was a pseudonym for veteran Welsh rockers the Alarm, who had tipped off their 4,000 hardcore fans about the CD’s true identity.

“We wanted to make sure that we are judged purely on the strength of the music, and not by our old hairstyles,” said the band’s singer, Mike Peters. The single dropped out of the charts as soon as the truth dawned.

The situation is such that if the average home gate of the third-division football club Yeovil Town banded together, their numbers could force a chart entry. And so they did, taking the club song Yeovil True to No 36 in Feburary.

These days most indie bands are wise to the trick of releasing singles in a “limited edition” of 100,000 copies to maximise first-week sales, but even this level is over-estimating demand.

Last year’s biggest-selling single, Where is the Love? by the Black Eyed Peas sold just 625,000 copies over four months. Three years ago Pop Idol generated one million single sales for Will Young’s debut release but his successor Michelle shifted a fifth of that figure.

McFly, the latest teen sensations from the Busted stable, topped the charts with their debut single this month while recording fewer than 50,000 sales.

However, there is little that the industry’s guardians can do about this trend, short of setting a minimum sales entry requirement for the singles chart. If Marillion’s fans are encouraged to increase their bulk purchases next time, the presenter of Top of the Pops will have to swallow hard before introducing Britain’s “favourite song”.

ADAM SHERWIN