Rise of Hashtag United - How YouTuber took unique club to brink of history
It started out as a group of friends having a kickabout and has grown at an almost unfathomable rate to spawn a football club who are turning heads.
Hashtag United are not a conventional club. In fact, they are the antithesis of a conventional club. They have been reverse-engineered: rather than forming a team and then building up a following, they picked up fans first and then worked backwards.
The result is a club which now has over 40 different teams, ranging from the men’s and women’s first teams to youth teams, disability teams, Alzheimer's teams and walking teams. Hashtag now compromises over 400 players and is thriving on and off the pitch.
This season, the men’s first team managed a staggering run of 21 wins in a row and were confirmed as Isthmian League North Division champions last weekend. They can finish the campaign in style with 100 points if they beat Basildon United in their final game on Saturday.
The women’s team are in a similar position, sitting top of the National League Division One South East and knowing a win over QPR on Sunday will secure promotion to the third tier.
Love Island's Haris spills on unaired row between Zara and Tanyel
That combination of eventualities means Hashtag United are on the brink of the most special weekend in the club’s short history. A history which all started with one teenager’s dreams of running a football club.
YouTube roots
Spencer Owen founded Hashtag United in 2016 (HASHTAG UNITED / Nashy Photo)Spencer Owen grew up around non-league football, with his dad, Steve Carmichael-Brown, working as a physio at East Thurrock and Brentwood Town. His YouTube channel, Spencer FC, started in May 2013 and grew and grew in popularity, with the videos focusing on him and his friends playing friendlies around the world.
Eventually, in 2016 they made the call to join non-league and begin the Hashtag United journey. Fast-forward seven years and the club’s men’s team has secured its third promotion and will be playing in the seventh-tier Isthmian League Premier Division next season – just one step below the regional National League divisions and three below the Football League.
It’s been some rise – and one that has captured the imagination of millions of people worldwide. While they may only get a few hundred supporters at the Len Salmon Stadium in Pitsea, Essex, their match highlights are regularly watched by hundreds of thousands on YouTube.
Ex-Love Islander Toby Aromolaran plays for Hashtag (HASHTAG UNITED / Nashy Photo)The club’s YouTube channel has 625,000 subscribers, they have 503,000 followers on Instagram, 357,000 on TikTok and 228,000 on Twitter. Spencer himself has a whopping 1.96m subscribers on YouTube.
The unique approach has swept along some players who work as teachers, or hold down office jobs, as well as influencers like Toby Aromolaran, who appeared in Love Island in 2021, and ex-professionals like Greg Halford and Nathan Smith.
'It's surreal'
It has been a learning experience for the men’s team manager, Jay Devereux, who dropped down four divisions from his previous job as an assistant coach at East Thurrock to join the club in 2018.
“I’m not of the generation that grew up watching YouTube, I don’t think I’ve ever gone on there other than to learn how to fix something that I’ve broken,” Devereux tells Mirror Football. “It’s surreal really, the level we’re at now, some of the attention we get is quite ridiculous. Going on holiday and being recognised in another country just for doing something you’ve been doing for years is quite ridiculous.”
Jay Devereux has managed Hashtag since 2018 (HASHTAG UNITED / Nashy Photo)HAVE YOUR SAY! What do you make of Hashtag United's story? Comment below.
Hashtag’s approach has gone down a storm online, where devoted fans engage with the club’s content regularly and help sustain their success from afar, while some even fly in from New Zealand or America just to watch a game live. But, unsurprisingly, they haven’t always been welcomed in non-league. Some people just can’t get past the name.
Molly-Mae hints at showing baby in her first YouTube as she teases special video
“A lot of it is about the name, which for me is the secret sauce, whatever other people may think of it,” Owen explains. “I know it may annoy people. It was never the point to annoy people, but it was the point to have a name that sparks conversation.”
It has certainly done that – 47-year-old Devereux previously thought of himself as resistant to such an approach. “I think people don’t like change – and I would’ve considered myself a football traditionalist before getting involved with Hashtag – but we need change don’t we? To keep evolving and moving,” he says. “We’re just a young club, which all clubs were at one point.”
Earning respect
Hashtag could finish the season with 100 points (HASHTAG UNITED / Nashy Photo)The name leaves the club open to ridicule, but it appears to be water off a duck’s back. “We’re more established, the story’s known and there’s more respect for us as a team on the pitch,” Devereux adds. “When we first started out there were people who would snigger, laugh and not take us seriously, the YouTube stuff would get thrown back at us.
“The big thing that people can’t take seriously is the name, but it is only a name – and all names are silly without context, even place names can be ridiculous if you don’t know anything about them.”
Owen says he could easily have called his team Brentwood Athletic, but knew Hashtag would receive more attention and appeal more to the club’s target demographic. “You don’t have to be young, but you’re probably going to be a little more savvy with technology and little bit more open to doing things differently, rather than the old fashioned stick-in-the-muds who aren’t going to like us,” he says.
“It’s about finding those people, but the great thing for me as chairman is that our catchment area is the whole universe.”
Self-sufficient
Hashtag United's women's side are top of their league (HASHTAG UNITED / L COPSEY PHOTOGRAPHY)While the criticism and taunts about the name don’t bother him, suggestions that Hashtag are succeeding simply due to money do strike a nerve. Owen insists that Hashtag runs entirely on income from sponsors and self-generated revenue from YouTube, not from his own pockets.
“There is so much misinformation about Hashtag United and how it runs,” he says. “We always get accused of buying the league. It’s because we could, but we don’t. Hashtag has saved almost every penny we’ve earned in lieu of getting a ground one day.
“We really pride ourselves on making decisions frugally and sensibly because we want the club to succeed long-term and be sustainable.”
Hashtag United want to buy their own stadium next (HASHTAG UNITED / Nashy Photo)That eye on sustainability means Hashtag are eager to progress at a steady pace. While they have noted success stories like that of Dorking Wanderers, who have risen sharply from grassroots to the National League, they know the importance of stability.
Hashtag do not currently own a stadium and have to rent four separate sites for their many teams as a result. Owen would love to buy a stadium they can call home before continuing on the journey up the leagues.
“We are doing it for the right reasons,” he says. “If that means that we can continue going up the leagues, then fantastic. We want to win, but not at the expense of becoming something we’re not.
“We want to tell our story on social media and connect with people across the world, maybe be a second club in a lot of cases, that they feel represented by and can be a part of even if they’re not from the same country, they can have genuine relationships with the owners, players and officials. It’s just a slightly different way of doing things.”
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
