IS HASHTAG UNITED FOR SALE?? – How To Run a Football Club Ep1

First episode of my new podcast series revealing how different football clubs are run, from the good, the bad, to the ugly! Who do you want me to talk to next? ► Subscribe: http://bit.ly/subSPEN
Thanks to Google Pixel for sponsoring this video and helping me get the best results by using their Audio Magic Eraser and the Best Take Feature tools! #Ad (Magic Audio Eraser – Requires Google Photos app. May not work on all audio elements. Sequences shortened. Best Take Feature – Requires Google Photos app. May not work on all images. Takes 5-7 consecutive photos within 10 seconds. Works on photos with 2 to 5 people. Will not work in low light or with pets. Sequences shortened).

► Subscribe: http://bit.ly/subSPEN
► Follow me on Twitter! – http://twitter.com/SpencerOwen
► Follow me on Instagram! – http://bit.ly/spengram
► Hashtag United channel – http://youtube.com/hashtagunited
► Buy Hashtag United merch! http://hashtagutd.com
► JOIN my channel access to perks: https://youtube.com/channel/UCWkr08nsQ9GuFvHgQYafi_w/join
► Follow me on Twitch! – http://twitch.tv/spenfc
Music by Epidemic Sound.

If you read this, type “Up The Tags” in the comments.

How do you run a football club it’s the question I’m going to be asking some of the most influential names in the game in this my new podcast but to kick things off I’m sticking with what I know how have hash United signed a goalkeeper from Chelsea some clubs are losing

Hundreds of thousands of pounds a year at our level is # United for sale # United is not just another football club it’s my football club came about from us loving playing football computer games right and why do we love playing football computer games because it’s a way to keep playing

Football when you can’t play football it’s pretty much everything I’ve worked for for the last 8 years me my brother and plenty of others from friendlies to wem two mergers 40 teams four promotions and some pretty incredible untold stories a manager of a football club sending voice notes to players that

Didn’t sign for him saying he’s going to cut their head off and put in a paper bag by learned criminal Behavior we’ve smashed records and boundaries we’ve won silverware and friends so how do we run our football club and our hashtag at a crossroads right before we continue with

The podcast I’m delighted to say this episode is partnered with Google pixel 8 a fantastic phone with some fantastic features take a look at these right I’ve switched to the Google pixel 8 camera now I’m on the selfie mode this is by the way the best camera I’ve ever used

The zoom is a joke you got to check it out but today I want to show you the audio Magic Eraser now here we are obviously in the studio behind the scenes you’re getting a bit of a glimpse but sometimes annoying things happen in the studio there’s noises I’m going to

Make an example of a noise right now imagine I’m talking and they just banging like this it’s not podcast worthy we can’t use it guys let’s watch this clip again after it’s been run through the audio Magic Eraser imagine I’m talking and it’s just banging like this it’s not podcast worthy we can’t

Use it guys I mean that’s unbelievable right that’s really really good and quick all done on the phone let’s have another example I’m talking to Seb but seb’s being typically annoying as he likes to be shuffling his papers making a real noise and it’s not good for audio

We’ve got to run it through the audio Magic Eraser I’m talking to Seb but seb’s being typically annoying as he likes to be shuffling his papers making a real noise and it it’s not good for audio and there you go once again how much better does that sound and when

There’s things like airon units and all kinds of things that can go on behind the scenes you need the audio Magic Eraser now I want to show you something else so what I want to show you now is the best take feature so me leis and Seb

We took some selfies and as often happens in group selfies everyone’s face is doing different things at different times particularly sebie who for some reason seemed to have his eyes closed so thanks to the best take feature we can take the best versions of our face and

Put them together and pick whatever we want to look like basically is using our actual face from the other pictures and just bringing them together into one super picture so we’ve gone with the smiley options here we’ve got Seb smiling we got Louis smiling we got me

Smiling that photo with us all pulling those faces didn’t actually exist but it does when you use the best take feature guys pixel8 it’s available you want a new phone get yourself a Google pixel8 all right guys how you doing welcome to a brand new podcast a brand new video

Series on the channel it’s called how to run a football club right and listen I’m not saying I have all the answers about how to run you know any football club yeah I do run a football club but not me telling you how to run one this is a

Podcast where we’re going to explore the different ways you can run a football club we’re going to talk to all kinds of different people in the world of football club Owners players clubs that are like maybe my team and come off the internet clubs that are more traditional

Clubs that are in the you know the the professional world of football clubs that are in non- League which is a whole different kettle of fish yes and we’re going to learn about all the different ways the good and bad ways the football clubs are run and it’s going to

Hopefully be a really fascinating reveal behind the scenes of how football works so obviously I’ve got my brother Seb with me here um this isn’t a hashtag United podcast there’s a reason we’re doing this on my channel spenc FC and not hashtag United this is about me

Learning about other clubs to maybe help me run my club hashtag United and help you guys understand more about football but today’s episode is going to be hashtag United Focus we’ve decided to kick it off with a a catch up in a way between me and you about all the crazy

Things that have happened at this club many of which we haven’t talked about in the last well over five years we couldn’t talk about some of them some them we couldn’t talk about that’s right some of them we felt maybe we needed a little bit more time to pass a bit more

Distance um the reason we’re doing this now is I actually think this is the perfect time to maybe bring some of you guys back into the hashtag United story that haven’t watched it in a while maybe you’ve never watched hashtag United the football club we created on this very

Channel and then it kind of grew into its own beast on the hashtag United Channel um for me we’re at a level now where it gets really interesting even to the the sort of uninvolved non-tag fan I think we’re at a level where I aim to us

For us to get to 5 years ago we created a 5year plan I’m actually writing a book all about it right now which is the five years of non- League we’ve had the Five Seasons we’ve had we wanted to get three promotions for the men’s team in those

Five years we achieved it we actually technically did it in four years because two years were added together for covid so technically it’s only one season over two years we also got fourth promotion with our women’s team which is a whole different thing we can talk about and

The club is grown to a crazy crazy level but they I aimed to get to the levels we’re at right now sir let’s remind people they don’t know the levels hashtag are at so we’re now at a level called the ishan Premier Division for the men it’s the seventh tier or it’s

The third step of non- league so essentially means the first step the first tier is the Premier League we’re at the seventh so League two is the fourth tier it’s the last official professional level of football then you have the national league then you have National League south or north then you

Have us so if we were to get promoted we’d go to National League South as we’re in the south of the country and the women by the way are in the third tier of women’s football one below the championship and they currently sit top of that league and that is a

Conversation we’re have situation on this podcast but the level we’re at now said a great example of why it’s getting serious is we’ve currently got a a goalkeeper on loan from Chelsea football well it’s not just that spent money it is getting expensive let me tell you and

I think that is one thing that we can get into a lot more and you can get into a lot more on this show is like the money side of it yeah we’ve always been super transparent with the way hashtags run and we’ve often made videos over on

The hashtag Channel talking about that um in this episode we’re going to do the same we’re actually going to go further than we’ve talked before but this is like a g it’s for the general football fan as well as a hashtag fan we want you to understand some of the challenges

We’ve had and how we’ve done what we’ve done um it isn’t the only way to do things but we do think we’ve kind of stumbled upon a fairly unique way of doing things a hashtag maybe a way that can’t necessarily be replicated uh that’s one of the questions I get a lot

Yeah from other people is like how how do you do what you did at hashtag you know how can we do something similar and it’s like okay you got to go back 15 years ago start making videos Ming to music in your mom and dad’s attic then

You got to do standup then you got to do FIFA videos for years then you make a football team it’s quite hard to emulate it but um yeah we’re at a level now where it is taken seriously you know we have our goalkeeper right now is a lad

Called Ted we talk about this it’s crazy it’s a question I get a lot Seb the question I get asked the most right now how have hashtag United signed a goalkeeper from Chelsea yeah because Ted is on loan he’s subject to a transfer window so you know they can technically

Recall him in January hopefully we get him for the season but we do contribute towards his wages so we actually have a direct debit set up with Chelsea we we are paying Chelsea the club that is paying every other club in the world right now all these transfers Chelsea

We’re paying them but is a serious question how did it come about so the the the honest answer is it came from the player yes if you take it back again another reason I aimed to get to this level five years ago another reason I

Aimed to get to this ishan Prem one it was because I I believed it was where we would level out in terms of finances okay I believe that and that that’s been proven you know we’re we’re doing pretty well in our first season at this level we’re just outside the playoffs right

Now um we have won successive promotions in previous levels we’ without ever having their biggest budget in the league that’s a common hashtag I think we just bought promotion we far from done that often we’ve had teams we competing with spending double or triple what we’re spending which is another thing we will

Talk about the amount of money in non League you wouldn’t believe it when you consider it’s technically amateur football um the other reason so I knew that we could afford to exist at this level um I knew that it was super expensive to go up another level when

You get into the national league you’re doing like you know lots of hotel trips and traveling and whatnot um lot some teams many teams at that level are professional but also I felt it would be a level where we’ be able to benefit from high profile loan players it’s a

Level where people like Jamie vardin M Antonio and many players have come through non League Ian Wright back in the day um is is a level that is deemed good enough and challenging enough where a player can apply their trade and learn their trade and sometimes not a lot but

Sometimes Premier League teams will send players down I was probably thinking more about like League 2 league one maybe Championship players you know we had Ted K’s actually been on International Duty recently to replace him for a month we got another loan from dagman Redbridge which is a local

National league club um obviously they have been an efl Club as well in the past and they learned us a goalkeeper called Josh dzic but the Chelsea one came about from Ted kurd himself he was getting sent out in loan a 17year old goalkeeper you know at that age you just

Need minutes right play games adult football and obviously hotly tipped he’d been in the in the first team squad he’d been training with the first League poch was well aware of him is well aware he still trains with them now he comes and plays for us trains with them um but

They wanted him to get experience they were going to send him to a similar team at our level and he and this is one thing that’s fascinating s now we’ve now got to a point where young players coming through there’s a good chance they’ve grown up watching our videos I

Mean that for me is going back to what you said about how do people replicate this or how do this all happened and come about that for me links so nicely into that where just where a new generation of football fans are spending their time watching things now like when

I grew up the touch points you had for football were going to a game going to Upton Park bowling ground and watching match of the day after casualty on BBC One that was that was it they were the touch points now right now you didn’t have to watch casualty though you didn’t

You didn’t have to you catch the end of it sometimes you know just a good bit but then for me now it’s basically in your phone online everywhere and that’s where we have been right in the front and center of that world and because we’ve been in front and center of that

World people like Ted have grown up watched our stuff and that’s going to be the same for hopefully all around the country now there are young players that are breaking through into the ranks of professional football that need that opportunity and the thing about hashtag

Not only we just at a level spent that’s like credible but there’s a lot more pressure there’s 100 200,000 people going to watch those games it’s not just playing at a good level it’s also playing under a bit of pressure we’re going to be scrutinized by lots of

People for me that’s a great breeding ground for the mindset needed for transition into men’s football um certainly get interviewed every week you know by our media team and I think it’s easy to gloss over and just say oh we’re at this level now like it’s taken a lot of work

To get there you know we’ve been doing this this has literally become like our main thing for the last you know look at this channel you’re on right now this and another series we’re about to do as well which is going to sort of be behind

The scenes on on my job as the chairman of hashtag and some of the great places I get to visit and things I get to do we’re going to do a sort of Vlog on that on this channel as well so we’re trying to get this channel going again but if

You look at it realistically last few years it hasn’t been particularly active because of how much of my time has been taken up running this this fantastic football club so it wasn’t easy getting to this level but I’m just going to say one thing that a lot of people don’t

Know we spoke about on some of these similar videos before there are now just over 40 football teams at hashtag United 40 right go going all the way down to what is it under sixes under five start to five under five years old all the way through boys and girls all the way

Through to like the under 18s the senior sides walking football inclusivity football dementia football I think I’ve missed any there there’s a lot of football teams and like that that comes with a lot of stuff there’s a huge amount of people that are now involved in the club that weren’t involved in

Maybe some of you guys started watching this when it was FAS or maner whipping balls in for Dan Brown to head home but now there are literally dozens and dozens of people that give up so much time with the youth committee with the with the men’s with the women’s side

With everything that happens the facilities at Forest Glade like there is like literally hundreds and hundreds of footballers running around with hashtag shirts on on a Saturday morning now it’s unbelievable is it if you go down to our youth facility on on on a Saturday or

Sunday and you I’ve think I’ve said to you before and it’s like 30 Acres right you’ve got loads of pictures everywhere and you go there at the right time and you just see yellow and blue acoss these field and you think these guys are all playing for our football club that we

Started with a essentially a kick about on this channel crazy isn’t that crazy how how far we’ve come around with Ryan Adams on the back in less yeah in less than eight years as well seven and a half years roughly since we started it so well done to you guys those of you

That been watching the whole time and supporting us you know it’s because of you that we’re able to do it and yeah like don’t think for one second that like it’s me and Seb doing everything that hashtag absolutely you know not only is there a lot of other people some

Of which are in this room right now that help run it on the content side and all the other side of the business there’s a lot of volunteers there’s a lot of volunteers a lot of them we’ve inherited through things like mergers we did a merger with a women’s team merge with a

Youth team that’s how we’re able to get so many teams some people are surprised when they hear how many teams it’s 40 teams it’s like 500 plus players to play for hashtag and they’re like how have you done that so quickly well we essentially teamed up with other teams

And they came under the hashtag Banner but yeah go going back to the Ted kurd thing so Ted was going to get sent out to a club at our level and he because he was aware of the videos and I think it’s important to say here we’re not insinuating that every 17-year-old lad

Watches and subscribes to hashtag United what we’re trying to say we we think that in the football world you’re probably aware of us it’s not about them watching but they’ve heard of us and they understand it it’s like a lot of people that hear about our name the

First time in the traditional football World they kind of like winse at it and they react badly because they’re hashtag youit that’s not a football name I’ve heard before I therefore don’t like it CU my brain can’t compute what it is but younger guys particularly not only get

The term and get get what it might be they actually know what we are they actually understand they part of our history so Ted said why can’t I go to hashtag and it’s actually a baby a bit of luck that his agent is good friends with a guy called timy you know timy’s

Michael Tim’s presenter does a lot of good stuff on content on BBC match the day he’s good friends with Ted’s agent introduced us had a chat with him put the manager in charge of him ended up bringing Ted over and he’s been magnificent isn’t he he’s been so good

Mate and also what a guy what a young guy that’s one of the things that impresses me so much and you know speaking about young Scotty poock as well who’s had his history with hashtag and now playing professionally you think about a guy that is good he’s talented

But he’s so humble works so hard and Teddy’s certainly that as well right he’s 17 he unbelievable we actually didn’t have by the way can I just say one thing I know I talk about this on commentary all the time how far does he kick it he kicking he kicks it so far

He’s literally ridiculous he’s like got a two ey and it connected to his knee he just whacks it this low trajectory like I don’t know what they’re putting in the food these days at the schools but and some of the sa we think he potentially made we’ll show you a little clip now

You probably haven’t seen it on this channel we think maybe the best save in hashtag history thus far take a look at this soogo no sorry it’s Brey Breo puts it in behind Nathan Smith loses his footing yila puts it across oh wow my what to say oh my word SP oh my

God that must be the best save we’ve ever seen here at the L Salon Sur convinced he was pushing it into his own net how he take that out the wrist strength for loan is Sensational Ted kurd take a b what on Earth have we just

Seen that is a ridiculous save from a 17year old England goalkeeper unbelievable save from Ted you know and the future is very bright for him he’s still 17 like goalkeepers don’t hit their Prime to their mid to late 20s you know like got 10 years in and then they

Retire and start YouTube channels and make podcasts and play golf got you got all Foster by way you still owe me a game son don’t think I forgot I don’t know if You’ seen the clip I played golf with Ben recently and he literally stopped and he says don’t worry not forgot I’m

Still inan so next time Ted goes outan you’re coming in I was straight I actually was probably disrespected Le how how quick I was when he left rexam I was like can you come now he’s like I’m literally leaving the training ground give me a few days uh so probably went a

Little bit early on that sorry Ben but no obviously would love to get Ben like Akin Fen did obviously another thing you guys might not know Ain F he did live up to his promise he did come and play a game for us um start of last preseason

Which was amazing as well as having Ted ker from Chelsea been on an international duty of England recently we’ also got full International sakaan he’s now got I think four caps of Somalia he played against mahrez’s Algeria the other day in a World Cup qualifier mahrez played in the game sack

Got an assist he plays he doesn’t even always start for hashtag which is mad like I think the level we’ve got to I mean sack’s a great player he’s just competitive and he’s been away on International jury what I’m saying is we’ve got to a level where we have

Active Internationals in a squad at hashtag I mean you talk about how hashtag got to position we’re taking players from Chelsea in a transfer market to hashtag now having players on active International Duty yeah and to the point where because of the level we play at when they go on International

Duty we don’t get that game off we have to play without them they actually a disadvantage when they get CAU up and that’s where dev’s magic comes in so yeah and we actually got a load of other xros and we’ve got a couple playing for us right now it’s not

Just you know what I find with hasht at the moment is majority of our Squad is either young and on the way up and they like hashtag because it’s a great platform to kick on or they can grow with us through the leagues which many

Have or it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a place to come when you’re maybe at the back end of your career where you can add serious experience to a young Squad so Greg howford who plays for us now in his second season with us he you know he

Played in the Premier League um he’s played hundreds of games at Championship level uh England under 20 player you know unbelievable footballer that played in every single position on the pitch professionally including goal crazy um and he’s basically done the same thing for us as well um you know he’s added a

Real level of experience to the club and then Nathan Smith as well you know he he won League two with yovel town he’s got yoel’s record League appearances of all time he was the fastest defender on FIFA on FIFA 18 I believe um Quality player how he been this season well unbeli how

Many penalties has Greg scored for us I mean k is quite incredible Greg never the record is unbelievable but talking about players at the end of their career there’s also been a few others that said they would have played for us and then sort of maybe take us down the Garden

Path a little bit yeah I mean mean that’s the thing I always will hear out every conversation these players come up sometimes it’s me pursuing them sometimes it’s the other way around and you’re like oh can we get this player in it’d be great the reality of it is

Actually now we’ve reached a level now where you still got to be like you got have a lot about you as a footb you know there were times when we were in maybe that first division step six no disrespect to those levels at all that that level’s still way too hard level

For me to play at but you could have got in with you know we had chats with people like Marlon herwood is a good friend of our turned up he could have just turned up and played and he would have still been a joke in that level um

Even in his 40s you know players like Derek asamura we were playing against him last year in the level below still scoring silly amounts of goals mid- 40s I think it’s still rapid as well but that that’s because he was still keeping himself healthy he was really going for

It you couldn’t just like turn up out of retirement play we’re going to talk about this later the money side of it I mean there are players in our league making serious money serious money sry serious money and like so you can’t just Bowl up and expect you know that when

The that level of Finance is involved now the level is going to be high yeah % and so we had a player what let’s talk about this what is the highest player player in our league certainly not okay well so I’m not going to say names and I

Don’t know this for sure if I go off rumors like there’s players that are paid well over a grand a week to play our level some may be near a two grand a week like you know there’s there’s teams with there’s teams with a manager who’s managing the in the championship last

Season they top of the league horn Church there’s team they’ve also got Sean scannel playing for them former Crystal Palace player you know he’s not old no you know there’s there’s team spending serious money um there’s te there’s players that can certainly not work in another job oh yeah absolutely

It doesn’t mean the club is professional in terms of their training full-time but that player might be considered a professional footballer because they don’t need another job you if you’re earning a grand a week there 50 50 well maybe anything between 40 and 50 Grand a

Year depending on how many weeks of the year you’re getting paid um serious money for for the seventh division this this just be like this just apply some context to this so the beauty of the English pyramid and the reason we’re in love with it and the reason we join on

League is that upward Mobility the fact that you can go on start here and end up in the Premier League it’s great story and not every country has it the reality of that is because you can achieve that Mobility there are teams paying money that just doesn’t make sense completely

Unsustainable it doesn’t like there’s no way their Club can ever afford that player but they get them anyway you know obviously you have things like Financial fair play in professional football and you can obviously have a whole different podcast about whether that’s properly enforced and the Everton Point deduction

And Man City and all this stuff but there are rules in place for expenditure there is no rules that where we’re talking we we we operate in the wild west of football well we need to talk about that because it can get wild and we’ve seen some up close and personal

Things that’s frankly well violent criminal Behavior some serious serious stuff um cuz like where’s this money coming from who spending like some clubs are losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year at our level so like where’s that money coming from why are these people doing it the clubs I love

Are the clubs you encounter we’ve encountered many over the years is that are just brilliantly run brilliant people really good attendances which is something we still have to achieve we don’t have that bit now we’ve got amazing viewers online but I use a club ham for example we played recently

They’ve had an amazing FA Cup run this year they’re just being reinstated into it I’m not sure if the time you see this they might have played against um who they got in the next round Sutton yeah Sutton so they they lost to barnesley then barnesley got um ripped out the

Competition because they he was an illegible player we played ham a few days before that barnesy game we actually beat them 2-n I think their eyes are probably on on the FA Cup prize um but an amazing setup and they you can tell they’re a good team because they

Make good money like they have a over a thou we our record attendants for non League there like 1,700 people there I think um they have those numbers fairly regularly over a thousand you know they really good bars and things scattered around that are always getting busy so

They’re making money spending on the pitch you’ll never hear any complaints for me if a team like horam go and walk a league because they have money that they make through football the issue is is a a lot of football teams out there that okay on in the most innocent

Version it’s just a couple of wealthy people’s play things that they can they can afford to lose the money on and listen as long as there’s no Financial fair play at our level who am I to have a problem with that absolutely maybe I have a little bit of jealousy in a way

Because we are run as a football club we are run as a team that spends what we make we don’t have a rich person giving us money that can just be spent you know we have had investors and we’re going to talk about that later but we we have to

Be sustainable and we have been it’s one of my proudest things as well as all the promotions is the fact that we’ve able to do this in a sustainable way um so yeah some clubs are just businesses that are sponsoring and writing off the money

Cool good luck to you there’s a lot of other clubs that maybe get the money through more nefarious way shall we say I’m going to be very careful not to uh put myself in any legal hot water in this podcast but I I’m not saying anything new when I say for example that

Drug money is scattered for around non League that’s that’s a fact it’s known to be true you know again I’m not going to name a particular Club here but there’s a club who recently had a huge scandalous event it’s actually a tragic event whereby they’d been spending a lot

Of money for a period of years they weren’t spending the money well which is another typical thing in non league and it turned out that one of the guys that was putting the money in well first of all he he he was he died in in in shall we say mysterious circumstances listen

I’m not going to speak ill of the dead I don’t I don’t know the person and I don’t know exactly went on my understanding is that he’d been involved in some shady business and it caught up with him right but then what was worth ver is this is the Mad bit that club

Then all started to unravel and they found out the club didn’t own as much as they thought they did and maybe he’d been taken him for a bit of a ride they then released a statement basically saying they cannot offer condolences for his death because of the way he

Conducted himself essentially we’re sort of glad he’s dead could believe that it’s ridiculous thing just shows you like imagine a professional football club that getting through the PR department never that’s the beauty of nor league is it’s so unfiltered yeah I mean that’s just tip of the iceberg guys

There’s a stories like and it is weird it is the wild west and this is something we’ve struggled with a little bit and this even before we were in non League where this came to a head the biggest for us was during covid which was we were told our level was amateur

Football during Co it was stopped right the league was just deleted okay I’m not going to complain too much because a year later the stats ended up being counted and we ended up getting promoted out of it and we were a big part of that we did a whole campaign called project

Non League that helped make that happen but for a time we were told it’s not elite football and I’m not saying it is Elite you know they’ve got to have a cut off somewhere not we’re not professional football at the end of the day our level but we are a professional business you

Know we run our football club as a business that has employees that have to be paid and when you stop letting us play football how can we continue how can we keep paying those people how can we keep the club lights on so it was very difficult for us to be told we

Weren’t professional the reality is a lot of the teams we were at the same level as weren’t professionally run and they were just volunteers and they weren’t maybe paying their players or doing anything like that but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re the same as them that’s another reason I

Wanted to get promoted and promoted and promoted because I needed to get to a level where we were taking a bit more seriously because there is serious things at play you know if you know here in the Premier League all the time if you get relegated There’s real life uh

Repercussions people lose their jobs you know they have to downsize whatever that was the same for us when we couldn’t play football that was the fear and when covid happened and then it’s a fear if you basically just are told the league like again we’re not a professional

Football club but we are a professional thing that makes sense so anyway anyway that’s always been the challenge is like we’re alongside all these different characters aren’t we different chairman and people different ways of running the football club and for me that’s what I want this podcast to be is talking to

All those people and how do you run your football club oh we don’t do it like that why is that and particularly interesting people that have great stories I guar like we one thing that is a shame and and I think we probably actually get thought ill of because of

It um so it’s interesting to address it is that on a match day Homer away you and I or you and someone else or me and someone else normally doing the commentary which means there things to do before the game things to do at halim there’s things to do on camera after the

Game and what that means we don’t get to do as much as we’d like is go into like the boardrooms of the other teams and see the other chairman and the other committee members and talk to them as much like we have other people in the

Club that are able to do that like like our dad and like Derek and some of those other guys and then Darren andot lots of people that go have those conversations but whenever you do get to do it I guarantee you every single non-league Club has a couple of amazing stories

That have happened oh some been running for like 100 years put it’s they’re going put it might be some stuff that could lead some very interesting conversations we’ve had some I think there’s lots more to uncover yeah that’s just non League obviously there’s some people in professional

Football that we want to speak to as well of course and all over you know friends from the YouTube scene you know there’s a lot lot of good one question that I know a lot of people um want to know about is we’ve talked a bit about

The financial side of the game talked about how we don’t do it that way but as things are going to get more and more expensive especially if we talk about any potential additional promotions like we got to talk about the women’s team at some point about getting into the on the

Verge of getting into the championship how’s that look what’s that system like how much does that cost what the process is there how are we going to keep paying for all these things how have we paid for it investors you know can what are these opportunities and there’s so many

Questions we get regularly about investment about money about Stadium there’s more to get into isn’t there well I think I want to use this as an opportunity to finally address some things I think firstly and we’re definitely guilty of of creating this narrative because it made a lot of sense

To right but obviously when we joined non League it was very much like you know how many promotions are we from the Premier League yeah that’s the storyline you want to kind of weave and you want to get you want to dream we and and we

Could get to the Premier League it’s not impossible the promotion journey and Ladder is there for us the reality is we need hundreds of millions of pounds to get to the Premier League oh like hundreds you look at sford City I’ll use an example they started at a similar

Level to us flew through the leagues they’re pretty stagnant at League two I’m actually having a pretty poor season at the moment it looks like they’re struggling to get beyond that and that’s no there’s no shame in that for a club like sford and their history to be in

League 2 is unbelievable the job the class 92 and Peter Liam if you don’t know the guy that owns Valencia is the man that join took Gary Neville to Valencia as manager he’s a billionaire he’s also a co-owner with the the class 92 obviously Beckham got involved more

Recently as well they’ve done a fantastic job sford City in League 2 is incredible but they have hit a wall if you like you know so the question is where do we hit our wall you know what’s the reality so like I say we we told the story about getting to the Premier

League but internally and within the club not in the videos it was always about getting to the level we are now for both the men and then when we merge with the women the women as well get them back to tier three that’s where they’ve been before because we don’t

Want to overreach so you’ve got a couple things to think about you got option one what can we do on our own as we are you know as the the people that own hashtag currently you know the very small amount of shareholders I’m still the vast majority shareholder in this club you

Know probably know you may not Cesar as Peta got involved um nearly 5 years ago now over five years ago before we were in non League actually that was more of an Esports involvement that’s how we got him on board how I met him and we

Chatted and he was really keen on the project and he came in uh six figure investment some um we just put it into the coffers at that point we were running sustainably we always had a a vision of getting a stadium so we put that money towards it so why we put any

Money we ever made really in the stadium fund um but we got Cesar on board it’s fantastic um more recently we did a much bigger investment round um we actually sold 10% of the club um and that valued The Club at 5.5 million pounds which we’re very proud of you know it’s it’s

Pretty incredible we started it from nothing on a couple years ago as well that was a couple years ago we had a few promotion since then promotions um so but again I’m still I’m still the biggest majority Sher so as we are where are where would we go from

Here you know could could we get promoted again yes we could we could we could probably sneak in the playoffs as the we could do it this year and um the women are top of their league right now it’s more about what you prepared to pay

For so right now as things stand with the current level of the budgets we have we’re never going to be the biggest Spenders in either of the leagues we’re in and and I’m not I’ve got no problem with that we’ve never been the biggest Spenders as I mentioned before but in

Football you know something like there’s a 90% correlation between who spends the most where they finish in the league so if you actually want to guarantee promotions you have to be prepared to spend the most and even then you still might not go up possibly for a couple of

Years exactly so we’re not prepared to spend the most as the current business is if it doesn’t make sense at these levels no so um we are likely to if we’re going to go up it’ll be for an overperforming but that’s kind of what we we’ve always done I’m not saying we

Can’t go up what I’m probably saying is if we did go up we definitely wouldn’t be the biggest Benders again here’s a question for you would you consider selling a another chunk of the club well that is that’s the big question isn’t it me is hashtag United for sale you know

It it comes up all the time um and there is no straight answer to that is because there’s like I say I love non- League football we grew up in it our dad was a physio e staric we’ve bought so much of the East Fark like back room staff and

Playing staff to the club over the years there’s a real Synergy there on a side note really sad to see that East Fark actually went well folded this year they to leave their league position in the league below and now the ground’s gone to someone else like a real shame um but

I hope they come they are going to have a Phoenix Club which is great to see um so we can we can exist where we are right now and there’s nothing wrong with it there’s a lot to be said for non- League football um there’s a lot to be

Said for a to go to an away game and get home for dinner like I would say it sounds silly but is you we got families and things you know you’re going to get home see your kids so it’s a lovely level of football but I do have a dream

For hashtag United to fulfill its potential I think we all do right that’s the thing Spen and that is the key key thing to mention what is the potential of this football club because we know where the limit is because it exists right and I think you and I had a

Session years ago and we thought about what a success look like and there were some crazy things on that bit of paper but mind you’re talking about when Champions League well we had things like hash theme parks like like crazy crazy stuff and look D perfect of now got to

Done it like anyway that was probably a little bit more factious but if you went back to some of the first moments where like we on the train up to Manchester to like talk to Umbro one of our first kit providers right talking about what is

This club what does it mean how we didn’t have the idea for what chapter one was going to look like that it was on that train journey where you came up with the whole promotion division one concept all these things that have happened um and you always think like

You there’s so much going on you always hard to look further than what’s right in front of you but I believe with the momentum we’ve got and the fan base we’ve got and the you know the way we make the content the potential is so enormous but it probably will be to to

Reach that maximum potential certainly to reach anywhere like the Premier League or the WSL we’re going to need some help yeah so this is how I would look at it because you got to try and look at it a neutral head right like it’s easy for any club at any level to

Say our potential with the Premier League because you just have to get promoted to do it but there’s no point in just wasting money I’m not interested in that you said to me now I can get you to League two in years but you’re going to

Get there and you’re going to be out of money you’re going to come straight back Journey’s going to end and the club will be dead I’m not interested in that that would be an ego thing for me I want us to go as high as we can possibly go but

I want it to make sense and the reason I believe our potential is so high is based on the just the numbers the numbers don’t lie like again we are looking at a different model of a football club we are not trying to say we’re the next Rex some and you know we

Come and get involved in hashtag and 12,000 people are going to come out the woodwork and start watching our games in in public like we’ve been around seven years we’ve been in non league for five years you can’t expect us to have that sort of attendance anytime soon that is

Going to be a long long slog but it will come over time the more we’re around and the more things we do but if you just are able to sort of use your imagination not even imagination but pivot your expectations of what a football club is

A little bit and I got in a little hot water a few years ago when I went on Ben Foster podcast and I made a comment about and and hope this doesn’t get misquoted again but I I I actually did explain it in the podcast but it was

Clipped up and I say I said depending on what your metric for what makes a club big is because that whole oh West Ham a massive or the whole idea of calling a club big doesn’t actually mean anything right what do you mean do you mean how

Many fans you’ve got do you mean how big your stadium is do you mean how good you are at football do you mean how many trophies You’ve Won like Everton will tell you they’re a massive club like and I’m not disputing that it just depends on your definition of massive because if

Your definition of massive is being a consistently successful Premier League football team they aren’t one they’re always near the bottom I wouldn’t even say West Ham are big on that on that metric or more recently we’ve had success in Europe but if your success is if your measurement is former success

Everton are a huge football club because they’ve won many many titles not for a long time you know it’s not not it’s quite a long time now since Man United and arsenal were dominant in the Premier League yeah no one’s saying they’re not big clubs but if the metric was how good

You are at football at the top top end of it they aren’t anywhere near as big as a man city as a Liverpool if that’s your metric so I said right my if you take a metric of how many people physically watch your matches and I don’t mean in the crowd I mean

Physically spend time in their week to go out their way to watch your football team play we have hundreds of thousands of people consistently over a period of nearly eight years that is like a long period of time to sustain that viewers they are fans of this football club y

Therefore who else has that many people go out their way to watch them play what level does that put us that it doesn’t put us the level right now it puts us many many levels higher y you know and that’s just what we’ve been able to do

Sorry to interrupt you but that’s what we’ve been able to do on our own yes we’ve had a little bit help along the way but those investors have not changed the plan at any point they’ve just uh given us a bit of security I would say like the investment we took recently I

Mentioned earlier that again was to go straight in the stadium fund uh we talked about this and there is a video on the hashtag United Channel if you’re interested to learn more about the commercial side of the business we had a a real bit of bad luck last year with a

Uh one of our big sponsors went bust and essentially didn’t pay us for any of the kits we sold and we we we should have got a lot more money from them than we did unfortunately and we lost a long-term deal out of it some of those

Savings that we had in the stadium fund uh went towards just filling that Gap so thank God we have run the club absolutely I think that’s where talking about potential we know that the Premier League as much as it’s inciting it feels a long way away hasht United obviously

We’re not saying that’s our goal at all anyway what is not as far away is the women’s trajectory yeah so for example the championship and look even being involved in the club like we are I’ve learned so much in the last few months about what that structure looks

Like what promotion looks like for example licenses you have to apply for so so interesting because the women’s team being top of the league as we are as we currently record this podcast you know in the position that would get promotion to the Women’s Championship we’ve had to learn about what that

Actually means and what that comes with cost-wise commitment wise what that comes with in Revenue cuz you just start to get to a level where there is actually money thatly TV money we’ve had to like I know some of you so if we’re were streaming a lot of people watching

This maybe aren’t up to date with the hashtag Journey they’re almost certainly not up to date with the women y they might not even know we have a women’s team right which and it’s partly maybe our fault because we don’t get to make as much content about the women as much

As we’d like anyway because they’re so good SE so good they’re so objectively speaking they’re so much better than our men right you just look at the levels men are seventh tier women women are third tier they abely walked the fourth tier last year you know in really competitive league you basically

Couldn’t afford to lose a game I mean one thing just a tidbit our Striker Sammy Roland was the top scorer in the entire women’s FA Cup she got awarded the award on the pitch at Wembley in front of the women’s FA Cup Final and she was on the draw for the most recent

One recently unable yeah like the girls are unreal Jason Stevens and his staff done a fantastic job um and we are massively overperforming expectations wise right now we’re top of the thir and our first season in the third tier first season back there I should say so it’s

Not this level now so when we talk about the men we talk about right next step is going up to National League South there’s a lot of professional teams at that level but nothing changes ultimately when you go up in terms of um your requirements what you there’s

Ground grading and there some there’s a lot of logistics for sure but when the women go from a third tier to a second tier which is the Women’s Championship it’s a professional League you have to apply for a license if you don’t get that license you can win the league but

You’re not going up they have to grant you that license based on the setup of your club and it’s a lot of things there a lot of Hoops to jump through not just talking about your Stadium we’re talking about you know you have to be fulltime

So the girls have to be doing a minimum of you know it’s like eight hours plus match day a week that’s minimum you’re talking about you know minimum wage as well minimum they have to be paid you’re talking about your having full-time staff across a number of different roles

These are not just minimums for the license then you’ve got to worry about to be competitive yeah that might still get relegated if you do all those things you know some teams are doing way more than that and you’re talking about proper proper clubs I mean we’ve played

And beat many big names in women’s football already like you know the leagues we’ve been up against AFC Wen and Norwich and Milton MK Dons and South United 17 nil don’t like to mention it but um huge huge results you know and you championship teams you got teams in

There man united were in there a few years ago Liverpool were in there a few years ago imagine some big teams are not even there Newcastle United are in the same level as us but in the northern league and they’re getting like thousands of thousands of people at game

Sometimes tens of thousands when they play at St James Park so yeah I mean if the women stay top of the league we could be about to take the biggest gamble in the history of hashtag because going up is a gamble cuz it’s so expensive yeah the women at a really

Interesting level and we’re we’re kind of flying higher than we thought we would right now so as a result we have to prepare for promotion I’m not saying we expect it I’m not saying we’re going to get it teams like Portsmouth and IP switch uh in our league who are really

Going for it have a professional setup spend a lot more money than us like they’re much more favorites than we are we just happen to be above them right now we got to play them both we got to play both we beat them once already but

We got to play them both again yeah but yeah we’ve got to see if we can even get the license you know we’ve got loads of things to do for that um but it is that is professional what an exciting opportunity like that’s how close we are

To the professional game in as a football club now so as we sit as we sit right now currently if the season ended now hasht United are a professional football club yeah 100% think about that and that what’s crazy about that Seb and this is this has been the case for a

Couple other teams as well in the football pyramid in that world the women would be helping the men yeah because the women would be getting professional status and you would be able to sort sort of grow out your professional team off the pitch as well as on the pitch

Which the whole club would benefit from so that’s I mean I’m so happy we merged with that women’s team like honestly I get so much joy from the women’s team you know it was 2019 World Cup when I sort of converted to women’s football if

You like and I saw it and I just thought wow do you remember where we were exactly the moment when we talked about you doing that tweet you I’ve had this idea say about this thing you talked to me I know exactly where we were wasn’t

When we had out a little comp we were in no we were in the uh clubhouse at fulham’s training ground filing and Academy episode and we were upstairs having food afterwards I think Joshua sh had just won the Academy second season yeah and we just filmed the 65 takes it

Took him to do his win his interview went upstairs there was a women’s game on and I think that was the moment makes sense yeah yeah I mean I I I’ve loved every minute of it like the it’s a breath of fresh air the attitude of the

Girls the way they apply themselves you know um the the the the the vibe at games is very different you know this is going to sound so preachy and so maybe even cringy but it is such a shame the stigma that women’s football gets and you know coming from a world where

That’s so widespread it’s so uninformed yeah people like just don’t understand it it’s a dying Bree it is it is is true and you know things like women going into EC now is an Amazing Leap Forward for that sort of thing to get more into the consciousness of of a wider games

Are on TV now I just I just think it is it is a real if you are somebody I don’t hold this against you cuz you know a lot of people are were and are if you hold that opinion that women’s isn’t entertaining you’re just wrong yeah and

Also you’re missing out on so much football way I look at it look it back to how this whole Channel came about right came about from us loving playing football computer games right and why do we love playing football computer games because it’s a way to keep playing

Football when you can’t play football it’s a way to continue your football experience even if he like football manager whatever you’re still in the world of football so from a completely selfish perspective it was like why have one team when I can have two teams why

Why have one men’s team and I can have a women’s team I have twice as many players to love and worship and go and watch play and what I would say if I look at it purely from a Spencer footballing brain and listen I’m going to say something

Probably is a little bit onpc here but I’m sure every man has thought it the first thing you see when you see women’s football is you think could I play you watch it you think I could play on this team answer no it’s a very uninformed

View you see a high level women’s game and you think oh I could play in this you know I could be good if I was a woman whatever I have played with women and they just constantly nutmeg me right they’re so much better than me and

Actually Tech I’m not saying good by the way but on a technical level obviously there’s there’s physical differen between the men and the women’s game but on a technical what they can do with the ball they’re better than now men of course and and and they should be

Because they’re higher level but that I think two things people that may be watching this if you’re if you’re honest with yourself you could do to to maybe make yourself appreciate women’s football bit more would be one go and play with some play with some women have

Because something we don’t do in this country a lot being America for example it’s much more normal c-ad football and secondly I think you get a lot of these misogynist guys who have very I think dinosaur like views like do they have daughters I wonder cuz I I don’t have a

Daughter you have a daughter and I just can’t imagine a man having a daughter and thinking those things about women’s football yeah because I think there so there’s a third thing and we be remiss to have this conversation not shout her out is go and follow Alex bis of course

Go and follow content she’s doing not only is she creating a lot of content about the hasht United women’s Team every almost every week but she’s also traveling the world watching the elite women’s game WSL the international the lesses so shout out Alex go and check

Her out um if you want to start getting yourself educated so let’s take it back to what we we started to talk about said which is where we are and where we could go as a club so where we are right now we don’t take Financial risks we don’t

Risk the sustainability of the football club everything think that’s going to always come first yes we want to win on the pitch but we’re never going to make a decision which harms our future a year two years three years down the line if we want to superow what we’re doing if

We want to see how far we can really get we need to find a new way of doing things and and the two things that are most within our reach right now if we take the Premier League and the champions league and all this stuff away

For a second it is being a professional football club because we’re basically as close as you can get to that without being one and it is having a football ground now a football ground obviously we we ground share right now you know we’re nomadic in a way the reason the

Football ground is so important is ultimately because it allows you to one have food and bar money because if you’re a ground sharer you don’t get that your landlord gets that so it’s a decent part of the pie every game day we don’t get if we have a big big crowd at

A game um and we’ve earned that big crowd for having a great run in a cup or the league or whatever it’s our landlords that get most of the money from the food and bar so we’re leaving money on the table there obviously more money on the table better revenues your

Club does better everything goes back to the pitch eventually but the other reason is it allows you to start really making inroads in a community which for a club like hashtag United is hard because we don’t have a place in our name so it takes longer for people to to

Feel like they’re part of our community in real life I think there’s people online that feel very part of hashtag and they could be from anywhere in the world that’s the beauty of our name but the converse side of that is there’s not necessar people down the road that feel

Like hashtags a local Club once you get ground and you start saying this is where we are we’re going to be here for a long time Make Some Noise then you’re going to start getting bigger attendances and that’s what we need ultim in short I think that’s a a good

Moment then to say something that’s not going to be applicable for everybody out there but a large portion of it will be because the beauty of what hashtag I’ve been able to do is because we can reach so many people all around the world but the core of our audience is still from

The UK and if you broke that down it’s still largely that the biggest individual section of a town would be around London and essic right so there are people out there that are within the shot come to a hashtag game you may have never done it there’s an opportunity

We’ve got a great group of like super fans that come follow home away women’s games as well they’re amazing but there’s an opportunity to get right involved in form like the hashtag Ultras and I I can see a world in the future where we’ve got like a hardcore even if

It’s like 100 people a couple hundred people that come into games are making a lot of noise makes a big difference it makes a huge difference we’re now at the level where our opponents are bringing decent away crowd and and we now need to really lift our home voice as well as

Our way voice There’s an opportunity get now is that moment now is the Call to Arms if you’re on that fence and it’s not all of you that are local and you’ve thought about doing it get a lad of the boys and girls together and get down to

A game sixth of January next year we play D Hamlet away that will probably be the biggest attendance game of our season they often get 3,000 plus people there uh it’s very sort of hipster modern day crowd I’ve got a lot of time for D Hamet I’m looking forward to it um

But there will be you know the vast majority of them will be D Hamlet fans so you just got to imagine what that can do to the atmosphere what that can do to the ref in terms of appeals the crowd so there is a world where we we reach too

Far we get promoted too much you know too high where our lack of support in the ground actually harms us on the pitch that is very possible we’re almost there now to be honest we’re not quite there I think we’ve got a good level of support and the Ultras that we have the

Super fans they are getting louder which I’m enjoying but um yeah there often games are outnumbered even at home sometimes so that’s something we want to do but what we got to be realistic is Seb is what can we do as it is right now

And what do we need to take it further and for us to go further more promotions a stadium you know more fans in the ground whatever professional football we need more investment we realistically need investment to a level which would mean I wouldn’t be the majority shareholder anymore that’s the question

I get all the time am I prepared to do that you know how does it balance between this this beautiful setup I have where I essentially I’m able to run a football club for a job which no one really gets to do at this level really

And um because of the content we make allows it to happen but we’re restricted because I’m not a wealthy benefactor I can’t just throw loads and loads of money at the club every haven’t got it yep so that’s where we are and there’s nothing wrong with that that’s cool be a

Non- league team for the next 50 100 years that’d be amazing but if we want to go higher if we want to go professional if we want to kick on more we basically need someone else in charge financially like I I would always want to work and

Be part of the club if I was allowed to but am I prepared to give away power and control the answer is yes for the right situation for the right situation I’m not looking to do it no but I’m prepared to do it if that person or group come in

And make the club better and better doesn’t just mean wealthier yeah better means there’s a plan that’s going to make this club something that I can never do because that’s the interesting thing is like we see a lot of money coming in now a lot of from America into

Like lower level football clubs in the UK to be part of that journey and we’ve seen some of them go incredibly well at rexam and we’ve seen some of them go less well should we say um the beauty of I think what is interesting with us is

That you’re someone that would come in and join the team here or a group of people you’re not swimming against the tide straight away no you know what I mean there’s not going to be that resistance you be you be and you’re extending the because hashtag united we

Plan this club to be around forever right that’s why we make the decisions that we make we’re still like we say we’re in Chapter 2 chapter 3 maybe Now Call It Whatever right whatever chapter we’re in we’re still at the very beginning really we still have that

Launchpad moment so that’s why I think there’s not really any other football club there isn’t a football club in the most football clubs you come in you’re going to piss a lot of people off there’s a lot of stakeholders there the club’s 100 years old they don’t like the

New way of doing things with us everyone that’s watched us from day one understands there’s an evolution that constantly is happening and I think anyone listening to this even that is a fan of hashtag would understand why it would make sense for me not to be the

Main guy if we’re going to go further but equally there’ll probably be some that love the idea of me being the main guy and staying where we are there’s no right or wrong it’s just about what we want to achieve as a club and I still

Have an itch in me to see how far we can goed and I think with the Women’s Championship thing particularly There’s an opportunity women’s football men’s football is is certainly not stagnant but it is a status quo that’s established you know what each level costs you know what is going to happen

And the TV deals they they go up but they don’t go up like drastically more than inflation the money doesn’t come down that much women’s football is just completely been reinvented every five minutes I mean NCO is literally just been voted for by the championship and

WSL clubs two days ago as we record this uh to to say that they’re no longer going to be run by the fa and they’re going to go out and they’re going to probably get bigger tendered uh TV deals and there’s going to be more money and

It’s going to be a great thing for women football we could be part of it we could be part of it next season we could be in the championship next season so yeah we’re looking at different things aren’t we we’re looking at opportunities we’re always having chats with potential

Investors and things we we we would invite more we would invite more chats of this people what I would say is that it’s not another Rex some or whatever it’s it’s a very unique football club and we are more than a football club in the sense of what we have off the pitch

With the media operations so you need to really love that part of the club if you’re going to come and be part of it you need to understand I want to be on this unique journey in football rather than cuz if you want to buy for the

Amount of money it would cost to buy a hashtag you could buy a club at a higher level than us but what would you be buying does is that club future proofed has that club got any sort of unique Revenue model or you’re just going to be

Buying another club that’s going to need you to SN money into every year I think there’s an opportunity for people to come into our club put money in and make something that is sustainable at a high level which is unique so we also Al thinking about maybe you we might have

To do some crowdfunding opportunity one day and let people become owners at the club that watch the videos so we we we’re kind of in the middle of that stage right now planning it all so watch this space for that but I’m going to end the podcast there Seb there’s a lot of

Things we started to talk about we kind of run out of time I don’t want to be too long maybe after we chatted to some other people from other clubs we could do a little update episode and me we started to talk about some interesting characters we bumped into I mean we have

Seen some things genuinely with my own eyes heard them with my own ears is managers of football clubs giving our players death threats and to be more precise a manager of a football club that we’re playing against at the game saying to one of our players from his

Dugout that he’s going to come to his house and stab him in his sleep and that was just the start of it we had that same manager apparently well not apparently because I’ve heard them sending voice notes to players that didn’t sign for him saying he’s going to

Cut their head off and put it in a paper bag like and this guy’s still in a job like this is the sort of thing you run into non league so there’s a lot of stories there we’ve also had you know a completely other other tangent you know massive footballers like International

Footballers who have kind of flirted with the idea of coming to the tags um and there’s been conversations that haven’t worked out and there’s a lot of different reasons why that is we can delve into that there’s a load still to talk about but thank you for joining me

Seb it’s been a pleasure we’re going to have some more episodes coming soon if there’s anyone particular from the world of football you want to hear from let us know we’ll try and get them on the show and uh yeah make sure if you’ve listen to it on audio platforms you leave a

Rating if you watched it on YouTube drop a like and we look forward to seeing you on the next until next time Don’t Go Changing