Founded in 2016 initially as a passion project, Youtuber Spencer Owen has been the face of what has become a very impressive rise through the ranks of the English pyramid, with Hashtag United nearing the heights of the National League South as they currently sit just below, in the Isthmian Premier Division.
Photo – Gareth Nash
With the popular background that Spencer Owen brings to the team, obtaining 1.95 million subscribers to his YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@SpencerFC) as of the 11th of December, Spencer has brought a vast number of eyes to the lower tiers of English football as he documents the journey on a separate channel ‘Hashtag United’ which currently sits on 638,000 subscribers (https://www.youtube.com/@HashtagUnited).
Hashtag United Founder Spencer Owen
Photo – Gareth Nash
To provide the background information, the Tags certainly had a name that would initially turn heads but was made in tribute to the fact that the original squad, who were mostly friends with Owen at University, all worked within the realms of social media in some capacity and wanted to create a club with a name that would spark conversation.
Despite such achievements, there has been a significant amount of criticism received by Hashtag United from football fans and the FA alike alongside the inevitable controversy surrounding the founding of such a club.
Initially, the club wasn’t taken seriously by opposition alongside the FA, having the idea of the club based on a social media feature being thrown back at them. Significantly, the FA had initially been against the name when Hashtag was first entering the English pyramid claiming that the club wasn’t affiliated with a place and was a requirement.
Owen responded by asking ‘where’s Port Vale?’ and ‘where’s Lopes Tavares?’ an example of two clubs who had already built a reputation in the English pyramid with names that are not affiliated with places.
Branching past the name of the club being an issue for some, another issue arose, which is fair to say has provided a significant advantage to the Tags following the rapid climb up the tiers of English football, this being the reverse engineering of the club. This has provided the club with fans before the football team was initially created which a team was then built off, as a worldwide reputation had already been created following Owen’s YouTube success.
This has helped to draw significant matchday attendances in comparison to their competitors even today, bringing more money into the club, not to mention the money generated by its online brand which evidently has been invested back into the club to generate success – features that the typical club at this stage would not have access to and therefore resulting in Hashtag United quickly surpassing them.
As of today, Hashtag United currently sit in the seventh tier in English football in the Isthmian Premier Division, one step away from the National League South, and are sat at a very respectable 8th in the table following an impeccable promotion last season after dominating the league finishing on 98 points.
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