The Eastern Counties Football League (Division One) has never seen anything like this.

Sponsored by Thurlow Nunn, a chain of Vauxhall dealerships, the league in the tenth tier of the English game has attracted more media interest in the last two months than in its entire history. This is because of one new club. They have more YouTube subscribers than Celtic or Rangers, more social media fans than Inter Milan or Spurs. Robert Pires and Patrick Kluivert have scored for them. Last year, they took over 34,000 fans to Wembley. They’ve played at the Emirates and the Etihad; they’ve toured the United States. They are Hashtag United, the brainchild of YouTube’s Spencer Owen Carmichael-Brown. (The double-barrelled surname is not usually used.)

I used to be a sizeable Spencer Owen fan. I was subscribed to him on YouTube. Often, I watched his videos as soon as they appeared. By my calculations, I’ve probably seen as many Spencer Owen videos as non-league football matches. He’s a watchable fella.

There’s generally at least one good reason why a person finds success on YouTube. In Spencer’s case, his FIFA videos are cheerful, entertaining, and imbued with his natural sense of humour. He is not an exceptionally good FIFA player, but that isn’t the point. In many cases, the most popular gaming personalities haven’t accumulated a devoted audience because of world-class ability at their chosen game; instead, they combine a few nuggets of insight with a winning personality, engaging video ideas, and regular uploads.

I don’t take much notice of Spencer’s output any more. My tastes have changed, my free time is scarce, and I am now well and truly outside the remotest borders of Spencer’s target demographic. (The same thing has happened with Radio 1.) But he is a good-natured lad, and I’m strongly inclined to wish him well.

A couple of years ago, Spencer started to include some real-life football challenges on his YouTube channel. This eventually took the form of his group of mates playing in a series of friendlies, which were filmed and (after a lengthy editing delay) uploaded to YouTube, where they were watched hundreds of thousands of times. Gradually, they began to play against more organised teams. They also staged an annual showpiece at Wembley, an event which looks and feels similar to ‘Soccer Aid’, with a mix of ex-pros and social media figures. This ‘Wembley Cup’ attracts over 30,000 fans every year.

That was ‘Chapter One’. ‘Chapter Two’, the new challenge causing all the buzz, will show how Hashtag United do in the proper football pyramid. They’re sharing Haringey’s ground and are managed by former East Thurrock United assistant Jay Deveraux.

Of course, I’m a non-league fan, and judging by the tone of the discussion surrounding Hashtag United in the diehard non-league world, they’re the worst thing to happen to our game in years: a cringeworthy meme team that will turn the grassroots game’s finances upside-down and chip away at the soul of non-league, one skin-crawling cringy Tweet at a time.

Unlike almost everyone else wading into the Hashtag debate, I have affiliations on both sides of the story. Nobody else out there seems to have this mixed perspective, so I decided to give the story a shake and see what fell out.

Above: Hashtag’s new home kit, in association with Adidas and Football Manager. My TV screen developed a similar pattern one time, after I knocked it off the stand by accident.

Money

Is the non-league game going to be warped by a torrent of YouTube advertising bucks?

Unlike Billericay and similar operations, Spencer and friends aren’t throwing money at their team. To begin with, they don’t have an enormous amount to spend. To produce his bread-and-butter content, the match-day highlights and behind-the-scenes videos for his channels, Spencer employs a team of full-time staff to film, edit and share the videos. Ten non-playing staff work for Hashtag United. The staff are paid with a considerable slice of the sponsorships the club has received. Spencer also invests in eSports teams, paying four skilled gamers* a full-time living wage and flying them across the globe for FIFA tournaments. These teams often beat larger and more established outfits – but prize money can never be guaranteed.

(*In 2018, ‘skilled gamers’ is no longer considered a contradiction in terms.)

A hot button topic in football is the cost of admission. Rising player wages have applied financial pressure on non-league clubs, which can cause affordable ticket prices to rise. A Hashtag United season ticket is £25, or you can get in on the day for £4. Under-12s go free. It’s very decent value. The new club is not cynically milking its youthful fans, and Spencer hinted that they only charge for admission because league regulations compelled them to do so. It’s a very positive stance, but it has an impact on the club’s finances.

Their other revenue streams are limited too. Admittedly, they have a new kit deal with Adidas and their shirts are sponsored by Football Manager, but their staff costs are comparatively high. Also, they have no home of their own and pay rent to Haringey Borough.

Their social media following does not automatically translate to cash in the till. It’s all very well having tens of thousands of Twitter followers in the USA, but what if none of them buy anything? Hashtag United’s physical fan base seems to be growing, with a crowd exceeding five hundred for a recent home game, but there is no guarantee that this will continue to grow, or even sustain its current level.

Another big revenue stream for an ordinary non-league club would be bar takings. Revenue from ‘refreshments’ can’t be enormous for Hashtag – at least, not until around 2025, when most of their fans will be old enough to drink.

Spencer insists that he is “not commercially motivated”, has never turned a profit from any of his projects, and wants to “create a sustainable football club”. He is wary of the familiar non-league pitfalls and doesn’t want to follow other clubs into financial oblivion. For example, Hashtag’s current crop of players are not paid at all, choosing instead to pull on the Hashtag shirt for the exposure and opportunities it brings.

On the financial side, then, Hashtag’s resources are a lot more modest than they seem at first glance. There are plenty of other clubs splashing the cash in a far more extravagant way. What about the other objections to Hashtag’s presence?

Values

Digging a bit deeper into their plan, Spencer and his team seem to be doing their best to make decisions that don’t put too many noses out of joint. (This is a sensible move, not least because all football administrators have their own club affiliations.) In fact, Spencer and the Hashtag set-up are showing some respect for non-league beliefs. When they first looked into joining the non-league pyramid, Spencer explains, they only took up the chance because they expected to be allocated to a brand-new league; they were determined not to steal a place from an existing team. In fact, Hashtag are one of almost a dozen new teams joining their league during this time of change. The restructuring of the divisions came at a perfect time.

Spencer managed to enter Hashtag United into the pyramid as a new club. Other options available in discussions with the FA included “doing a merger with an existing club or finding a club that was going out of business and […] kind of do a rebrand as Hashtag United.” Spencer didn’t want this because it would be a step too far for his regular players, but also because he could “see a narrative where Hashtag United are ruining a team’s history.” This might just be a careful approach for the sake of PR, but Spencer seems genuinely keen to respect the environment he has entered.

(Just an aside: why were the FA even suggesting rebrands or mergers? Have we learned nothing from MK Dons?)

The idea at the centre of the Hashtag project is a charmingly simple one. Spencer wanted to be able to play in a team with his mates. (Many football clubs established in the nineteenth century began with a similar objective.) So far, Spencer has stayed true to this idea of community and loyalty. Although Spencer himself has taken more of a backseat role for their debut season in Saturday football, the core of the Hashtag squad has stayed fairly consistent over the past year – unlike some other non-league teams, especially those that have just entered a higher level of football. Spencer’s mates aren’t all glamorous social media figures: a carpenter and an insurance underwriter have made regular first-team appearances. That sounds quintessentially non-league.

Although the FA wanted Spencer to include a place-name in the name of the club, he points out that the world of Hashtag does not revolve around a single geographical location. Spencer’s roots are in Essex, but their fans tune in from around the world. In that sense, it would actually be more artificial to crowbar a random town or city into the club name. Spencer stuck to his guns, and the club was able to stick to its global roots. “We don’t want to lose that,” he says.

Hashtag are also recruiting volunteers to help with stewarding and other club roles. Volunteers are an essential facet of non-league life, and Spencer respects this, though this might be for budgetary reasons.

He even wants to build a youth set-up and put some of their success back into the community. This will not happen for a while, he says.

You can’t help but wonder what the Football Association makes of all this. Spencer says the process of entering the football pyramid took eighteen months from their first contact with officials. Someone, somewhere, had to explain social media to the, er, experienced administrators of the English game. Imagine trying to describe Snapchat to Jack Pearce and you can probably imagine the challenge Spencer faced.

Once I got past the name and the gimmicky octothorpe on the club badge, I found more and more about the Hashtag project that seems quite respectful of non-league. He made his name in the brave new world of social media, but Spencer has approached some aspects of non-league life in a recognisable, almost traditional way.

In some cases, I suspect that the very newness of the Hashtag project is what makes it feel so alien to non-league aficionados. It might also be a generational thing. It doesn’t matter where you go for your grassroots fix: from Sussex to the Scottish borders and beyond, there’s an essence of non-league that’s hard to define, but you can almost smell it. Hashtag United have come from something very different, but they have taken on some of the colour of non-league.

Spencer knows all this. A less well-documented part of his football story – ‘Chapter 0’, if you like – was right at the start of his YouTube journey. His father was the physio at East Thurrock United, and the young Spencer made videos of their games. (Owen senior installs solar panels – an appropriately modern version of a traditional non-league day job.) Spencer has links to a non-league club and he knows what non-league feels like. Yes, Hashtag’s glorified friendlies were very brand-oriented and marketed bluntly and cynically at their youthful audience, playing staff teams from Coca-Cola, The Sun Dream Team and Google… but they have chosen to move away from that to something more authentic.

We all love non-league grounds and the way they feel. Old wooden seating, concrete terraces, burger sauce, and strikers who work on building sites in the week. The Hashtag project will not take these things away.

Non-league football is not a zero-sum game. I hope Hashtag do well. I have no reason to hate them. They may even point the way towards new strategies for existing non-league teams: more and more clubs have their own YouTube channels these days, including our beloved Rocks.

Hashtag United have an interesting adventure ahead, with Bostik League football an eventual target. Non-league football should welcome new fanbases and new ideas. I wish them well… until they take points off Bognor, as they inevitably will in a few years’ time!

Talking points

Will results affect the Hashtag project? Momentum is with them at the moment, as they make a push at the top of their division. (They are third at the time of writing.) However, every manager knows that you’re only as good as your last result. Hashtag, by their very nature, are defined by their social media vibe. What happens when results take a downward turn and gaffer Jay Deveraux comes under pressure?

How gritty can they be? Sooner or later, the ‘Hashtaggers’ will have to play two or three games a week, if they go on a cup run or have postponements. Have they got that classic non-league graft?

What does the future hold? Spencer’s project is a unique experiment and it will be intriguing to see how it grows. Will they be an established part of the picture in decades to come? Will they even exist in 2020?

Do the FA want them to succeed?

All quotes taken from Spencer Owen’s YouTube videos.