Hashtag United is new semi-professional team. It was founded in 2016 but by 2018 it became fully fledged football team joining the non-league pyramid with the intent on winning promotion to compete in EFL. It found by a student from the University of Reading student named Spencer Owen Charmichael Brown who was a youtuber. The team started out playing 5, 7 and 11 a-side exhibition matches. These games were filmed and uploaded to their YouTube channel. These videos gather wide attention and 6 months after the team was created, they already had thousands of followers on their Instagram and Twitter accounts. As well garnering over a million views on a video called the penalty challenge.
After a couple of years playing exhibition matches against amateur teams and winning the Wembley Cup Spencer decided to take the team in a new direction and he multiple talks with the FA and manage to make Hashtag Unite a semi-professional team and entering them in non- league football as well as having Chelsea captain Cesar Azpilicueta investing in the club becoming a co-owner. Since entering the EFL Hashtag United have been able to be promoted and are now playing in the 8th tier of English Football.
Despite all this there any many contradicting views on Hashtag United. Many people were excited to see a new team enter the English Football League as it was new opportunity and something to revamp English Football as we know it as well as bring more attention to non-league football, to help smaller teams grow. However, the majority of people were not pleased as they are wondering if this the future that any amateur team that has enough funding and a good social media following are able to break in to the EFL and have the chance of playing at a professional level provided that they get promoted to a professional level.
I believe this is good thing as it shows the modernisation of football and that clubs need to embrace the change or get left behind. But let us know what you think about Hashtag United by e-mailing us.
