Hashtag United Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

, England. They are currently members of the and play at the Len Salmon Stadium. Founded in 2016 by

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

personality Spencer Carmichael-Brown, the club originally played exhibition matches against professional football clubs' staff teams, Sunday league teams and non-league teams. The games were filmed and highlights were uploaded to their YouTube channel, where they quickly gained a significant online following. In 2017, Spencer Owen began talks with

the FA The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world an ...

over the possibility of Hashtag United joining the non-league pyramid. The club subsequently entered the league system at the beginning of the 2018–19 season, joining the

Eastern Counties League The Eastern Counties Football League, currently known as the Thurlow Nunn League for sponsorship purposes, is an English football league at levels 9 and 10 of the English football league system. It currently contains clubs from Norfolk, Suff ...

History

Hashtag United Football Club was formed in March 2016 by Spencer Carmichael-Brown, a football

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influe ...

who went by the name of Spencer FC. Carmichael-Brown had begun making

videos in 2007 as a student at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

, and the team initially consisted of friends from school and university. From their foundation, the team primarily played five, seven and eleven-a-side exhibition matches, which were filmed and uploaded to their YouTube channel. By September 2016, the team's Instagram account had over 100,000 followers, their

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account 41,000, and a 'penalty challenge' video uploaded to YouTube had accumulated over one million views. Hashtag United played various teams including a Comedians XI whom they beat 19–1,

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

, the GB Deaf Team,

Barawa Barawa ( so, Baraawe, Maay: ''Barawy'', ar, ﺑﺮﺍﻭة ''Barāwa''), also known as Barawe and Brava, is the capital of the South West State of Somalia.Pelizzari, Elisa. "Guerre civile et question de genre en Somalie. Les événements et le ...

and a Manchester City staff team, with opponents fielding former professional footballers such as

Paul Dickov Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity * Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

Graeme Le Saux Graeme Pierre Le Saux ( ; born 17 October 1968) is an English former professional footballer and television pundit. As a versatile left sided player he played most of his career at left back with two spells at Chelsea, Blackburn Rovers, Southamp ...

and

Ray Parlour Raymond Parlour (born 7 March 1973) is an English former professional footballer and sports radio pundit for BBC Radio 5 Live and Talksport. He was a midfielder from 1992 to 2007, and spent his career playing for Arsenal, Middlesbrough and Hul ...

, and celebrities including

Omid Djalili Omid Djalili ( fa, امید جلیلی; born 30 September 1965) is a British actor, comedian and writer. Early life and education Djalili was born on 30 September 1965 in Chelsea, London, to Iranian Baháʼí parents. He attended Holland Park ...

. At one point in 2016, the club was rumoured to be interested in signing professional footballer

Adebayo Akinfenwa Saheed Adebayo Akinfenwa (born 10 May 1982) is an English former professional footballer who played as a striker. Akinfenwa's professional breakthrough came at Doncaster Rovers, having spent time up until then in the lower leagues of English f ...

. In 2017 the club won the EE Wembley Cup, a competition that Carmichael-Brown had created in 2015. The team included Scott Pollock, who went on to sign professional terms with

Northampton Town Northampton Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Northampton, England. The team plays in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1897, the club competed in the Midland ...

. In early 2018, Chelsea player and Spanish international

César Azpilicueta César Azpilicueta Tanco (born 28 August 1989) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a defender for club Chelsea and the Spain national team. A youth product of Osasuna, Azpilicueta spent three seasons in La Liga before switchin ...

invested in the club and became a co-owner. Ahead of the 2018–19 season, the club joined the English football league system, initially being placed in Division One of the

Spartan South Midlands League The Spartan South Midlands Football League is an English football league covering Hertfordshire, northwest Greater London, central Buckinghamshire and southern Bedfordshire. It is a feeder to the Southern Football League or the Isthmian League, ...

, before being moved to the

after appealing that it was more suited to their Essex roots. After joining the pyramid, Carmichael-Brown stepped down as manager and was replaced by former East Thurrock United assistant manager Jay Devereux. Their first competitive match was a 3–2 away loss to Little Oakley on 4 August 2018. The club's first league season saw them reach the semi-finals of Division One Knock-Out Cup. They went on to win the Division One South title, earning promotion to the

Essex Senior League The Essex Senior Football League is an English men's football league. It contains clubs from the Essex FA, Hertfordshire FA, London FA, Middlesex FA and the Amateur Football Alliance. It is a feeder league to Division One North of the Isthm ...

. The 2019–20 season was abandoned due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

with the club second in the league, a point behind the leaders and with three matches in hand. After the 2020–21 season was also curtailed due to the pandemic, at which point Hashtag United were top of the league, the club was promoted to the North Division of the Isthmian League based on the points per game accumulated over the two abandoned seasons. During their two seasons in the Essex Senior League, the club won 96 points from 38 games. In the 2022–23 season, the club had recorded 21 league wins in a row by March 2023.

Season-by-season record

Other teams

The club operates a Sunday league team, which was established in 2017 under the name West Oviedo and joined Division Two of the Brentwood Sunday League. They were runners-up in their first season and were promoted to Division One. They went on to win Division One in 2018–19. The club also had a team named Hashtag Academy that played in the seven-a-side Next Level Football League. The club currently operates a reserve and development men's side as well as a number of development men's and women's youth teams. The youth section of the club was merged with Forest Glade for the start of the 2020–21 season. In April 2020 the club announced that they would have a women's team, Hashtag United Women, from the start of the 2020–21 season as a result of a merger with AFC Basildon. The women's team plays in the

FA Women's National League The FA Women's National League, formerly WFA National League and FA Women's Premier League (WPL), is a group of six football divisions run by the English Football Association. Founded in 1991 by the Women's Football Association, the League includ ...

, the fourth tier, and won the Essex County Cup in 2022 defeating Billericay Town 2-1 in the final. The club also has an eSports team.

Colours and badge

Hashtag United's colours are yellow and blue. The club's first kit was a yellow shirt, with blue sleeves, shorts and yellow socks. In January 2017, the club signed a kit deal with

Umbro Umbro is an English sports equipment manufacturer founded in 1924 in Wilmslow, Cheshire and based in Manchester. They specialise in football and rugby sportswear featuring their ''Double Diamond'' logo. Umbro products are marketed in over 10 ...

until the end of 2018. This saw the club's colours changed to blue, with yellow streaks down the side of the shorts. The club's first shirt sponsor was EE. From 2017–18, the shirt sponsor was online game Top Eleven. The online

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...

company 188 Bet were briefly the sleeve sponsor of the club. Ahead of the 2018–19 season, the club signed a new kit deal with Adidas, which saw the club's home shirt returned to the traditional yellow and blue they had originally worn. Ahead of the 2021–22 season, the club signed a new five–year kit deal with Hummel. This saw the kit's colours reversed again to be a blue shirt with yellow sleeves, blue shorts, and yellow socks. The away kit was predominantly white and black, featuring a blue lightning bolt design. The sponsor of the men's shirts was initially kept a mystery, with the shirts instead featuring a QR code that could be scanned to find clues about the upcoming sponsor. The sponsor was then revealed to be the upcoming free to play football simulator UFL (video game). The women's team were sponsored by food chain

TGI Fridays TGI Fridays (operating in the UK as FRIDAYS) is an American restaurant chain focusing on primarily American cuisine and casual dining. The restaurant's founder said the name stood for "Thank God It's Friday", although some television commercial ...

. The club's badge is yellow and blue, with the club's name emblazoned on the horizontal lines of a hashtag symbol.

Stadium

After joining the Eastern Counties League, the club began playing at the Coles Park Stadium, groundsharing with Haringey Borough. In April 2019, following promotion to the

, Hashtag United announced that the club would move to

Tilbury Tilbury is a port town in the borough of Thurrock, Essex, England. The present town was established as separate settlement in the late 19th century, on land that was mainly part of Chadwell St Mary. It contains a 16th century fort and an ancie ...

's Chadfields for the 2019–20 season. In March 2020 the club stated that they would move to the Len Salmon Stadium, home of Bowers & Pitsea, for the 2020–21 season. Since the merger, the women's team played at

Canvey Island Canvey Island is a town, civil parish and reclaimed island in the Thames estuary, near Southend-on-Sea, in the Castle Point district, in the county of Essex, England. It has an area of and a population of 38,170.Office for National Statistics. ( ...

's Park Lane ground; but in April 2022, it was announced that the Women's team would move to

Aveley Aveley is a town and former civil parish in the unitary authority of Thurrock in Essex, England, and forms one of the traditional Church of England parishes. Aveley is 16 miles (26.2 km) east of Charing Cross. In the 2021 United Kingdom c ...

's Parkside Ground from the 2022-23 season.

Current squad

Men's team

Women's team

Staff

Honours

Men's

**Division One South Champions 2018–19

Women's

*Women's Essex Senior Cup **Winners: 2021-22

References

External links

* {{coord, 51, 34, 26.558, N, 0, 31, 5.160, E, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Football clubs in England Football clubs in London Football clubs in Essex Association football clubs established in 2016 2016 establishments in England Sport in the London Borough of Haringey Eastern Counties Football League Essex Senior Football League Isthmian League