Photo by Alex on Unsplash.
If you would’ve thought that a football team that was created by a YouTuber could end up being one of the most successful projects in history, you probably would’ve laughed when you initially heard the idea. Well, several years later, professional football team Hashtag United got the last laugh, as now they are one of the most talked about projects over the last few years or so. From starting off as a bunch of mates from university, to having their matches being aired on Britain’s biggest broadcasting network, this is how Hashtag United became an absolute success.
So, how did this all start? Let’s take you back all the way to 2016, when the first ever video to do with Hashtag United was uploaded, called Hashtag United vs Dream Team FC – Our 1st Ever Game! The video was published on the Spencer FC YouTube channel, whose real
name is Spencer Carmichael-Brown. He initially became a football YouTuber, and one day he decided to create a new project called Hashtag United, which initially started as a few friends having exhibition matches with other unofficial teams in the country. Some included the Manchester City staff team, the Great Britain Deaf team, and Comedians XI, a team full of comedians from around the country. Hashtag won that game 19-1. Some famous ex-players have played for these unofficial teams, including Ray Parlour, Paul Dickov and Graeme Le Soux. The club started to get attention, but it was in 2017 that Hashtag really took the world by storm, winning in a charity football competition called The Wembley Cup which was created by Spencer himself.
“Hashtag United? What sort of name is that? I’m going to create my own team and call it ‘Snapchat Athletic’.” said one X user. Hashtag United came up against Tekkers Town, a team captained by the F2 Freestylers. Spencer and his side had to be on their best form to beat the ‘strongest’ YouTube footballing team out there, as Billy Wingrove and Jeremy Lynch were labelled as the ‘best YouTube’ footballers. The third series saw five new Footballing ‘Legends’ entering the mix. Robbie Fowler was the only ‘Legend’ from Series Two to be in Series Three. He was joined by David James, Robbie Savage, Steven Gerrard, Emile Heskey and William Gallas. Much like the second Wembley Cup, it was live streamed on YouTube. The third season of the Wembley Cup was a landmark for YouTube football as it doubled the YouTube football attendance record set by the previous Wembley Cup from 18,00 to 34,172. Hashtag United won the game 6-1, in comfortable fashion.
The 2018 series was very different, as it consisted of four teams battling it out in a Group Stage format. The teams were Hashtag United, F2 FC, XO FC and Rebel FC. Hashtag United came out on top of the group with F2 FC coming 2nd, XO FC coming third and Rebel FC finishing fourth. Hashtag United faced Rebel FC in the first Semi Final and XO FC came up against F2 FC in the second Semi Final. Rebel FC shocked the YouTube Football scene when they came out victorious against the holders Hashtag United. The game ended 0-1. For this series, EE introduced new rules, including a fast and furious 30-minute match format, Man Down Time and Sin Bins. The live semi-final, which saw F2 FC & XO FC go head-to-head, was the first game in The EE Wembley Cup Final history to see Man Down time brought into play. A new rule which saw a player from each team leave the field every minute until a team scores. The second semifinal between F2 FC & XO FC ended in a 0-0 draw and had to be decided in the ‘dreaded’ Man Down stage. Bradley Simmonds stole the match for F2 FC as the players were quickly dropping off the field. This set up a final between Rebel FC and F2 FC. The French Footballing ‘Legend’, David Trezeguet opened the scoring after a looping volley which forced Rebel FC Goalkeeper, Kaelin Martin make an unfortunate mistake which ultimately led to F2 FC grabbing their first ever Wembley Cup trophy.
In early 2018, Chelsea’s captain Cesar Azpilicueta decided to invest in the club and is now a co-owner. Hashtag joined the English football league season before the 2018-19 season began, being placed in Division One of the Spartan South Midlands League, before being moved to the Eastern Counties League after appealing it would be more suited due to their Essex routes. This led to Spencer stepping down as manager and was replaced by former East Thurrock United assistant manager, Jay Deveruex. Their first ever competitive match ended in a 3-2 away loss to Little Oakley on 4th of August 2018. In the club’s first league season, it saw them reach the semi-finals of the Division One Knockout Cup and went on to win the Division One South title, earning them promotion to the Essex Senior League.
The 2019/20 season got abandoned due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw Hashtag finish 2nd in the league, 1 point behind Saffron Walden Town with three matches in hand. The club ended up getting promoted to the Eastern Senior League. After the 2020/21 season was also curtailed due to the pandemic, Hashtag United were top of the league and got promoted to the North Division of the Isthmian League based on the points per game over the two abandoned seasons. During their two seasons in the Essex Senior League, Hashtag won 96 points from 38 games, winning 21 games out of 26 in the 2019/20 season, and 10 games out of 12 in the 2020/21 season.
“I’ll be honest, the concept of Hashtag United seems completely ridiculous. A club owned and ran by YouTubers. It shouldn’t work. Yet it does, and for that Hashtag United and Spencer Owen deserve massive respect. The way they’ve used their social media presence to their advantage is complete genius. We’ve never seen it at this scale before. Perhaps we’ll never see it again.” says AlexAppleby on YouTube.
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 with a merger with AFC Basildon. The women’s team plays in the FA Women’s National League, the third tier, and won the Essex County Cup in 2022 defeating Billericay Town 2–1 in the final. The women’s team won promotion to Tier 3 after a successful 2022-23 campaign and on 23 March 2024 they clinched their 3rd trophy in as many years by winning the FA Women’s National League Cup Final vs Newcastle United, winning 2–1 in front of a record crowd of 3,719 fans at Kenilworth Road.
One of the club’s most iconic moments in their history will forever be when they had an FA Cup qualifying game aired on the BBC Red Button. Hashtag United took on Soham Town Rangers in 2020, and the game ended in a 1-1 draw. However, when the final whistle blew, It wasn’t to go to extra time, it was straight to a penalty shootout. This was without a doubt a big moment in club history, a potential game where they have won that has been aired on arguably the UK’s biggest broadcasting network. Hashtag won the penalty shootout, winning 4-2 and going through to the next round of the countries’ oldest national football tournament.
We spoke to current Hashtag United player, Misha Djemali, on what it’s like to play for a team like Hashtag, and his thoughts being labelled a crucial player for the team.“Playing for Hashtag has its ups and downs, more ups than downs. Of course, I do love playing for the club more than I have others in my career so far. The biggest up is that you’re showcased to so many people and thus you’re naturally more well-known but also people around the world get to see you play football and to me that’s remarkable really.”
“The fans in football are crucial themselves, they can literally make or break you at times, so I’m very glad that they do label me as a crucial part of the team and I have started to carry that on my back because I believe in my ability to take the club higher. It does come with some pressure naturally, but it’s not something that I shy from. I enjoy it and use it to push me forward and to be able to get put a smile on the fans faces is the icing on the cake really.”
Hashtag have seen many players that have played for top-flight clubs join them for a brief period, e.g. Greg Halford, Nathan Smith and at the moment, Sak Hassan. Currently, things can change in terms of stats. But Hashtag has seen a lot of players score tons of goals since they debuted as a team. And that’s how Hashtag United went from being a meme to a success.
