Hashtag United

Hashtag United Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in Pitsea, Essex, England. They are currently members of the Isthmian League North Division and play at the Len Salmon Stadium.

Founded in 2016 by YouTube personality Spencer Owen, 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 over the possibility of Hashtag 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.

History

Hashtag United Football Club was formed in March 2016 by Spencer Owen Carmichael-Brown, a football YouTuber who went by the name of Spencer Owen or Spencer FC. Carmichael-Brown had begun making YouTube videos in 2013 as a student at the University of Reading, 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 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, the GB Deaf Team, Barawa and a Manchester City staff team, with opponents fielding former professional footballers such as Paul Dickov, Graeme Le Saux and Ray Parlour, and celebrities including Omid Djalili. At one point in 2016, the club was rumoured to be interested in signing professional footballer Adebayo Akinfenwa. 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 pr

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