Club goes from wooden spoon to top of the table
There was talk of closing Oxford Football Club just 12 months ago.
The challenges of running a small rural football club had taken their toll. Funding was low, travel times were high, and there were barely enough players for one team.
Since then, the club has had an astonishing turnaround. The secret: making football free.
It introduced a Free Kids Football programme last year, which has seen memberships soar, and its senior side has climbed the ranks at pace. Previously, it cost at least $100 for youngsters to sign up.
Club-wide, membership jumped from 20 before the start of last season to 160 now. More than 130 of those are children.
President Keith Gilby said the committee hashed out a plan to reinvigorate the club and turn it from “being just a provider of football to being a community club”.
“I was getting phone calls from parents in tears thanking us for doing it, because they just could not afford to put kids through.”
The free programme drove sponsorship from supportive local businesses. Canterbury pig farm Moorpork came on as its main funder.
Maura Dillon’s husband and two sons, Tadhg, 8, and Cian, 6, play football at the club. “It definitely didn’t feel like a community [before the revamp],” she said. “It felt like we just rocked up, played football and left.”
Now, each Saturday feels like a reunion at Oxford’s Pearson Sports Park. People her sons used to attend kindergarten with are now playing football, too.
Gilby said volunteer hours in coaching, fundraising and administration support for senior teams increased from 1500 to over 4000 this year – the equivalent of one extra hour per person in Oxford.
The attitude of the senior team also flipped. “I rarely took the boys to watch [their dad] play football because ... I didn’t like them witnessing some of the behaviour,” Dillon said. “Over the last two years, that’s changed, which has been great. They have put a real focus on establishing respect as the club’s culture.”
Better results have followed. Its senior team progressed from division 10 in 2022 to division 1 this season, and pulled off an upset win over Southern League in the English Cup competition last week – after entering the league as the lowest-ranked side.
“For us, that’s huge,” Gilby said. “Seeing the kids running out, having fun and playing, and seeing the success of the senior teams is just rewarding in itself.”
The turnaround wasn’t complete, he said. The inequity in grant funding for sports clubs between urban and rural areas needed to be addressed.