Project Swans flourishing in a school of hard knocks
IT TURNS out running a Non-League club is a lot different to doing it on a video game – but it hasn’t stopped the teenagers at Walton & Hersham from trying.
The announcement nearly two years ago that seven 19-year-old university students – believed to be the youngest owners in world football – were to take over the proud Surrey club inevitably caused a stir.
“‘It’s just a university project’, ‘They’re too young’,” recalls Calogero Scannella, the club’s managing director-cum-club secretary and second-year economics and finance student at Surrey University, on some of the abuse that arrived.
“They were sort of right, we did know nothing! If you look at what we were discussing in the minutes of the meetings two years ago, I struggle to look at those notes now to see how clueless we actually were.”
Scannella is now able to look back and laugh at some of the learning curves he and his six friends from Hampton School have been through, who all take on differing roles at the club from director of football to treasurer.
One example, for their first game as owners, they priced entry at £2 to attend a pre-season friendly at the reserve 3G pitch at Elmbridge Sports Hub where they groundshare with rivals Walton Casuals.
The only issue – and quite a big one – was spectators would be able to watch the game for free just by looking through the fence. “It was just embarrassing,” he says.
Then there was the time an embroider, creating their new kit, left the wings off the swan on the club badge. “Two days before the season started and we had snakes on our shirt,” laughs Scannella. “The panic that set in…”
But despite the mishaps, the club is in position to gain promotion from the Combined Counties Division One as a result of the restructure after two promising seasons under their new leadership.
Their last promotion came in 2005 which soon led to years of decline, an end to their 45-year stay in the Isthmian League and the sale of Stompond Lane, their home for over 80 years, for redevelopment.
Demands
Then, when they were relegated to Step 6 in 2019, there were fears Walton & Hersham would fold altogether with long-standing owner Alan Smith and his son Toby struggling to keep up with the demands of running the club.
The days of winning the FA Amateur Cup at Wembley in 1973 before stunning Brian Clough’s Brighton in the FA Cup first round the following year were long gone.
Scannella, who attended his first Walton fixture against
AFC Wimbledon in 2005, knew
Toby and began discussions about a way forward.
“I pitched out the idea to my friends and they all thought it was a joke,” Scannella told The NLP.
“I created a WhatsApp group and they all left it because they just thought I was messing about.
“Eventually we started to sit down and speak about it. The club needed new life and that’s what we proposed.
“The ground with the 3G pitch has definitely helped us, we would not have been able to do it had we had to do pitch maintenance and all of that side of it. We pay an annual rent at the Sports Hub and that covers everything regarding the ground. We don’t get the money from the bar but it’s softened by not having to do the work on the ground ourselves.
“We’re all very eager and we love our football. We’re bringing in new ideas that aren’t standard in Non-League, focusing a lot on social media but at the same time, we are trying to reward the fans who have stayed all this time. We want to do well for them as well as bringing in new fans.”
The owners rebranded with a new badge, website and kit, and have become the most followed team outside of the Premier League and Championship on the social media platform TikTok, with average attendances up to 140 this season.
The owners appointed a new manager in Scott Harris in a bid to become more consistent and better to watch, but Covid has hampered some of their progress.
Community feel
“It doesn’t help when the season gets cancelled twice,” said Scannella before their campaign ended for good last Saturday following defeat in the FA Vase to Leighton Town. “Next season, hopefully what we’re doing on social media and in general with the club we will start to see some positive changes.
“It’s about getting out there and speaking to as many people as possible. From the talks we’ve had with multiple companies they’re definitely more approachable than beforehand. The thing that sets us apart from people in business and owners in football at the moment is we’re always willing to learn. We’re not going to think we know more than everyone else.
“We were so naïve when it came to the finances. We were thinking we were going to get 150 people through the gate straight away. Our average attendance in the first season was 40. No one wants to watch a club that has been in such decline and apart from the diehards, you’re not bringing in any new fans.
“Our attendances this season, even with Covid, tripled. It shows what happens when you start to build that community feel around the club and start to play football that’s really quite enjoyable to watch.”