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Spencer Owen speaks on Hashtag United requesting to be relegated from league

Spencer Owen speaks on Hashtag United requesting to be relegated from Isthmian League – Premier Division regardless of their final position.

The 7th tier club, who play their Aveley’s Parkside, with an average attendance of 216, sit 18th with 35 points from 36 games played, one point above the drop zone, although 19th place Welling have a game in hand.

On Wednesday the 25th of March, the Isthmian League stated they “had received a written request from Hashtag United FC for the club to be relegated from Step 3 whether or not the club finishes in a relegation position.

“The club has also notified The Football Association of its request and it is The FA which will make the final decision on the request.

“The league is not in a position to make a clear statement as to what will happen but the usual situation where a club resigns during a season is that the club is treated as a relegated club and the club finishing fourth from bottom is reprieved.

“However, as stated, this decision can only be made by The FA and we will notify clubs as soon as that decision has been made and communicated to us.”

STATEMENT FROM SPENCER OWEN, FOUNDER OF HASHTAG UNITED

Hashtag United turned ten years old last week. I’m incredibly grateful that, a decade ago, an idea found its moment and you were there to meet it.

There was no marketing campaign or budget that put us in front of you. No family tradition that made this inevitable. No postcode that made Hashtag United the obvious choice. At some point, you found us and decided we were worth your time. That decision you made is the reason we exist. And it’s where this announcement has to start, because without the choice you made, none of what follows means anything.

Last Thursday, on our actual tenth anniversary, I sat in a room with our players and told them something difficult. I’m going to tell you the same thing but before I do I want to say this: I have never been more certain and more positive about the direction of this club than I am right now.

So here it is. We have requested that our men’s team step down from the Isthmian Premier Division at the end of the 2025/26 season.

We told the players at the earliest possible opportunity, so they could make decisions about their own futures before the registration deadline. Typically, the done thing here would be to cut the budget and release players, often after the deadline, leaving them without income for the rest of the season. We wouldn’t do that. We aren’t cutting our budget and we aren’t releasing anyone that wants to stay. Our aim is to avoid finishing in the bottom four spots and make this purely an administrative move. I will never go to a Hashtag game not wanting us to win. It’s just not in my nature. We are going down swinging and smiling.

Some news has started to leak as a result but we are also telling you at the earliest possible opportunity. There’s a lot of moving parts that come with a decision like this, and a lot of conversations that need to happen. Ultimately we put our players first and told them before anyone else in order to give them options.

Make no mistake, this is our decision. Nobody has made us do it. We are choosing this because, after a long time thinking, we believe it gives us the best possible foundation for what comes next.

Because the truth is, football has a problem. I’ve felt it for years. A decade inside the game has only made it clearer. I think the game is broken. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that in some ways football has taken the place of religion for many fans. Stadia as churches. Crowds as congregations. But even within those sacred walls, we’re not immune from the same illness that has affected everything else. It’s not football that’s become God. It’s money.

Football’s governance is lacking. The finances are unsustainable at almost every level. The rules no longer prioritise what made people fall in love with the game in the first place. It’s become a victim of its own success and, in too many places, sold to the highest bidder.

There’s no denying this year has been tough on the pitch. The reality is we’re about where we should be given our budget, in a landscape of unprecedented spending in the seventh tier. Call it the Wrexham effect if you want. The truth is there are only a handful of clubs and owners capable of doing what Ryan and Rob have done. For most, a club’s fortunes will be entirely linked to the depth of an owner’s pockets and the level of their enthusiasm. As soon as either gets smaller, all bets are off.

We want to have the best players we can and play at the highest level possible, but not at the cost of our staff’s jobs and not at the cost of us being able to continue our mission of innovating and changing the game. This season has come with a big learning curve for us and I’ve seen that even our club isn’t immune from the fact that trying new things doesn’t go down well if you’re losing regularly. We have to have a budget that makes us competitive next year, because we’ll be trying A LOT of new things.

So many teams burn out as a result of flying too close to the sun. We want players that want to play for our club. Wherever possible we aim to find the players who resonate with our approach and want to be part of it. We want fans that support us because of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. We have to stand for something bigger than just winning.

Competition has always been in our DNA. Long before we entered the pyramid, before a league table had our name on it, we were competing in esports and in football divisions we invented ourselves with both risk and reward on the line, because we needed something real to play for. That hunger has never left us. It is not leaving us now.

What we’re announcing is not a retreat from competition. Its a decision about where we compete and why, so we can do it in a way that reflects who we actually are.

We have to remember what got us here. Without our origin story we wouldn’t exist, and if we drift too far from it, we won’t just lose games, we’ll lose ourselves. We’ve built something real. We’re moving to a new ground with enormous potential. We have the ideas, the people, and the platform to do something genuinely extraordinary across our men’s team, our women’s team and the Allstars, who are only just getting started.

The biggest risk to everything we’ve built is misallocating our resources and running out of time to use them properly. We won’t let that happen.

I don’t want our football club to be nothing more than a reflection of my own ego or a mere servant to one person’s infatuation with the white whale that is the Premier League. I’m not sure it’s the El Dorado that so many think it is.

The Premier League table on the day we uploaded our first game to YouTube proves it.

Leicester City were top of the league and went on to win it. Now, they could be playing in League One next season.

Relegation is a dirty word in football, and rightly so. It typically leads to loss of jobs and dark times. We are the exception to that rule.

Moving to Step 4 will mean significant budgetary savings that will be reinvested into other key parts of the business at a crucial time, including employing MORE people while we significantly invest in building home attendances at our new ground.

This could be the best thing that ever happened to us, at the perfect time. This is not a relegation. It is a revolution.

What comes next, we will show you rather than tell you. We’ll attract plenty of naysayers, I’m sure. But fortunately, spending a decade running a football club called Hashtag United has made me fairly comfortable with being uncomfortable.

The results won’t be instant, it may take some time. But we are committed to delivering on our goals and changing the game in the process.

We are taking a big swing, but that’s the only way you get a home run.

We are on a mission to make football fun again. Thank you for choosing us. We intend to keep deserving it. Up the Tags.

Here’s the social media reaction after Spencer Owen speaks on Hashtag United requesting to be relegated from the Isthmian League…

@puffpuff65: Shouldโ€™ve earned your place at step 6 to start with back in 2016 but starting out at step 7 like everyone else. No sympathy from me. Theyโ€™ve hit their peak and now itโ€™s backfiring, not much sympathy at all for them to be honest when they went straight from Sunday league straight into Step 6. Shouldโ€™ve earned the right to play in the NLS by starting at step 7 and earning promotion into like everyone else.

@Deanzey: Absolutely pathetic. Opening statement says there was no budget that drew people in. I watched you play Step 6 football with players capable of playing step 3/4, blasting teams for fun and making a mockery of clubs that have been established for over 100 years. Promotion after promotion, all as a result of having more cash than anyone else and turning non league footballers into martyrs, pimping themselves out to the highest bidder. And now you talk about not being able to compete with clubs on a budget. There are hundreds of clubs up and down the country, many with years and years of history, and crucially, an actual home ground. But they are repeatedly shunned for the sake of ยฃ50 and the chance to play football in someone else’s home ground. And until the FA do something about all of the “new” clubs flocking into non league football with just a wide eyed owner and a YouTube handle, with no ground, no following, no history and no proper plan for sustainability, we will keep seeing it happen over and over and over again. Zero sympathy from me. Sorry.

@shaunypizzle: ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿป This is spectacularly written. Self awareness & knowing the crowds they could build by winning again at a more financially competitive level & the jobs they could save by going down rather than strangling themselves to compete another year by staying up is unbelievably smart long term.

@callum_g04: To those trying to moan about this decision, Iโ€™d rather see the club continue for over 100 years than go bust within 2. You will not find a more honest and open club than these guys, theyโ€™ve got my backing and I hope that the true fans get behind this too. At this level of football there is money involved. Any decent clubs will protect their players and staff first who have to pay their bills, and this decision to voluntarily relegate themselves help with individuals not losing out on their salaries. Know the facts before moaning.

@nonleaguesouths: Thatโ€™s a heck of a spin to put on things! Fair play for coming out and explaining. A shame it came after the statement from the league.Those in the club know best and if they think relegation is right for them canโ€™t question it! Certainly cant say I see it as a positive though!

@jamieinsall1515: Strange one this. You are in a relegation battleโ€ฆ fans have paid season tickets and now the rest of the season they will be coming to watch there team knowing whatever the results they are relegated anyway. Seems bit unfair on fans who have paid there money

@LRbix: Well I hate to break it to you it is a relegation at the end of the day ๐Ÿ˜‚

@JuceeRob: Wanting to drop down a league via email isnโ€™t how the football pyramid works and shouldnโ€™t be either. Stay up or go down on the pitch. With integrity.

@ciarandurham: Hashtag United using Leicesterโ€™s downfall as a comparison. @LCFC blood on your hands. Sack the whole board.

@jamesblack1986: That’s a lot of words to say ‘we’d rather be flat-track bullies and play in a division with minimal competition’.

@mralexlane: So, you donโ€™t have the finances, youโ€™re quitting. Youโ€™re pissing around with the fans who paid money to support you in a relegation battle. Youโ€™ve thrown the towel in. Thereโ€™s clubs that would give EVERYTHING to be in that division. Itโ€™s disrespectful to football clubs and fans.

@J5aint: Mad world we live in where a club choosing to safeguard its future and do the right thing by its players and staff is derided. Should be applauded for not following the crowd and chasing the impossible dream at eye watering cost ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿฝ

@Callum_Foy7: Have to respect the (Harry) honesty here. Hashtag have always been about what some would call the unusual or even odd, and others would call it innovation. Think Spencer has earned support on this based on the trajectory of the club since it entered the pyramid.

@CitizenF__: So you’ve spent your way up through the leagues & now you are against teams with similar or indeed better budgets you take the easy option and go crying off. Pathetic

@Ajh1972258480: Oh do fuck off. “Running a step 3 side costs well > ยฃ100,000 a season and cos we struggle to get 3 figure gates and don’t own our own ground we turnover feck all. I can’t pony up cos I’m a charlatan chancer who doesn’t have much cash. See ya” Fixed it for you ๐Ÿ‘

@cfcbenyu: Seems like competition is too tough, lets go somewhere where we can win games and get more views, you can call it voluntary but it’s only voluntary if you actually finish outside the bottom 4

Growing list of non league clubs folding and resigning amid tough times during 2025/26 season

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