In recent years they have enjoyed tours to Serbia, Ireland and most recently the USA. They have played at some of the biggest stadiums in the world in front of thousands of fans including the Emirates Stadium and the home of football, Wembley. This has been the benefit of the dramatic rise of the YouTube football team Hashtag United. This modern phenomenon was formed in 2016 by Football and Gamer YouTuber, Spencer Owen.

 

 

Spencer formed the team with a bunch of old schoolmates, none of whom had played at a particularly high level. They started filming their games and through Spencer’s following on YouTube they started to develop a fan base. Hashtag then took the format from the FIFA Ultimate Team where they played real matches in an imaginary league. The team pick a points target at the start of the season and have a limited number of games to reach it. This allows the team to pick who they play and has seen them travel all over the country to play teams of varying ability.

 

 

The team play their home games in a North London ground with a 1000 capacity stadium but keep their locations secret so as to not spoil the game for their YouTube channel. The creative and loose format of their league allows them to incorporate lots of behind the scenes footage and bonus features something that fans don’t get supporting their Premier League teams. It also allows them to include other YouTube channels such as Coppa 90 and Chris MD. Hashtags matches often get over 500,000 views and has led to them receiving sponsorship deals from huge companies such as Coca Cola and BT sport.

 

With other YouTube teams like Palmas FC having 200,000 subscribers and South London team SE Dons growing in popularity it is clear that the YouTube community have found a market. A huge group of people follow these YouTube teams’ matches every week. Loyally supporting them like they would their local team or a top club. Spencer has said he was motivated to start the team after becoming disillusioned with the modern game “I have fallen out of love with it in recent years, on the back of the FIFA scandals and Qatar getting the World cup” a sentiment shared by many football fans in this country.

 

Perhaps it’s for this exact reason and the personal touch offered by YouTube teams that has been the driving force behind their success. Hashtag are not part of an FA controlled league and therefore do not have to answer to the money men in charge of English football. Spencer’s signature “Hello mate” at the start of each video showcases his cheeky persona and is the human touch that is perhaps the main reason for the channels success. Spencer recalls a story when he was interviewing Gareth Bale. They had invited a few 15 and 16 year-old lads to come down and they came running on to the pitch and ‘I thought Oh God, Gareth is going to get swamped, and they ran straight past Gareth and came to me. Their reasoning “Gareth’s a footballer you’re our mate” ’.

 

It seems the younger generation are starting to switch off from the glossy and glamorous football of the Premier League, their new heroes are YouTubers. Unlike watching a top team they can watch and follow these players for free. For 15- 16 year olds who are too young to go down to the pub to watch games YouTube has been a revelation. It’s what they speak to their friends about at school on a Monday morning. Looking at the comments section of YouTube games you can see the huge support they receive. The teams also make an effort to reply to the comments and again this helps to create this community feel with the fans that seems to have been lost in modern day football.

 

The progression Hashtag have made in the just under two years has been massive and they have inspired a whole new wave of YouTube teams. SE Dons, Sidemen FC and the YouTube Allstars. There is great appeal in watching normal guys who do everyday jobs and are easily relatable, something that Premier League footballers no longer are. With the continued increase in TV deals and tickets prices this doesn’t look like changing. YouTube teams bring football back to its roots and with it continuing to grow at such as fast scale it will continue to be a huge influence on young children watching football and will continue to become an alternative to watching Premier League Football.