Tadcaster Albion: How volunteer-led football clubs can flourish in tough economic climate

In the early 20th century, the club played in the York Football League and highlights of its history have included winning the York Football League title in 1948 and reaching the 5th round of the FA Vase in the 1977–78 season.

More than 130 years after we were founded, we are still running a football club in Tadcaster. The brewery used to provide the funding for the club, but these days, the funds for running the club have to come other sources. You can either find a business person or an A list actor to finance the club or alternatively, the volunteers have to step in and run the club in a professional and business way. Clubs at our level and above can no longer just be a one team club if they want to survive for the next 130 years. Finding just one individual to fund the club, has many risks and when we have seen other clubs being destroyed by this option, we have decided to be a supporter run club. This means that club has to be self funding and ensure that we become the hub of the community.

The club has also got be run on a day to day basis the same way as a fully professional football league club. We have developed a business plan that illustrates how we deliver this self funding. We now have to create many different income streams and options, develop real and meaning full community engagement, ensure delivery of a great product both on and off the pitch, give our sponsors real value for their sponsorship, increases crowds through community involvement and finally deliver quality marketing and PR strategies.

Just this week, for example, we had more than 300,000 impressions on our X feed. Our business plan was activated in February this year and just in the last few months, we have developed a ladies section with two ladies teams and further developed our community foundation to help even more disadvantaged young people in the area.

We have also delivered a live streaming of our matches on Taddy TV, established a crowdfunding project to find potential new shareholders and sponsors, and run our first beer festival, while also launching our new Tadcaster Albion Business Club to provide support, learning and genuine business opportunities to sponsors and local businesses. All these new initiatives deliver community and business engagement to provide the necessary funding to run our community football club. If we all collaborate, we can continue to enjoy our local football for next 130 years, whilst also making a genuine difference to the lives of disadvantaged young and old people alike. If you too would like to be part our future dreams and be part of our community, please see our crowd funding project or give us a call. #makingadifferencetogether

Richard Norman is a director on the board at Tadcaster Albion. The club is a member of the Macron Northern Counties East Football League Premier Division.