Fame v fortune: Hashtag United prepare for Newcastle cup final

Stanley Cricket Club was founded in 1881, changing its name the following year to Newcastle East End, and in 1892 to Newcastle United. Hashtag United were founded in 2016. On Saturday two clubs whose creation was separated by 135 years meet as equals, or near enough, as their women’s sides play the National League Cup final at Luton’s Kenilworth Road.

Whatever the result, this brief moment of parity is set to be broken: Newcastle, the first and only fully professional club in the women’s third tier, are on the verge of promotion to the Championship as winners of the National League Northern Premier Division; Hashtag are second in the southern section but well adrift of title favourites Portsmouth. “They’re a professional set-up and I think for them – maybe this is a bold statement – it would be embarrassing if a club like Newcastle, who are full-time, lost to a team called Hashtag,” says Grace Gillard, Hashtag’s captain. “We don’t see it like that, but people on the outside don’t necessarily see it how we see it. I think that just adds motivation to us. I like causing upsets. I think it takes the pressure off us and puts it on them. I don’t see it as underdogs, I see it as an opportunity.”

Spencer Owen, a YouTuber who posted as Spencer FC, founded Hashtag initially as a ragtag side playing friendlies and charity games but they joined the men’s pyramid in 2018 and are midtable in the Isthmian Premier, the seventh tier. They added a women’s side in 2020, taking over AFC Basildon. Perhaps inevitably given their genesis the club has always had a heavy online presence, with more than half a million followers on Instagram and 643,000 subscribers on YouTube. Though the men still get much of the attention the coverage of their women’s side – fronted by Alex Bailess, a former player forced to retire in 2021 after being diagnosed with cardiomyopathy – has led to them becoming unusually well supported.

“It sounds dramatic, but we have fans worldwide,” Gillard says. “You have people in the chats on YouTube saying: ‘I’m from Canada, I’m from wherever.’ They’re not going to pop along to Aveley for our home games, but they know who we are. There was one occasion when we were on holiday, there were like 10 of us in Portugal, and the waiter knew who we were. We get to access so many more people.”

Gillard has been at the club since its Basildon days and is used to the club’s secondary goal of content generation, but to others it still seems strange. “I’m used to it now, but when I first came in there was this guy, he was just taking a video with this massive camera and I was like: ‘What is going on?’ I’d never been in an environment like it,” says Courtney Lumley, who signed from local rivals Billericay Town a year ago. “There was a time when we went as a team to a WSL game, and we were just sitting there, me and Grace, a couple of the other girls and the coaches, just chatting, and then these girls randomly tap Grace on the shoulder and are like: ‘Oh my God, you’re Grace!’ I just didn’t expect people to know of us, it was really bizarre. Getting used to that, it’s just been a little bit crazy.”

Hashtag’s formula has seen them gather not just fans but momentum: they were promoted last season and still seem upwardly mobile, combining a cup final with a push for promotion. But beyond the third tier there are only a few teams in the Championship not affiliated with major league clubs and none in the WSL, and it could be that their model will take them only so far. “We’re such a young club it would be silly to put a ceiling on it,” says Gillard, who works as a physiotherapist in the NHS. “Obviously the financial element is huge. If you look at the teams who are going up, they’re big men’s clubs with big histories, and they have that backing. But Hashtag is so organic and so unique, I wouldn’t like to say where the limitations are.

“I think we’re just growing naturally and I think if we get the foundations right, which we clearly are doing, then the world’s our oyster. It is doable. It would obviously be more challenging than if you had a billionaire throwing a load of money at it, but I think it’s a nicer place to be because we’re doing it because we want to do it, rather than because we’re being paid to do it.”

Their task on Saturday will be formidable: Newcastle have a goal difference of +50 after 18 matches – including 5-0, 7-0 and 11-3 wins – and in their semi-final beat Portsmouth 2-1. Gillard and Lumley, both centre-backs, are likely to have a busy afternoon. “They’re the same level as us and they’ve dropped points in more than one game – they’ve not been smashing every team,” Gillard says. “I think there’s nothing to fear about them. If we can keep a clean sheet we can’t lose the game, so that’s what our aim will be. The way I look at it is, yes, they’re good, there’s no denying that, but they should be good – they’re probably training right now, and we’re not.”