Harlow Town FC is a fine example of the important role that a club can play in their local community as they build the foundations for a successful future. Football Focus Magazine recently caught up with Club Representative Paul Wilson to find out more.
He told us, “I have been involved with the club for five years; the owner is a personal friend and dragged me away from The Arsenal. The attraction is grass roots football being close to the supporters and players and playing a part as a director of the club in some of the decision making and planning for the future.”
“The most challenging role for me personally is getting new sponsors involved with the club and the most rewarding is working with the local Hospital Princess Alexandra in Harlow, especially the children’s Dolphin Ward and also local charities, MIND in West Essex and St. Claire’s Hospice.
“In general the mood at the club is very good as for some time now we feel that we are building towards a successful future. The season has been a particularly difficult one as our keeper injured his shoulder in the first match of the season and then we had to keep finding replacements up until the end of November and because of more injuries etc. we fielded five different keepers during this period.
“We also suffered with injuries worse than at any time I’ve known here and were unable to play a settled team until the last two months of the season when our form significantly improved and got us out of potential relegation problems. For the rest of 2018 it is a holiday, The World Cup and planning for next season and looking forward to the challenge.
“We care for the young players, we give the young players a lot of attention, we talk to the young players but mostly we are always there to listen to the young players. We are very much a community club and when four years ago we laid a 3G pitch it enabled us to increase from 1 team to 26 teams. These range from Under mini Hawks to Under 21’s plus three Ladies teams.
“One of the biggest challenges coming up firstly is the playing budget and secondly but obviously connected attendances. In the last two years we have had to contend with West Ham moving to a bigger stadium and doing special deals on games especially including kids and then this has been followed in the last year with Spurs doing the same thing at Wembley. When we got promoted two years ago our gates were actually less than the previous season.
“Our ambition in the next five years is to keep building the club on sensible planning and achieve two promotions. The town is big enough we just have to get those fans in the door.”