I started working for Keynsham Town FC at the start of the 2013/14 season in a bid to raise the profile of the club. I have drawn on my experiences of my time with Aberystwyth Town as their media officer (2008-10) and by trying out new techniques along the way. Due to work commitments and wanting to spend more time writing on here I have left the club at the end of the 13/14 season.
Keynsham play in the Western League Division One, which is 9 promotions away from the Premier League. Most of the teams in this league pay their players a small match appearance fee but Keynsham don’t have the money to. It is a very unique set up at Keynsham, they have a service agreement with a company who own their stadium for 20 years (3 years in as of the 13/14 season) and they rent it back to the club. So the club’s only source of income is match day entry, raffle or any tickets sold for events. They don’t own their own club house or food outlet, so everything, even training, need to come out of the money made by 30 odd people paying £5/£2.50 each home game. Needless to say the club is losing money every week despite their players not getting a penny.
There have been some encouraging signs though this season. It is the first year they have had fixture posters, an up to date blog, active social media and a match day draw raffle. However this club is very much a work in progress and you will hear about it on here from time to time, or for more information on their blog site. I ran the blog site featured here with much of the content my own, but also a few match reports from some of the players who were very good at providing the information.
Best of luck to Keynsham Town in the coming seasons, they’ll make it out of the Western League Division One if they get it right off the pitch in the coming years.