Fan-powered groups are transforming British sport, but they don’t always begin with a clear roadmap. Most begin with a handful of like-minded folk, a shared frustration, and a determination to do something about it.
Behind every movement there’s usually funding to find, structures to choose, and support to lean on. Whether you’re looking to add more structure and organisation to an existing group, raise money for your first major campaign, or even invest in or run a sports club – there is help at hand.
With our toolkit below you’ll find information on the organisations that can help, the free tools to get you going, and the numbers that show just how far fan power has already come, and what work still needs to be done.
Here to help
Needing to find funding, advice, or organisational help for your fan powered group? Here are some organisations that can help
Buddle
Buddle is Sport England’s free support platform for grassroots clubs and community organisations, launched to replace the previous Club Matters programme. It provides practical guidance across eight fundamental areas, including developing and growing your organisation, safeguarding, funding, and environmental sustainability. There are also free training workshops delivered by sector experts, while its nifty Health Check tool helps you identify where your club is already thriving and areas where it needs work. There’s also a dedicated Disability Inclusion Hub that assesses how accessible your organisation really is. And best of all, it’s all free.
buddle.co
Community Shares Unit
Run by Co-operatives UK (note, not your local high street shop) in partnership with Locality and Plunkett UK, the Community Shares Unit has helped communities raise more than £200 million since 2012 through “community shares” – a form of investment unique to co-operatives and community benefit societies. If your fan group is considering the big step of buying its ground or even the club itself, the Community Shares Handbook and Standard Mark set out the legal requirements and best practice for running a share offer. It’s Booster Fund can also help cover the costs of getting one off the ground.
uk.coop/CommunityShares
Football Supporters’ Association
The Football Supporters’ Association is the democratic, free-to-join body representing football fans in England and Wales, formed in 2019 through the merger of the Football Supporters’ Federation and Supporters Direct. With so many football fans in the UK, it’s probably no surprise that the FSA boasts more than half a million individual and affiliated members. All of whom have access to its free training and resources, which touch on everything from setting up a supporters’ trust to fan engagement, and club governance. It’s here you can join and help national campaigns on ticket prices, safe standing, and community ownership. It also maintains a running list of every community-owned club in the country, making it a natural first port of call for any group considering the same route.
thefsa.org.uk
Locality
Tracing its roots back to the Settlement movement of 1884 and formed in its current shape since 2011, Locality is the national membership network for community organisations. With around 2,000 member organisations, it provides expert advice on governance, business planning, and legal structures. It’s also regarded as the leading authority on Community Asset Transfer, which a fan group with designs on taking ownership of a ground, clubhouse, or other community space will need to know all about.
locality.org.uk
The Football Foundation
The largest sports charity in the UK, funded jointly by the Premier League, the FA, and Sport England, the Football Foundation has awarded more than 17,600 grants worth over £1.6 billion since its formation in 2000. The money has gone towards building and refurbishing pitches, changing facilities, and community hubs across the country. If you’re fighting to protect or improve your club’s ground, the Foundation’s Local Football Facilities Plans – now in place for every community in England – are a solid starting point for finding out what funding might be available.
footballfoundation.org.uk
Fan power by numbers
The number of officially recognised LGBT+ fan groups affiliated to Pride in Football, a network that didn’t exist until 2013.
prideinfootball.org.uk
Membership of the Football Supporters Association – which is free to join – has now surpassed half a million since its formation in 2018
FSA
Of disabled sports fans citing physical access to stadiums as the most common barrier to attending live sport
BBC
So far leveraged by Asian Sports Foundation to support some of the most disadvantaged communities in the UK
Asian Sports Foundation
Supporters’ trusts across England, Wales, and Scotland affiliated with football, rugby league, and rugby union clubs
Supports Trust
Percentage of female football fans surveyed by Her Game Too had witnessed online sexist abuse towards a woman in football.
BBC
The number of community-owned football clubs now in England, with Brian Lomax credited as coming up with the supporters’ trust model when founding the trust at Northampton Town FC in 1992
FSA
The proportion of recreational cricket in England played by the British Asian community, a fanbase significantly underrepresented in formal supporter structures.
ECB
The Women’s Super League attendance record, set at Arsenal vs Man Utd at the Emirates Stadium in February 2024. Ten years earlier the record attendance was 5,052.
Women’s Super League
Build your community online
When it comes to spreading the world, the world wide web remains the most powerful tool at your disposal. Here are some useful online platforms for growing fan groups.
Substack
Substack is a free newsletter platform already used by many fan-run publications, having become the go-to home for independent sports writing. It costs nothing to set up, handles subscriber management and email delivery, and lets you charge for premium content once you’ve built an audience – though keeping it free to read will ensure a wider audience. For a fan group, it’s a low-effort way to keep supporters updated between meetings or matchdays without needing to build a website from scratch.
substack.com
WhatsApp Communities
There’s a good chance you’re familiar with this one, but WhatsApp Communities allows you to organise related chats under one umbrella, making it the simplest possible starting point for a growing fan organisation. It’s free, instant, and almost everyone already has the app installed, so there are few barriers to getting members to join. The trade-off is that it’s built for conversation rather than record-keeping or payments, so most groups eventually pair it with a proper website or club platform as they grow.
whatsapp.com
Crowdfunder
Crowdfunder lets fan groups raise money directly from supporters, with the added benefit of match funding from partners including Sport England, Sport Wales, and Sport NI – currently over £10 million is available. Since Crowdfunder and Sport England’s partnership began in 2018, it has helped raise more than £18 million for grassroots sport across the UK through more than 1,000 successful campaigns. If your group is fundraising for anything from new kit to a ground repair, it’s worth checking whether match funding could effectively double what you raise.
crowdfunder.co.uk
Pitchero
Pitchero is an all-in-one club management platform built specifically for grassroots sports clubs. Founded in 2007 by Mark Fletcher and Jon Milsom, it encompasses websites, membership databases, online payments, and communications and is used by clubs across more than 30 sports. It isn’t free (though a basic plan exists), but for fan groups outgrowing a WhatsApp chat or a Facebook page, it offers a single, purpose-built home for everything from fixtures to fundraising.
pitchero.com
