‘We don’t want people to travel an hour and a half across their city to play football. They want it on their doorstep. That’s FC Urban’s niche; it is to supply the demand that is already there.’
Interview with Ashley Skellington, Direct of Partnerships at FC Urban
For the last year, I have been involved with FC Urban, a company that organizes 5-9 a side football experiences across Europe, with games in London, Stockholm, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Munich and several more. The merchandise is really cool; the pitches are amazing, for example the beautiful Brittania Leisure Centre Rooftop pitch in Shoreditch that is always booked up. The FC Urban experience is inclusive, with women’s only games, mixed gender games and more importantly, the games retain that competitive edge, whilst striking a balance in ensuring that anyone of any level can come and join in.
SIGN UP HERE!FC Urban, however, is about more than just football, rather, in the words of its Director of Partnerships, Ashley Skellington, a way of ‘facilitating all of the beautiful things that football can offer: exercise, friendships, confidence, community and just getting out of the house!’ This enhances lives as a result. It encourages deep connections and is intent on establishing micro-football communities around Europe.
The company started in the Netherlands in 2017, when 2 Dutchmen, including current FC Urban founder Joep Lamme, saw a necessity for the business. The ability to play football with your mates, whenever you want. How many of us can say that we have played football as children using jumpers for goalposts? From there, they started renting out football pitches and commenced with an initial group. Players were hooked.
This is the experience of Ashley, who became a franchisee and UK founder of the company, after playing his first game back in 2017. Ashley decided to come onboard because, aside from seeing the niche that the business could satisfy within English football, he knew everyone involved were doing it ‘for the right reasons.’
The company has 5 official employees yet can retain a foothold in many cities all at once. This is aided by their host of FC Urban Masters around Europe, that manage the games on location, bring balls and bibs, ensure the games are fair and encouraging the FC Urban community experience.
FC Urban have created a sustainable model which Ashley hopes will capitalise on the foundations they have put in place and harness the capability to scale up anywhere in the world there are football pitches and that there is demand to play. This has sometimes come at a cost of scaling down first to scale back up, but they have done this through listening to the experiences of their members and players.
FC Urban are constantly evolving, keeping their ear to the ground with developments in areas and in the game itself to satisfy such demand. By creating a new FC Urban Master Pro role, of which I am an inaugural employee, they can ensure that every region they expand into, have dedicated players that sing from the same FC Urban hymn sheet. The app and the games are created with the user in mind, to cultivate a real sense of community, fun and competition.
The amount of effort put into each game is what makes FC Urban stand out, according to Ashley. ‘Our masters are integral to what we are trying to do, I always think of the person who has just moved to London and doesn’t know anyone in the City. They join a football game with 15 other people, for example, which is daunting. But imagine someone with a friendly face comes up to introduce themselves, includes you in the conversations and makes a concerted effort to ensure you have a great game. You could come away from that feeling on top of the world’.
FC Urban have people like this at every game. But they ensure this by supporting the masters, with all the equipment they may need, constant communication and giving them a clear vision for what they want from them.
This is the model to develop these micro-communities. Ultimately, ‘you can get into danger of becoming a faceless entity with scaling up’, hence the vital importance of these relationships on the pitch and off.
The successes keep coming for FC Urban, who have partnered with UEFA and Mastercard through the Champions Innovate Programme to be this year’s Legacy for the UEFA Champions League Final in Munich, which will bring more exposure and involve a Legends match involving Kaka, Cafu & Clarence Seedorf.
However, Ashley doesn’t view this as FC Urban’s biggest success, but rather that they have been able to become a name in such a competitive industry, forging their way into the market with established competitors. He prides himself on the fact that they are making football more inclusive and accessible for those that aren’t as confident or who are daunted at playing at a higher level. It brings comfort to these players that there is a home here for them and a safe place to play.
Ashley doesn’t want people to travel an hour and a half across their city to play football. He wants it on their doorstep. That’s FC Urban’s niche; it is to supply the demand that is already there. Ashley couldn’t put any better with his conclusion, we want to ‘offer a fantastic experience for the players, making sure every game is filled up, every bib is clean (might be a struggle policing but the sentiment remains!), ensuring proper equipment, fantastic pitches, upskilling the masters, recruiting, and getting consistent insight and feedback to refine the product so that the players are the ones who can benefit most’.
‘We want to listen to the community and deliver what they want’.
FC Urban is the future, and I am delighted to be a part of it.
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