Football club management at grassroots level rarely scales beyond a few hundred members. Solent Sports FC is a different story. When Spond first partnered with the club in early 2024, it was already one of the most ambitious grassroots football organisations in the south of England. With a membership spanning Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, and surrounding counties, and a founding ethos built on wellbeing over winning, Solent Sports FC was doing things differently. Two years on, the numbers tell their own story.
The club now has 10,000 members.
It’s a remarkable figure for any grassroots football club, and it didn’t happen by accident. We caught up with Steve Fletcher, Chairman and founder of Solent Sports FC, to hear how the club has grown, what role Spond’s Club platform has played in their football club management, and what comes next.
From Kickabout to 10,000 Members
Steve is direct about what Spond has meant to the club’s growth: “Spond has helped us grow from a small kickabout to one of the largest football organisations in the South.”
That growth spans children aged four to 18 and adults from 18 to 70-plus, spread across recreational, charity, and league football teams throughout southern England. The club’s core mission — making football accessible to everyone, at every stage of life — has remained constant. What’s changed is the scale at which they can deliver it.
“Because it saves me loads of time and is easy for people to access,” Steve says, when asked why he continues to use Spond. That simplicity has a direct impact on the club’s football club management across a network this large. Time spent on admin is time taken away from the pitch, and for a club that puts people first, that trade-off matters.
Making It Easy to Join
One of the features Steve highlights most is the onboarding experience for new members. “We get lots of invites from players wanting to join us, we can send them a link and they’re then in. Simple.”
For a club of 10,000, frictionless onboarding isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s essential. Spond’s Club platform allows Solent Sports FC to handle football club management at this volume without the administrative overhead that would otherwise make growth unmanageable. Groups can be set up quickly, events scheduled and communicated at scale, and new members brought in without creating bottlenecks for administrators.
The response from members has reflected that: “Very positive — they love it,” Steve confirms.
Working With Spond to Shape What’s Next
Steve isn’t just a user of the platform — he’s an active voice in how it develops. With 10,000 members depending on Spond’s Club platform day to day, his feedback carries real weight, and it’s the kind of insight that only comes from running one of the largest grassroots clubs in the country.
It’s a collaborative relationship, and one that reflects how Spond approaches product development — listening to the clubs and coaches who use the platform every day and building accordingly. Steve is already working with the Spond team on ideas that could take the platform further, drawing on his experience of football club management at a scale most grassroots admins never encounter.
For Steve, that ongoing dialogue is part of what makes the partnership work: “It’s what we already do and we can see other clubs adopting what we’ve done.”
Football for Everyone, Supported by the Right Tools
At its heart, Solent Sports FC’s story is about what grassroots football club management looks like when you remove the barriers — to participation, to communication, and to growth. The club’s ethos of football for all, regardless of age, background, or ability, hasn’t changed. What Spond has provided is the infrastructure to live that ethos at a scale most grassroots clubs never reach.
With 10,000 members, branches extending beyond their original southern heartland, and a chairman who’s already thinking about the next stage of growth, Solent Sports FC is a model for what football club management can look like when inclusion drives every decision — and what it can become.
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