In this article, we check out how a 23 year old chairman is transforming his non league club with Location Football doing a video on it.
The YoutUbe channel headed to White Ensign FC who currently play in the Essex Senior League (9th tier of English football), and have one of the youngest football chairmen in the game.
Location Football, who ‘enjoy sharing a love of football and travel by exploring non-league football grounds’ visited the club to find out about his journey that led him to take on this leadership role.
They also had a chat with their football manager, sharing insights on the challenges of managing a non-league football team.
There is also some rather amusing stories from the worst excuses players have ever given by the squad.

Interviewer: This could be football’s youngest chairman but how has a 23-year-old ended up running this non-league club his journey is a surprising one from club physio to the boardroom but can he help a club that is living in the shadow of its noisy landlords succeed on its own what’s his plans to grow the club bring in new fans and survive in the competitive non-league world plus we’ll be revealing our top three tips to help your non-league club. How does the club’s physio become the youngest football chairman at 23 years old?
White Ensign chairman Josh: It’s such a strange one because I’ve been with Ensign for about three or four seasons now and I been doing the injuries and I’ve really enjoyed that and it was funny we was, my girlfriend’s in the committee room and we was having KFC before a training game can you imagine I’ll be chairman and we do it together and and we went to the training afterward and then it was asked it said Mr and Mrs chairman I thought oh how strange is that that we was literally talking an hour before about about this and and then I was asked and then uh we spoke to a few more people spoke to Alan the chairman before and Steve before that and it just evolved from there and it’s an exciting project
Interviewer: Is there a lot of pressure on you?
Josh: Yeah there a hell of a lot of pressure, especially with a full-time job as well it is difficult especially going from the football side, so going what happens in the changing room, to now knowing what goes on management side of a club it’s quite a big jump so I’ve sort of had to hit the hit the ground running and sort of learn all the paperwork which is lots before before a season but it’s good I’m really enjoying it’s very it’s very good
Interviewer: What was the biggest surprise when you became chairman?
Josh: I think trying to talk to everyone because we’ve got 14 youth teams so trying to liaise with the youth secretary as well as managing all them and the affiliations a lot of lot of paper that goes on behind closed doors that nobody really knows about you’re always on your phone that’s something they don’t tell you is that you messages phone calls people talking to you it is it is busy
Interviewer: What are the day-to-day roles of being a young football chairman
Josh: Yeah so in between my own job as a osteopathy it’s answering messages and calls I was late last night talking to the reserve team manager had a bit of a tricky game um so I was liaising with him I’ve been talking to the treasurer it’s it’s a lot day-to-day of answering questions and emails and um which is not too bad so you can fit in between my patients and and lunch breaks and stuff like that I quite enjoy the being here on the match day it’s quite nice talking to the other team’s committee and I find liaising with other teams you get you get information you get knowledge and what they do what doesn’t work for them and it’s it’s nice to be able to do that as well
Interviewer: Did you have any inkling that this was going to happen?
Josh: No, none this was sort of sprung on to me, we, there was sort of discussions about bringing other people in but I think the club wanted someone who was already involved and knew the values of what White Ensign stands for and it was nice to be asked really especially as sort of the committee on the older side to have someone a bit younger to drive the club forward is really good
Interviewer: How do you build a bigger fan base for White Ensign because we’re here today at the home of Great Wakering Rovers who themselves have had a brilliant last season with the FA Vase final how do you transfer fans and get some more White Ensigns through the door
Josh: Yeah this is the biggest thing because obviously in Great Wakering Rovers are the bigger club so it’s very difficult that people from the local area but we are getting a bigger fan base coming each and each week, we’ve got a YouTube channel now that we’re posting highlights of our games from and we’re getting there we’re slowly building a good little social media as well we’re nearly 10,000 followers on Twitter or X now which is really good so that’s where we feel like we can grow the biggest is via the social media channels and hopefully we can get a few more people through the door which which helps the club
Interviewer: And what’s your relationship like with the gaffer because it must be quite weird for him who’s been dealing with a chairman who’s probably significantly older to a young enthusiastic modern thinking chairman
Josh: Absolutely me and Aaron go really well he his style of uh sort of leadership is interesting but we’ve never clashed heads he’s very good and he’s loyal that’s it that’s all I ask for is loyalty and he brings it in in huge amounts Long Live Aaron Bloxham in I say cuz he’s great yeah he’s really good

Interviewer: Aaron what’s it like working with the youngest chairman in football
Aaron: It’s a bit different, oh it’s a struggle this one, because he was a physio, he become sort of a friend so he’s obviously stepped up I think I actually put him forward for the role and gave him a bit of a nudge he’s got all the attributes to to become a a long-term chairman because obviously our last chairman was here for a long long long time but yeah he supports it he lets us get on with things and he’s you know lovely he’s nice I can’t I can’t kill him to be fair
Interviewer: You’re desperately trying to aren’t you. What’s it like having a younger mindset at a football club in step five?
Aaron: When I probably started out I was young I was young myself in terms of management wise so I’ve got similar things to him so it just everything just works at the moment so we can’t you know he’s pushing all the things that I would push we got bounce ideas off each other and hopefully we can to sort of grow the club together and have successful times
Interviewer: And how do you recruit players is that quite difficult in this area cuz it’s in the middle of nowhere took us ages to get here
Aaron: It is so so we what I’ve done is where we used to be we probably used to be half and hour sort of into town that way but so out in the sticks I’ve always known Great Wakering I’ve played for the reserves and not many years ago so we know I know it’s difficult to get them so we’ve just built our team on on young hungry players who who should be given a chance at this level and they’ve just grown and taken it both hands and we’ve sort of find the ones that are falling out of love for football and we say look come over and we’ll try and help you find the love back and we’ pushed them on so yeah that’s that’s how where we go players you know we’re not one of these clubs that have thousands of pounds and we can pay a player 300 quid to come and travel and hit a few goals a season and then someone else offers more and off they go we just like to build on getting them young hungry players that sort of play for the badge but but hopefully we can help them push on
Interviewer: Josh mentioned the word loyalty he said that with yourself is that what you look for in your players as well then the ones that will stick around for a little bit longer than don’t just chase that non- league money
Aaron: Yeah yeah look money is uh a strange thing it’s you can understand why people go and grab it, you give up your life to play non league it is a life so if someone’s offering 150 quid a week and you can get it then by all means go to get it but if you can find the young player that just wants to learn just wants to just wait a season doesn’t want to go step 4/3, sit on the bench they want to play it’s loyalty goes a long way I think
Interviewer: what’s the change room like here at White Ensign?
Aaron: Yeah it’s good yeah we’ve got some I said the youngsters so they’re still learning but we got some cheeky ones in there that you know really do push it out and I think the oldest we actually have I think it’s 26 is the max we’ve got a good group good group who really want to push and and listen and and do things right and I think that’s important for help for the growth of Ensign and obviously themselves got to like what you’re doing otherwise you know you don’t want to spend time with someone that three times a week that you don’t like so enjoy it enjoy it or or or find another club it’s simple as that, we have had some that have moved on because they didn’t enjoy it that’s part of football but the rest are here you know they’re all enjoying it and it’s good to work with
Interviewer: What kind of manager are you?
Aaron: Well well so what so I’d like to say my man management skills are very good you know I’ll always do anything for the players and back back the players 100% I try to push people to their limits in terms of on their case because I know they can you know they can go that far you know I’ve got April hanging around somewhere she’s sort of the good cop and yeah I call myself the bad cop I suppose at times
You can find out more and watch the rest in the YouTube video at the top of the article from 8 minutes in. Really worth checking it out!



Source link