This week, chairman Ben Hudson provided a lengthy update on all manner of things regarding Hampton & Richmond Borough Football Club. The full video can be seen here on X. We’ve recapped some of the many positives below.
FLOODLIGHTS
“Firstly, thanks to Melissa Gillings and Phil Weller who did our planning application years ago for the floodlights. This even included Phil sitting out for three evenings monitoring the bat population with the local ecology officer! On top of that, we applied for part-funding with the Football Foundation, but never got to the point of being able to provide the extra funding ourselves. The planning permission ran until October/November this year, and the new owners said this needs to happen now. They’ve talked about sustainability constantly, and the first thing they said to us was ‘go out and spend an absolute fortune on getting these floodlights done’, because they guarantee the longevity of the club.”
THE PITCH
“These started right at the start of the summer. Anyone who's been coming for a long time will have seen that the quality of our playing pitch has got better and better. If we're going to have someone like Alan as a manager, who wants to play passing football, you've got to have a glorious surface. It's quite hard to have a glorious surface when you're digging the surface up to stick wiring for the floodlights in, so we've got to balance those things against each other. We've had new irrigation put into the pitch, so we can water the pitch in a more efficient way and we've got more control over it.”
POWERING THE BEV
“We’ve also needed to sort the electrics around the ground because of the new floodlights. Now, people might question that, saying we spent a load of money on electricity around the ground before. We did, but we still had 1960s main hub that it was coming into. We needed to take that out and to take that out to replace that, you've got to shut everything down. While you're shutting things down you can't do other stuff. Everything we do kind of opens a can of worms, which makes things impossible to get done quickly.”
THE BEAVERS TRUST ARE BACK
“I said last time the Trust will be the back and you will see the Trust in the ground. We had to have discussions with them, because if we put them back exactly where they went last time, we can't get vans and trucks in and out of the ground. Which would mean no DoughShack, no burger van. Everything's a work in progress, and everything is hard and everything adds an extra complication, but you will see the Trust back in the ground this year, and we're excited that is happening.”
NEW DIGITAL SCOREBOARD
“One of the biggest differences that you'll see when you come into the ground and something that the owners were adamant had to happen is a large digital scoreboard. I'm super excited, it’s something we've never been able to consider, afford, or engage with previously. That should be in place for the first game of the season. I say “should” because the reality is every time we think anything is done, we find an extra complication that makes it harder.”
2025/ 26 KIT
“If you want a bespoke kit you normally order it in January, and because of the changes, we couldn’t do it until April, May, even June by the time we got the sign off and also factored in new sponsor. I'm going to praise Mark George, and if anyone sees him around the club, go praise him because without this guy, the club would have fallen apart this summer. He's been unbelievable, but while he's been doing all the pitch renovations, all the work around the ground, he's also gone out and got a new kit sorted which we will announce later this week. We have a beautiful home and away shirt to be announced soon. People will have seen us play in pre-season friendlies in our third kit as it's been branded. I'll speak really honestly with you, the third kit is the Academy kit. Why did the Academy have a different kit to the first team? The Academy aren't allowed to play in the colour of the first team away kit. So for those football enthusiasts around here who know the rules you'll now know the color of this year's away kit. It’s made by Errea, same as the National League benchwear deal, so effectively our sub staff and our actual playing staff will all be linked together.”
NEW SPONSORS
“Unbelievable credit goes to the new owners for what they've done in the close season. We have a front of shirt sponsor in TYTL, which is the biggest front of shirt sponsor deal in the club's history. We have a back of shirt sponsor, What Car?, part of Haymarket Media Group which is the equivalent of a normal front of shirt sponsor. Having seen those guys bring in the money that they brought in, I got tapped up for the sleeve sponsorship, which is the same money that we used to charge for a front of shirt sponsor. So in terms of commercial growth and development, we can’t be in a better place.”
UPDATED BADGE
“As part of having a decent kit you need to have a decent badge. We wouldn't change a badge without having fan consultation, that's something we're clear on. However, last year's badge was missing one little bit. So the badge is the same this year but with the correct team name in HRBFC across the middle.”
SOCIAL MEDIA PRIORITY
“Again, another thank you to Seb White, who has been helping us with the player announcements. He was fantastic when he was a director club, but he's got a life and he's got a full-time job and it's impossible for him to be able to do everything that he would like to do. If people want to volunteer there's 10 times more important things for you to come and help with at the moment to get ready for the season, than tweeting out the lineups for our preseason friendly, when we're still trying to work out what our playing squad is.”
PEOPLE POWER
“Thank you to Richard Parsons who's come back as the Secretary. Thank you to the people I'm going to get grief for not having mentioned. Steve Bates who runs the Academy, Tom Garcia, our Head of Scouting. Thank you also to James Glassup who has come back as the kit man. It's unbelievable for me to see his return. He’s a wonderful man with a wonderful heart who loves Hampton and Richmond Borough Football Club. He is back and is a beaver again, which to me honestly means more than a lot of stuff.”
A CALL TO ARMS
“All this above takes time. Do we have bucket loads of staff? Do we have bucket loads of people around? No, not not at all. I did a call to arms before, thank you to everyone who did email me to volunteer, but we had no one to coordinate volunteers. Thanks to Alistair Bruce, who doesn't get anywhere near enough credit, and that needs to change because he has been in regularly. He’s going to coordinate people coming in, so if you want to come in, if you want to paint, you want to tidy, you want to garden and you want to do anything at all, we are ready for you. Please reach out to us firstly on enquiries@hamrichfc.com “
HRBFC.COM
“Does anyone know who owns hrbfc.com? If they do, can you please put us in touch with them because we would love to be www.hrbfc.com if that's not plausible we'll become hrbfc.co.uk We want to get back to being what we've always been again.”
The Chairman also spoke at length about on the pitch matters, thanking those who have departed the club in the summer and the state of play in a hugely competitive National League South. Stay tuned for a recap on that, as Ben made clear there’s an awful lot going on.