Now this isn’t like one of my traditional club features, so for any regular readers I am afraid that there will be no Fab 4 league table, however what there will be is a feature bustling with some amazing insight into an incredible club.
Welcome to Caversham United!
Caversham United are the perfect example of what grassroots football is all about, starting as a single Sunday Team, the ‘Goats’ now have:
- Senior (Saturday) Men’s team – completed there first season in the football pyramid this year
- Two Men’s Sunday teams
- Women’s team (and pathway) – playing Southern Region Women’s Football League
- Pan-Disability football
Over their ten years of growth, they have also, amassed a large global social media following, been part of National England Football campaigns and sign Reading FC Legend, David Kitson, who then went on to score on his debut for the Goats.
The club have stayed true to their club ethos, of which there are three parts:
– To champion grassroots football
– To promote women’s football
– To support charitable and worthy causes (£15,000 raisers for charity since 2019).
They are certainly making sure they are noticed and that they really do try and make a difference to as many things as they possibly can, more of which will come later!
Although all of the players are of amateur status and the club has no real stadium facilities to shout about, the club has been a beacon of joy and ambition. They recently celebrated their 10 year anniversary as a club and showcased what they could do should extra facilities become an option for them in the future, the decided to bring in a bar and caterer to provide the cider, beer, cups of tea and food! They even produce a match day programme for such events (priced at £3)
It is these relatively smaller things that the club seem to be doing so well – the thought and overall care in which it took to ensuring everything had been thought of for their event shone through, they think like fans think and therefore connect to the community a mindset which should they continue to grow and be successful will serve them very well indeed!
Now after playing just Sunday league football for all of their existence and then having made the jump into Saturday football ‘The Goats’ proved that they were not going to simply make up the numbers, in their first season they more than held their own (playing in the East Berkshire Football League). Finishing the season in second place was quite some entrance to Saturday football and they were quite the team to watch as they recorded absolutely 0 draws, it was 3 points or nothing for them last season!
In the 2025/2026 season they are plying their trade in the Thames Valley Premier League Division 1 – although it is early days in the season you can see the team have made a good start sitting 4th in the league with 19 points and a goal difference of +12, they are clearly doing a lot right and still on course for a potential promotion!
The club have got so many good things going on but none more so than their social media – a tool in which they have really turned to in making sure they are heard.
On X alone they have managed to attract 20,000 followers to their account, an astonishing number for a club at any level but for a club in their 2nd year of Saturday football it is very impressive indeed. How have they managed this?
Paul (Chairman) – “The X followership mainly dates back to the period between the end of 2018 and 2022, where our account went from 70 followers to way more!
It all started by seeing AS Roma and Bayer Leverkusen taking a novel approach to running a corporate account – engaging with fans and interacting with other clubs. We got in the mix and started to attract some BIG followers from the football world. A lot of these still follow us now, like Roma, Bayern and Benfica.
We really tapped into our engagement and interactive approach, but giving our new followers a chance to rebrand our then one team club – by designing the club crest (still in use), our nickname (The Goats) and a new kit. The kit competition is still going today, in its 7th iteration! We’ve held onto those things that helped us to grow.”
Now if you check out the graphics such as the ones below, it is no wonder many others have taken them into their hearts, they are fun, quirky and stand out amongst the copy, paste and repeat of so many other clubs nowadays:
Even with their sponsorship options available the club are reinventing the wheel with their ‘Virtual Food Truck’ (as shown below) a new novel approach to attracting those extra pennies into the clubs kitty.
Again the graphic is eye-catching and a really nice initiative that benefits the club and the sponsor with very little heavy lifting involved – a win win!
Another thing I have got to shoutout is the team page on the website, you won’t find any boring bios here as the club have made the decision to have humour and honesty lead the way on their players profiles:
Humour is always the way to my heart and it’s this laid back and approachable style which I feel is key to everything Caversham are trying to do and create. The club just feels very open and I think you could quite easily develop a soft spot for them, especially when you see their new kit….
This is a brand new kit which was actually designed by a fan in a social competition – all of the clubs teams will be wearing this from 2025-2027.
Now one thing that I am a big fan of (some of you will be well aware by now) is collecting a pin badge from every club that features on the website.
Well – the club do sell them and they are priced at £3 and can be bought through www.cavershamunited.com/shop.
All of the clubs merchandise is available via their online shop. It’s quite the pin!
Now I had to sit down and speak to Paul the man behind all of this and get his perspective on what the future looks like for this incredible club.
CEO/Chairman – Paul Gutteridge (below left)
Q) What does the 5 year plan for the club look like?
The five year plan is essentially to grow and progress both the men’s Saturday side and Women’s side upwards in the football pyramid. The men sit in a prominent position in the early table so far, in which a promotion would lead to Step 7 football. I envisage a year there to baseline and prepare for the big jump to Step 6.
The Women were relegated from Tier 6, but I want to return there and then push on to Tier 5.
To progress both these streams, we will need to add Development sides for both. That’s the plan next season if we can generate the funding to do it.
Q) What are the future plans for:
⁃ Stadium
Increased pyramid presence also brings increased requirements around facilities, ground grading, etc. That will be a challenge to figure out. We will explore groundshare opportunities initially.
⁃ Academy
We currently have a partnership with local side Caversham Trents. This has provided a gently flowing player pipeline, but we need to instrumentalise this relationship to be edit both sides.
⁃ Recruitment
Our online recruitment method, through a strong social media presence, has served us well so far. We need to continue to drive on this front, as our reach of 100s of 1000s of views a month mean that our posts are being seen. We just need to ensure that we are showcasing our appeal now too!
⁃ Community projects
Important part of our identity. We are actively trying to connect to local businesses and have run many fundraising initiatives in the past to raise over £15,000 for a range of great causes. We don’t have a community project currently running but it won’t be long before we are back with more!
Now I am sure you will agree this is quite an impressive hidden gem!
I have personally fell in love with the whole approach of the club and how they are not scared to try new things. The logo is unique yet simple and really stands out amongst a plethora of logos which are all interchangeable and very vanilla.
The amount of growth the club as a whole has seen over the past 10 years is incredible and everyone associated with the club should feel incredibly proud of the work they have done so far in order to achieve it.
I would encourage you all to follow their journey and become fans of ‘The Goats’ like me!
Until next time!
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