Five years as the world’s youngest football club owner: From brink of collapse to TikTok sensation

“We were younger than pretty much the whole squad. We had a 40-year-old centre-back who was playing for the club before I was born,” says Tom Bradbury, reflecting on when he became the world’s youngest football club owner in 2019, aged 19. 

After five years at the helm, Bradbury has announced his resignation from Walton & Hersham FC. The 24-year-old shared with the Sports Gazette how a group of university students transformed a struggling non-league team into a global success story in less than half a decade. 

“We were clueless about running a football club,” Bradbury admits, recalling the early fan backlash. “We did get accusations that we weren’t cut out for it. That this was a disaster waiting to happen.”

From rags to riches

By 2019, Walton & Hersham, who once beat Brian Clough’s Brighton 4-0 on their way to winning the FA Amateur Cup at Wembley in 1973, had sunk to the 10th tier of English football. They had suffered years of relegations, financial troubles, and the loss of their home ground at Stompond Lane.

Enter Calogero Scannella, one of Bradbury’s schoolmates and a keen follower of non-league football in Walton-on-Thames. Hearing that the club’s owners were looking to sell, he convinced Bradbury and five others, all 19-year-old university students, to pool their limited resources and save Walton & Hersham from extinction.

In the summer of 2019, the seven teenagers purchased the Surrey-based club for £1 and officially became the world’s youngest football club owners – a title they still hold today.

(Left to right, Jack Newton, Calogero Scannella, George Cory, Sartej Tucker, Tom Bradbury) Credit: Tom Bradbury

Five years later, Walton & Hersham have achieved three successive promotions and currently compete in the Southern League Premier South Division (the seventh tier of English football).

Now playing at the Elmbridge Xcel Sports Hub, the Swans went from drawing 40 fans per game to averaging 700. With over 1.1 million TikTok followers and global fans tuning in to livestreams, the club has become a modern-day non-league phenomenon.

The three-peat

“When we took over the club, the finances were completely shot,” Bradbury explains. “The club had just been relegated, and it was a bit of a makeshift squad for that year.”

The 24-year-old recalled one particularly low point when there were more players on the pitch than fans in the stands.

But then came a turning point: the appointment of manager Scott Harris. A Walton local with deep experience in non-league football, Harris brought a strong network of players and a bold, possession-based philosophy.

“It’s hard to pull off that type of football with players of non-league quality, so mistakes were rife. Fans would moan at our keeper for not booting the ball up and instead passing out the back. But Scott stuck to the gameplan, and we really started to blow teams apart.”

Credit: Tom Bradbury 

Harris’ Guardiola-inspired tactics and a roster of technically gifted players – many of whom had stepped down from higher divisions – propelled Walton to their first promotion. In their second season, the Swans soared again, earning another promotion with their dynamic style of play.

The team fell short in their final game of the next season, missing out on automatic promotion. A record-breaking attendance of 2,095 witnessed Walton & Hersham secure their third consecutive promotion on April 30 2023, following a 3-1 victory over Hanwell Villa.

“The euphoria lasted a while. After the game, we all went to the pub with the players, the management, and a fair few fans as well. It was quite a boozy night.”

Credit: Tom Bradbury 

The aftermath 

The step up in quality to division seven was a harsh reality check. The Swans went on a bad run of form in November and December during the 2023/24 campaign, and despite being around the playoff spots, Harris was let go in March 2024.

Bradbury reflects on this controversial decision: “I think maybe at that time, we were being a little bit flippant, maybe a little bit arrogant, because when you’ve got promoted three times in a row, you think we’re going to do something special again the next year.

“Myself and two of the other owners had taken a step back from the board in January, so we weren’t involved in that process [of dismissing Harris].”

Credit: Tom Bradbury 

The Swans steadied the ship under new management and finished in a respectable seventh position, and are currently sitting in sixth place this term.

Global reach and social media sensation

Climbing the football pyramid in such a short space of time is a remarkable feat, but the ownership group’s biggest success is arguably off the pitch.

Over lockdown in 2020, like many people, Bradbury spent a lot of time on social media apps. Bored one day, he posted clips from a mini-documentary they’d done earlier in the season with 90 Min, which went viral on TikTok.

That’s when the group realised that people were receptive to their story. They had the opportunity to revolutionise the value proposition of the club and tap into this story around the world’s youngest football club owners.

Media outlets such as the BBC, Sky Sports, and the NY Times have lapped up this success story. With 1.1m TikTok followers, Bradbury is amazed at how far their story has travelled around the world.

“I remember a mate from uni who went travelling a couple of years ago, and he was in this random mountain in Tibet, walking through this little village with only a few hundred people. He saw someone wearing a Walton top, which is ridiculous.”

This virality opened up new income opportunities, with brands like Classic Football Shirts jumping on board as their front-of-shirt sponsor one year. Another successful revenue stream is merchandise sales, with a prolific customer base in the US.

Credit: Tom Bradbury 

What next?

From an outsider’s perspective, Bradbury’s resignation may seem unexpected, especially considering the on-pitch successes of the past five years.

“It was a tricky decision, leaving the club that you’ve been running and owning for five years. I felt we’d achieved as much as we could as an ownership group. So I was content with walking away knowing that I’d left the club in a better position than when we found it.

“I also wanted to pursue other interests. Being a football club owner takes up so much of your time, particularly on the weekends. You’re doing long away trips, you’ve got midweek fixtures as well.”

With Scannella and Tucker the only two left from the original group under a new structure, they have aspirations of entering the Football League. But for now, progressing into the National League and continuing to foster a local community and build a global brand is paramount.

Given what they’ve achieved in just five years, keep an eye on Walton & Hersham; their future brims with exciting potential.