For non-league clubs such as Farsley Celtic, the most important people aren’t the eleven that run around on the pitch every Saturday. It is the volunteers that give up their time and effort to ensure the club they love can continue to survive.
After once again defying the bookmaker’s odds on the last day of the season, Farsley Celtic dramatically avoided relegation, after defeating Buxton 2-0 to remain in the Vanarama National League North for the 2024/25 season.
Despite having one of the smallest budgets and gate revenues in the league, the heroics of the players and coaching staff on the pitch have ensured Farsley’s survival in the sixth tier of English football for five years.
But for all the good work that happens on the pitch, there is just as much that happens off it. Farsley Celtic are a semi-professional club, and heavily rely on volunteers to help with a variety of tasks that help keep the club running, making Farsley’s survival on the last day one big team effort.
Paul Barthorpe, the chairman of Farsley Celtic, put this remarkable achievement into perspective in his official statement published on the club’s website.
“It’s easy to criticise and mock our achievements, but we couldn’t be any prouder of who we are! We are a small village club, the population of our village is only double the capacity of our ground and you could fit our whole population into the grounds of some of the teams we play against!
We manage to beat the odds every season because everyone at this club bleeds green and white! Our fantastic team of volunteers from board members to coaches, to the guys who choose to help out in their free time to litter pick are all Farsley,” he said.
Beating the odds is something the village from Leeds has been accustomed to over the past few years as they continue to prove people wrong. For the 23/24 season, the club sold less than ten season tickets as they go head-to-head with clubs such as Scunthorpe, who played in the Championship as recently as 2010.
Scunthorpe’s stadium, Glanford Park has a capacity of just over 9,000, compared to The Citadel of Farsley Celtic, which seats around 300 people.
But despite the differences in size between the two clubs, volunteers are just as important to both of them. So important in fact that of the 24 teams that competed in the National League North in the 2023/24 season, 50% of them were advertising volunteering roles on their official websites.
At Farsley Celtic, this volunteering begins at the very top. After initially starting out as a supporter in 2010, Robert Winterbottom began to volunteer by editing the matchday programmes before eventually purchasing a share of the club himself.
“In 2018 I bought a third of the club and still own those shares now,” Robert said.
Despite being a director at Farsley, this hasn’t stopped Robert from continuing to provide his service to the club on a matchday.
“My main responsibility now is in catering. I look after the kitchen on a matchday, which other than offering food to spectators we also feed visiting directors prior to the game and players, management and referees after the match,” he said.
But what inspires Robert to stay involved with the club year in, year out?
“I’m not too sure sometimes to honest! But joking aside I am first and foremost a supporter, and I want to see them in the best position possible. One thing I discussed when I first started volunteering was that we can’t always get it right on the pitch, but we can do our best to get it right off it and that’s what I aim to do,” he said.
As a minority shareholder of Farsley, Robert sees the good work of the volunteers first hand and explains why they are so vital to the club.
‘Volunteers are massive to us’
“Volunteers are massive to us and something you’d like to see more of. The amount of different roles within the club that are voluntary will be quite surprising to a lot of people. We are very lucky to have so many people that do volunteer and so many have been doing it for a long period of time and I have made some very good friends through the football club,” Robert said.
Volunteers are required for tasks ranging from stewarding, to turnstile operators, to providing media coverage for the club. In return, they are often offered admission to the club’s home matches as a token of their appreciation.
One of those valuable volunteers to Farsley Celtic is the media manager, Josh Makin.
“My main role at Farsley is managing all outputs on the club’s social media platforms including X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. I handle posts in the build up to matchdays such as fan guides and previews as well as announcements and anything that the directors want to be put out. I also communicate with the people at the National League North to facilitate coverage of our matches, “Josh said.
For Farsley, it is essential that they provide their own media coverage, otherwise they would likely receive little to none from other news organisations.
“I have to communicate effectively with supporters which benefits the club in the long run as those fans stay engaged and come to our matches,” Josh said.
Makin also explains how the underdog mentality and family feeling associated with the club is a factor in him continuing to give up his time and volunteer for Farsley.
“The thing that inspires me about Farsley the most is how we have consistently punched above our weight for many years,” he said.
“We are a small village competing with clubs that have entire cities as their fanbase such as Chester. This keeps me motivated to keep volunteering for the club to see that continue, and there is a real family factor about the club. Especially the fans of which I know virtually every single one of them that travel to the away games,” Josh said.
By volunteering it enables those involved to become part of the success that their club has. It allows them to feel apart of a community, something that arguably gets lost the further you travel up the English football pyramid.
Non-league football offers a completely unique experience compared to the Premier League for example. That keeps George Fearnley and many others hooked week after week.
‘You can’t call it a fanbase, it’s a family’
“The access is unbelievable. It’s a National League North village club and I fanboy when I get to speak to the players despite them finishing today then going in on Monday to their 9-5 job. They’re normal guys but to me they’re heroes, but I get to speak to them and that’s the main bit I love it so much,” he said.
But they’re not the only factors that keep him attending games of his beloved Farsley Celtic.
“Addiction. Delusion. Possibly the two, but just the togetherness of the fan base, you can’t call it a fan base it’s a family,” he said.
George initially joined this ‘family’ as purely a supporter when he and his cousin attended a game for the first time four years ago. George has been an ever present at The Citadel since, and is one of the handful that embarks on journeys that can be sometimes be as long as three hours to places like Hereford, all to see a semi-professional team.
But after a few years George’s role at the club changed, as he went from supporter, to matchday volunteer.
“I’m a matchday volunteer… well I say matchday volunteer, but I end up here a lot more than just on a matchday!
I’ll help with things like putting the goals out. We have a can bar here at the club, this morning me and one of the directors went to the wholesalers and bought all the cans, that’s a repeated thing we do every Saturday morning whenever we have a home game.
Other than that, I just help out wherever I can. If the pitch is wet and the groundsman is struggling on his own, we’ll be down here at 7/8 am on Saturday pitchfork in hand, anything that needs doing I’m happy to help out,” George said.
For people like George to be happy to give up this much of their time must feel it is worthwhile, especially when the volunteering is not just exclusive to a matchday.
George explains his attitude to volunteering and why he chooses to continue.
“My attitude to volunteering is that no matter how much somebody says it’s selfless, there’s always selfishness in it. It’s either to make you feel good because you like the way it makes you feel doing things for people, or you’ve got some gain in it, that’s how it is.
Volunteering here is both for me, I feel great because I do it and the gain is that the football club somewhat runs a tiny bit better when people give up their time and volunteer,” he said.
John McEvoy is also a volunteer for Farsley Celtic and is the club’s official photographer.
“I’ve been doing this now for close on ten years, possibly far too long people might say! I cover all of the first team home games, I’ve done several games of the juniors and ladies teams as well and my job is to shoot the games and those shots are provided to the rest of the media team to be shared on the clubs social media, and in the programmes for example,” John said.
Without John, Farsley would most likely not have a photographer as most semi-professional clubs cannot afford to hire people to fill these roles as a professional club could, and John explains why his service is valuable to Farsley.
“Social media is an extremely important form of communication now, it gets the message out to a lot of people very quickly and very easily. Even though we’re using modern technology people still like pictures. It’s an important means of keeping in touch with local fans and people who follow Farsley around the world and people always look, particularly on the Farsley website and Facebook pages for updates and it’s a great way for them to keep in touch with what’s going on at the club,” he said.
‘Without volunteers, this club would simply not exist’
In an article by SW Londoner, it says a recent report during the 22/23 season found that 2,600 clubs had folded, with a further 8,000 clubs across the UK at risk of closure due to factors such as the cost-of-living crisis.
Couple this with the fact some non-league clubs barely survived the Covid pandemic a few years ago has made it a stressful time to be involved with a non-league club.
“To be brutally honest, without the volunteers at all levels and all the jobs they do, this club would simply not exist,” John said.
“They are an integral part of the club, and they would struggle to function without them and that goes for all teams at all levels up to and including some lower-level professional clubs, even they still have an awful lot of volunteers, and they are the lifeblood of many of these clubs and keep them going day to day,” he said.
These non-league clubs also become integral parts of the local community by hosting events and community projects that further strengthen the bond between the club and the surrounding area.
Farsley are no exception to this as they recently hosted their first annual ‘Farsley Football Fair’, allowing supporters and volunteers to play against some familiar faces who played for Farsley in years past.
Events like this allow supporters to fulfil their dream of playing at The Citadel.
Whilst at the top levels of football, the divide between clubs and supporters continues to grow, with rumblings of potential Premier League games being played abroad and ticket prices increasing, the exact opposite could be said about non-league clubs such as Farsley Celtic, the heart of their community.
Photographic Journalism 
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