The 'lockdown club' making a big first impression
Kelvedon & Feering RFC may only be two years old, but their social media strategy has helped them get off to a flying start
Timing, as the saying goes, is everything.
Cast your mind back to Autumn 2020; an impending second lockdown, restrictions on contact sport, community rugby at a standstill, and people across the country confined to their homes with winter just around the corner. Given the circumstances, it's hard to imagine a worse time to set up a rugby club from scratch. But for Essex-based Steve Clements and an ambitious group of friends, the timing turned out to be perfect.
Kelvedon & Feering RFC was registered in November 2000 after a series of conversations between friends, who identified a need for more outlets for socialising and physical activity in their community once #Lockdown2 ended.
"I feel that the timing worked well because the pandemic only re-emphasised the need people have to socialise," Steve explains. "Fitness and exercise had also become a more critical aspect of people's lives during the lockdown, and that's where the idea for the club came about.
"Because of the lockdown, the club was entirely a digital entity for six months after its creation. We used social media to make the local community aware of the new club and invited people to join our monthly Zoom meetings if they wanted to be involved. We also held online social events, including virtual pub sessions where we could all log on to the same Zoom call during international games to emulate the experience of watching in a club or a pub."
From the beginning, Kelvedon & Feering got its supporters involved in every step of the journey, from choosing kit colours and a club crest to offering mental health support during tough times. Some of the founding members even managed to leverage their network of contacts to obtain messages of encouragement from the likes of Tim Visser and Bryan Habana, no doubt adding fuel to the fire of excitement with the end of lockdown in sight.
On 23 March 2021, after successful negotiations with the parish council, Kelvedon & Feering RFC formally announced their new home ground as the Rye Mill Lane Fields, around the corner from the Church of England Primary School in Feering. Then, just 10 days later, with restrictions starting to lift on contact sports, it was time for the newly-founded club to host its first-ever face-to-face session.
"I think our biggest example of success from social media would be that first training session," recalls Steve. "We advertised it exclusively through our social channels and got 37 attendees on the day, most of whom are still players at the club. Some of those guys have also become committee members since, and it just shows the impact you can have from promoting your club through social channels."
Buoyed by the strong turnout, Kelvedon & Feering RFC had no problem assembling a 1st XV to play in Merit Division 6 East for the 2021/22 season, and, despite having yet to play together as a group, swept aside every team they faced. The stats from that season are borderline incredulous: played 14, won 14, points for 601, points against 68…league champions by a 24-point margin. Since then, Kelvedon & Feering's proactive approach to social media has helped the club grow its player base and digital audience, allowing it to add a 2nd XV in time for the 2022/23 season. Perhaps, even more impressive is the fact that of the 50 players that represented the club in 2022, 18 had never played adult rugby before.
"After restrictions were lifted, we continued to use our social media channels to advertise our sessions and become more active in recruiting potential players. Our social channels have been the most important part of our recruitment process, and the content we put out highlights the work we do on and off the pitch, which keeps everyone engaged, attracts new players and ultimately helps us maintain memberships."
It's a strategy that is clearly paying dividends, with the club enjoying a thriving membership and an engaged group of players in both the physical and digital worlds. But what does a typical week look like on Kelvedon & Feering RFC's social media channels?
"We plan our match-week schedule on a Tuesday morning, starting with a graphic giving details of our upcoming fixture, then announce the gameday squad along with individual player videos on our stories, position by position, later in the week. On Saturday morning, we have a match-day poster with the kick-off time and venue address, and then when the game starts, we have live score updates across social media, half-time and full-time graphics and a post-match interview.
"On Sunday, we share our Man of the Match and list our scorers. We also film all our games, which are added to our YouTube channel. Then we use that video to clip highlights for social media. Starting on a Sunday night, or maybe a Monday, we will get some highlights up of big moments in a game; tries, big scrums, big tackles, etc.
Have a quick scroll through any of Kelvedon & Feering's social media channels, and you'll see content that wouldn't look out of place at a club much higher up the tree, but how difficult is it for a grassroots side to create this kind of output on a regular basis?
"I believe it's well within any club's power to create professional-looking content using readily-available software, and the key for us has been consistency. All of our templates are created and signed off in pre-season, meaning we only have to make minimal changes to graphics during the actual season when we go to post. Canva is the main tool for us, and the more we use it, the more proficient we become.
"We aim to keep the same look and feel for the graphics throughout the season with very few exceptions. We currently have five members in our social media team, and we try to split the specific tasks, so graphic creation, the physical posting on social media, and Instagram Stories are shared evenly to avoid overloading any one team member."
It's fair to say that Kelvedon & Feering RFC has made quite an impact in CO5 since launching just over two years ago, with a committed team of volunteers driving the club forward on and off the field, and Steve Clements is in no doubt that social media will be at the heart of the club's future growth.
"I hope that our club will be an even bigger part of the local community, and I think our digital channels will be an important part of maintaining that growth year to year. I also hope we continue to push the boundaries of what a grassroots club can do social media-wise and show that you can look professional despite being a volunteer-led organisation."
Thanks to Steve and the tireless work of the team around him, a community in Essex is now benefitting from an idea that became a reality, first a digital one and then a physical one. While the club was limited to communication with the outside world via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Zoom during its infancy, it is precisely these platforms that have helped the club snowball since then.
With a league title in the bank and a 2nd XV added within two years, it will be exciting to see what lies ahead for this ambitious young club in 2023.
