There’s a moment in every sports fan’s life where they entertain the idea of buying their team. Most times it’s just a fleeting idea. “Well, if I owned the team, I’d…” And that’s pretty much it. It’s just a fantasy.

But if you’re Spencer Gore, it’s an idea that sticks.

The lifetime soccer fan and founder of the European Medical Journal had spent years watching his local club, Chelmsford City FC struggle to remain solvent. Relegated to the 6th tier of English soccer (honestly, we didn’t even know there was a 6th tier…), evicted from their stadium, and suffering through a string of unfulfilled ownership promises, the Clarets were about as far from the bright lights of the Premier League as you can imagine.

But where most people saw a disaster, Gore saw opportunity. After a couple of attempts to acquire the club, he now sits in Chelmsford City FC’s owner’s box on match day. And once there, he publicly set his audacious goal for the team: securing a spot in the Premier League by 2038.

In our conversation, we talk about what it’ll take for Chelmsford City FC to achieve that monumental goal. We also go into the at times torturous path to acquiring a professional sports club, how he engages with fans to build trust and gain support, and how he prioritizes a long list of to dos all designed to return the Clarets to prominence.

Spencer, I think like whenever we have a conversation like this one, we've got to start. by diving into your football fandom a little bit. Okay, so how do you classify yourself as a fan? And what are some of the memories you have of being a fan growing up?

I would class myself as a Liverpool fan, first and foremost. My mum grew up on Utting Avenue, which is literally a five -minute walk from Liverpool or Everton. So you could hear the crowd when I was at my granddad's.

It was always in the background.

was always in the background. Yeah, you could hear whoever was at home cheering. It was that close. And so I used to go up there and I used to go and watch Liverpool or Everton, depending on who was playing that weekend. Predominantly, I'd try and make it work so that it was Liverpool. But I'd go and watch Everton as well.

And I've always loved football. I always played football. I was never brilliant at football by any means. But I've always played it. I became... I was one of these people that was always quite organised with things when it came to football and good at, maybe not necessarily organised, but good at motivating people to turn up on a cold, wet, rainy day when we were short of players. And no shortage of those in England, I don't suspect.

no shortage of those in England, I don't suspect. Cold, rainy days probably being the rule rather than the exceptional. It was the biggest challenge playing football,

England, I

the biggest challenge playing football, I think. So I always ended up either being captain or manager or something like that just because I could get people to turn up, not because of the skill levels. I grew up in Essex. I grew up in a little village right near Chelmsford, the club I now own. And I was never a super fan or anything like that. I'd go and watch them occasionally. At the old ground, we used to have our mates' 18th birthday parties there and stuff like that. My local village team played in the final there. So I had a connection there. But I wouldn't claim to be a big Chelmsford City fan growing up. You can see Kenny Dalglish's shirt behind me. i was and still am a liverpool fan okay but so then what drew you to chelmsford city fc as an investment opportunity then had you considered other clubs or was it all chelmsford city all the time because you just kind of knew it from proximity to growing up near near the club um yeah i did consider other clubs only when i thought i couldn't get chancehood so

but so then what drew you to chelmsford city fc as an investment opportunity then had you considered other clubs or was it all chelmsford city all the time because you just kind of knew it from proximity to growing up near near the club um

yeah i did consider other clubs only when i thought i couldn't get chancehood so So it started with Chelmsford,

it started with Chelmsford, but then the sort of focus went elsewhere to see the opportunities.

the opportunities. Yeah, so when I set up my first business back in 2007, I had a three -month non -compete clause. So I was doing stuff in the background, you know, registering the company, setting up bank accounts, but I couldn't call clients or anything like that. So I literally reached out to Chelmsford and said, look, I've got three months. What can I do to help the club in any way, shape or form? And I ended up helping the commercial director there. And just one of the first bits of work I did was to look at... the opportunity that I thought there was for Chelmsford. And so I did a league table of towns and cities in England based on population. And if you rank them on that, Chelmsford should be in the second division over here, the championship, as we call it.

it.

And we're actually in the sixth division over here, the National League South. So I thought, well, actually, there's a huge opportunity there.

Yeah, why is there this big delta, right?

And Chelmsford is also quite a relatively affluent area compared to a lot of... higher up football teams. So I always thought there was a massive opportunity. So that was always at the back of my mind. So it was an underperforming asset in your mind?

your mind?

Massively, massively underperforming. Yeah, we call them sleeping giants here. It just had so much potential that I thought it was a great opportunity. And then fast forward to 2012, when I set up EMJ, I just started working with a business coach. And he asked, in our very first session, he asked me a question that was, if you win the lottery, And it's topped up every night. So you've done all your bucket list things. You've travelled the world. You've given money to charity. You've looked after your family. You wake up and you've still got 50 million for argument's sake. What would you do? What gets you out of bed in the morning? And I said, well, I'm not good enough to be a professional footballer. I'm therefore probably never going to be a professional manager. So I'd love to buy a football club. And he asked me if I'd buy Liverpool. And I said, no, because they're already at the pinnacle or thereabouts. The upside has been established.

The upside has been established.

There's only one way you're going to take them, really, and that's you either sustain them or you take them down. Whereas Chelmsford has got the potential, so I'd love to buy Chelmsford. And so that was 2012. So is that where the seed was planted?

is that where the seed was planted? Did you blurt it out? Like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize it at this point? Or had it been fiddling in the back of your mind?

Yeah, it had been there that I always thought. At the time, the club was, because it had gone through some difficulties in the past, it was owned by the supporters. And it had a chairman that would be elected by the supporters and they would run the club. So you couldn't really own the club at that stage. Right, OK. And then the supporters club got into financial difficulties and needed bailing out. So they did create a company that could be bought and sold. So when I first started looking at it in 2007, you couldn't physically buy the club. And then by 2012, you could. So that's when I started thinking, yeah, actually, there's an opportunity to do this.

So you've touched on this, but I want to make sure that because this podcast is based in the United States, we want to make sure that we have a good frame of reference for everybody regarding English football, soccer. You know, you got to use those terms interchangeably here, people. So stay with us. But for those of you unfamiliar with the tiers of English football, can you give a little bit of perspective on those different levels and then explain? where Chelmsford City FC currently resides? Because you mentioned sixth level. I don't think I knew that there was a sixth level.

Well, effectively, there's as many levels as you want. I mean, there's about, there's at least 13,

least 13, 14 levels. Oh, okay. It's what we call a pyramid.

okay. It's what we call a pyramid. Yeah, yeah.

So you've got the Premier League at the top. Right. And that's the Liverpools,

the Liverpools, that's the Manus, that's the sort of world -famous brands. Man City,

-famous brands. Man City, Chelsea, yeah, all those guys. Now, there's 20 teams in that league. The top four leagues are what we would call professional. They're all completely full -time. They've got hundreds of people working there. The top teams in the Premier League are worth between probably £350 million to up to £10 billion. They're the big boys.

Some of the biggest sports brands in the world. Exactly.

And then you've got the championship League One and League Two. They're the 92 professional teams.

Right. And these are, again, full -time soccer teams. These are running business, operating businesses.

And these are, again,

Massively, yeah.

I say they're operating. They are operating. But I think the average loss of a championship team, so the League Two team, is something like £25 million a year. The average loss is £25 million a year.

average loss is £25 million a year. Those are not terrifically successful businesses.

Those are

They're chasing the dream of getting into the Premier League. Because if you get into the Premier League, all of a sudden you get $100 million payday on day one. They're all chasing the dream. But it is interesting,

it is interesting, right? It is a great reflection on sports as a business that doesn't always play by the same rules as other forms of business.

it is interesting,

What I've learned about football clubs over the last year or so is... You don't run a football club, or typically you don't run a football club to make money. You make money when you sell the football club, the business. So you take Chelsea, just being bought by the American guys a year or two ago. Don't quote me on these numbers, but a very rough frame of reference. They bought it for 2 billion. They'll spend 4 billion over the next five years, and they'll look to sell it for, for argument's sake, 8 billion. They make 2 billion on the sale. but they've they've lost four billion or spent or invested four billion over the time they've owned it so you a lot of these clubs will lose money every year but then that it's basically a private equity game now that they're looking to flip it in five years right get the to get to the flip time keep it for four or five years move it to the time where right before a new media rights deal is being put into place and things like that exactly that so that's that's what it's turning into it never used to be like that it used to be by

get the to get to the flip time keep it for four or five years move it to the time where right before a new media rights deal is being put into place and things like that exactly that so

that's that's what it's turning into it never used to be like that it used to be by you know sort of rich local people that wanted to give a little bit back to the community or you know something like that but it's it's becoming much more the private equity sort of side of things now right and so that's the top four leagues then we get to the fifth tier and then the sixth tier which is league south league north which is where Chelmsford currently resides Chelmsford city currently resides you've got the national league which is the fifth tier so that's it's the that's the only other national league but it was traditionally a semi -professional so the guys would

and so that's the top four leagues then we get to the fifth tier and then the sixth tier which is league south league north which is where Chelmsford currently resides Chelmsford city currently resides you've

got the national league which is the fifth tier so that's it's the that's the only other national league but it was traditionally a semi -professional so the guys would play football on a Saturday and maybe in the midweek, they would train on a Tuesday night and a Thursday night, and they'd all have other jobs as well. Right, so you have the plumbers coming out to do their thing.

Right, so you have the plumbers coming out to do their thing.

do their thing. That's not the case anymore. Over the last five years, probably, that league is, I would say, all but two of them are now full -time. So it's effectively the fifth professional league, but it's still called non -league. Okay. Then it regionalizes. So you've got the National League North and South, and even that in our league now. we went full -time this year there's 10 full -time teams out of 24 in our league now so it's it's almost half and half part -time time and then after that you've got a number of so there's there's you know two or three different feeder teams feeder leagues into each division then um so you you could go down you could start a team so there's a team in our league dorking that are quite big on social media and whatever the guy that is their manager is also their owner he set them up from scratch basically playing Sunday league football, you know, at the bottom and he's built them all the way up. So you can, you can still do that. You can, you could start up a team from scratch and get all the way to the premier league. You find success. It's the,

You find success. It's the, one of the brilliant parts of English football, right? Promotion relegation and the whole thing. You go up or down every year.

whole thing. You go up or down every year. Someone goes up or down every year. You also touched on something.

also touched on something. I think that is an important point to make here is the relationship between the city. And the club, like the ownership used to be back in the day, right? You said it's like a wealthy person owns a club as a way to more or less give back to a community, have a community asset that people can rally around pride and things like that. And the money's gotten involved and it's obviously it's changed the nature of what that is. But can you talk a little bit about Chelmsford specifically, Chelmsford City and its relationship to the team? And what are some of the qualities of it and the history of it that sort of give some perspective?

So, yeah, I mean, the club is where we differ from quite a lot of clubs, not necessarily from a good point at all, but we basically got kicked out of our own ground 27, 28 years ago, something like that. That's no good.

like that. That's no good.

With these wealthy owners that come in and buy football clubs, you get a lot of good people that do that. You also get some people that aren't so good and some property developers and the people that just want the land. There's a whole host of people that just are good guys, but they hit hard times themselves. And so the club gets into debt. There's a whole host of things that happen. And unfortunately, we had to sell our ground or our ground got sold 27 years ago, I think it is. Don't quote me on that. So the club had to move out of Chelmsford. So Chelmsford City football team then played in a different town. So it moved to Malden and then it moved to Billericay. So for, I think, seven years, we didn't play in Chelmsford, which is... quite unusual for a team in England. I know it happens a bit more in America where franchises move around. Yeah, it does create a challenging disassociation too. If you're not playing in the town,

around. Yeah, it does create a challenging disassociation too. If you're not playing in the town, you become sort of on the fringe of the attention span of people.

And the towns we were playing in had their own team. So we were ground sharing with them. So their fans didn't want to come and watch us. Right, and you're splitting revenue and all the things that become its own challenge.

So we were ground

and you're splitting revenue and all the things that become its own challenge.

We can't sell any advertising around the ground because we don't own the ground and there's a whole heap of things going on and the debt's just piling up because we're not getting the crowds through to pay for tickets. So eventually the club moved back to Chelmsford to the ground we're in now in literally 20 years in 2nd of January coming up. So it's just my 20 -year anniversary back then. But the council had an athletic stadium and they were redeveloping it and they let us move in there. We still don't own our ground. We rent it off the council. So it has its challenges that it's got an athletics track around the outside, which means the fans are a bit further away.

further away.

But it's, you know, it's be careful what you wish for. The fans all say they want a new stadium. But if we get a new stadium, it's going to be out of town because there's no land available in the town. So there's challenges to all of this. But I think we're quite a traditional... relatively well -supported non -league team. So to put it into perspective, your listeners might know Wrexham, Ryan Reynolds.

We'll touch on Wrexham in a moment, don't you worry. So when they bought that,

when they bought that, they were one league above where we are now. So it feels much more like a community club. We used to get 15 ,000 to a home game when we were in the town center.

So it

,000 to a home game when we were in the town center. We're now in the athletics. The biggest crowd we'd had was about 3 ,000. Okay. We've extended our capacity this year. We've had 3 ,500 for our last FA Cup game. We've just extended it again to 4 ,000. So we're gradually building these things up. But it's a smallish community club with a huge amount of potential.

So let's talk about the acquisition.

Like you said, you had had your eye and sort of in the back of your mind for a while. Can you talk about the acquisition process a little bit? What are some of the unexpected twists and turns that you experienced while going through that process?

Yeah, so I actually tried to buy the club about five years ago. It was just coming out of COVID. So going into COVID and during COVID, the club was really stretched financially.

during COVID,

And so I offered to help them by sponsoring them and got back involved in the club. I hadn't been involved for a few years. And I was invited to invest in the club by the current chairman. And I just didn't feel I was aligned with the way he was taking the club. So I declined that, but said, what I would like to do is buy the club off them.

Right. So the door was open. It wasn't exactly the situation that you thought made the most sense for you.

I just didn't like the way they were running it. It wasn't how I wanted to run the club. And so I tried to buy it. We agreed in principle that they would sell me the club, but we never got any further than that. After about three or four months, we hadn't even got to a price. So it was just... It's hard to start doing your financial spreadsheets when you haven't even have the price to be able to aim towards,

hard to start doing your financial spreadsheets when you haven't even have the price to be able to aim towards, I suppose.

Really frustrating for me. And so I'd made my mind up then that I wanted to buy a football club. I couldn't get a hold of Chelmsford. So I did speak to a few other clubs locally. I always wanted it to be a local club because I knew that I'm an all or nothing person. So I knew I didn't throw my whole life into it. So it needed to be something nearby. So I spoke to Southend United, who are the league above us, because they were selling and they were in financial difficulties. It just didn't appeal to me when I looked at what they were asking for and what the debt was there. It just wasn't a good investment at the time. I spoke to Colchester United, who are two leagues above us, but they weren't looking to sell at the time. And I think it probably would have been too big a club for me at the time to afford and take on. And then I was offered a... I was offered to get involved with Eastbourne Borough, who were in our league and a friend of mine owns. And he owns Reach TV out in the US. He owns Inc Global that do a lot of the in -flight magazines. And he wanted me to get involved, but it was too far away for me to be attending regularly. So I just didn't think that worked. But it's kind of great in that you had this opportunity to look at all these different clubs,

it's kind of great in that you had this opportunity to look at all these different clubs, kind of get behind the firewall of the business operations a little bit to kind of give you a sense of what's that Goldilocks? fit, right? Okay, maybe an upside there, but too far away. Maybe like a great club, but a little too expensive. So it really started to help you build a sense of what's going to be important to you. Because as much as we talk about the business side of things, there is a passion part of this too. And it does have to sort of scratch that passionate itch that you feel as you go and think about the acquisition, right? That gave you kind of a framework to work with.

It definitely helped me. Just from talking to the club owners, I learned a lot. So Robbie Cowling that owns Colchester United, by coincidence, lives in the next village to me. So we've become quite good friends and we meet up quite regularly. But one of the first things he said to me was, if you own a football club, there's three pots of money. There's the amount you can afford to lose and you're happy to lose. There's the amount you can afford to lose, but you're not happy to lose. And there's the amount you can't afford to lose. Stay in pot one the whole time. And so that was really interesting. And it did get me thinking, you know, so just these conversations, I was picking up bits of advice and what would work for some, what hadn't worked.

Yeah, you start stitching them all together.

Yeah, yeah. So I was really keen to do it. And then I didn't think it was going to happen because they weren't looking to sell Chancellor then. So I set up a business in America last year. I set up a business in the Netherlands on top of EMJ. And then I got a text out the blue. Sorry, it was the year before last. I got a text out of the blue from the chairman saying, I'm resigning as chairman, retiring, basically. And so the owner is looking to sell. Are you still interested? And I was like, Christ, yeah.

At least my plate's not full.

At least my plate's not full. Yeah, of course I'm interested. And these things only come up like once every five,

every five,

ten years. You really do.

really do. It's like I have to strike when the iron's hot.

when the iron's hot. So I said, yeah, of course I am. Let's have a chat. And we...

We agreed in principle quite quickly that we would do a deal. And it got to the same situation after a couple of weeks where I was still waiting for a price. And I said, look, we've been here and done this. I've seen this movie.

I've seen this movie.

Yeah, let's not bother. And they basically run out of money. They didn't want to put any more money in, but they wanted to try and recruit some of their losses. So it was a bit of a chicken and an egg for them because if they didn't sell it quickly, they were going to go bust and they'd lose everything. But they wanted to get something back.

So they own 60 % of the club. I should just clarify. They own 60 % of the club. And another guy called Dan Watkins, who's the CEO of JP Morgan Asia Pacific, owned 40%. And I'd met Dan and I got on really well with Dan. Okay, so there's a good relationship there.

Okay, so there's a good relationship there.

There's a really good relationship there. Dan had lived in Chelmsford, started investing, and then got promoted to CEO of Asia Pacific and moved to Hong Kong. Distant. Yeah, he'd been away and not really been involved other than putting money in each month.

Writing the checks. Yeah, keep things rolling.

rolling. Yeah. So the guys that own the 60 % wouldn't give me any due diligence. I didn't even get to look at the bank account. I didn't see a bank statement. I didn't see anything. And this was going on. And they're like, we need to do the deal because we haven't got any more money. That's setting off some alarm bells,

setting off some alarm bells, eh?

I'm happy to do the deal. Give me the due diligence that my solicitors ask for.

due diligence

And it got quite heated. It got quite stressful.

nasty at times from their side, I think. I was watching one of the first training sessions and the chairman came up and started having a go at me in front of all the media guys there and stuff saying I was holding up the deal and I was trying to bankrupt the club. And I was like, one, it's your club. Two, I've told you I'm happy to pay. I just need the information you haven't given me. It would be super helpful to know what your financial situation I'm inheriting here.

It would be super helpful to know what your financial situation I'm inheriting here.

So some of the things he was telling me, any normal person, would have run a mile literally run a mile they i mean i can't say stuff on air but oh sure you can literally as close to the wind as you can get i think we're possibly going over it or not but yeah you know it was it was it set every alarm bell off that could go off my solicitor told me i'd be stupid to do it yeah okay so you were literally getting advice to run not walk away from the deal

you can

literally as close to the wind as you can get i think we're possibly going over it or not but yeah you know it was it was it set every alarm bell off that could go off my solicitor told me i'd be stupid to do it yeah okay so

okay so you were literally getting advice to run not walk away from the deal not only for the lack of information, but clearly the people who were ahead of you were challenging in their own right.

their own right. 100%. I actually had lunch with a guy called Barry Hearn over here who owns Matchroom, a boxing promoter. They own the World Snooker Championships, the Pool Championships, the Darts, you name it. He's owned a football league club. And I had lunch with him a couple of weeks ago and he said, I still dine out on the fact that you're the only person I know other than Mike Ashley that's bought a football club with no due diligence. And he said he ended up with about 50 million pounds worth of debt that he wasn't expecting. So it never did come through.

it never did come through. You never got to the point where you were able to get a hard look at the numbers that the club you were inheriting from this club were due to acquire it.

I was told that the bank account was basically at zero. I would have to pay. this was in the june or july so it started in the may i was told that i would have to cover the july's payroll even if i hadn't taken it over i was told there was heart there was a quarter of a million pounds worth of debt and i and that was basically all the information i was given and i was asked for a fee to buy the club um so they said they'd split the one company into about five different businesses for for various different reasons that suited them so

When your solicitor is telling you don't do this, you're not getting access to the due diligence. The due diligence you are getting is anecdotal. Like literally every red flag is waving saying, don't do this. Why did you do it?

Well, I was going away on holiday. I was going away on a two -week holiday in July. And I was, before I went on a two week holiday, I was going to Rome with the family for three days and I was going to be back in England for a day and then I was going on a two week holiday. So I set them a deadline and said, look, if I've not received at least bank statements and ideally all of the due diligence by the, I was going on the Thursday or something like that. And I said, by the Wednesday, the deal's off because I'm not doing this while I'm on holiday with my family. So we either do it now so I can send it to my solicitor and he can be looking through this while I'm away. or the deal was off so the deadline passes and two days later i get an email off them saying we're pulling out the deal because we don't think you've got the funds to do the deal and i was like it's like you know it's it's not me it's you yeah i'm not breaking up with you right so um so i ended up in rome i was out there watching coldplay and i was out there we were just about to go to a concert

i'm not breaking up with you right so

um so i ended up in rome i was out there watching coldplay and i was out there we were just about to go to a concert and dan rang me from hong kong and we had a long chat and long and short of it was if i didn't buy the club the club was almost certainly going to go bust or best case scenario dan was going to have to fund it all himself depending on how much debt there was and hope that he could afford to fund it all himself yeah or the club went bust so they were the two options and and it was it was either the club goes bust or it might still go bust or dan can just about you know keep it afloat depending on how much that that takes and and he said to me what's stopping you other than the obvious we don't know what the due diligence is what's the specific problem and i said well we just don't know if it's quarter million pound worth of debt or 20 million pounds worth of debt and and he reassured me that he didn't think it could be more than a million pound worth of debt because of various different factors so the gamble was do i trust him enough that it could cost me a million pound

i said

we just don't know if it's quarter million pound worth of debt or 20 million pounds worth of debt and and he reassured me that he didn't think it could be more than a million pound worth of debt because of various different factors so the gamble was do i trust him enough that it could cost me a million pound on top of the fee that I was already paying to buy the club, which was six figures? Or do I walk away and the club goes bust, basically? And I'm a bit of a gut instinct guy. And I just said to him, excuse my language, but I just said, fuck it, let's do it. And so I went back to them and said, look, sod it, I'm going to do it. I'll pay you the money and blah, blah, blah. So I got back from Rome. We had a quick meeting with them. We agreed that we would do it. I went off to Crete for two weeks, and I spent the whole two weeks on the phone to lawyers and the National League and the FA. You have to do a fit and proper person test. You have to do a business plan that you're going to do for the club that I've been holding on. No, this is not just a deal between peers.

on. No, this is not just a deal between peers. You get a lot of insight and poking.

lot of insight and poking. Yeah, yeah. The National League has to approve me to be fit and proper to own a club, which was... you know, a waste of time effectively. When they sent the letter back to say that I was approved and fit and proper, they got my name wrong and they got the football club name wrong. So I'm like, well, how much?

Some other guys fit and proper. I'm sure they did that.

But it was, and then I was sitting, the last day of the two week holiday, I was sitting in the reception waiting for our taxi to take us to the airport. And I signed the docusign and transferred the money for the players' salaries. and to buy the club. And got back to England and found out that even though I'd paid in all the money for their wages, not all of the players had been paid. Oh, God, yeah. Because I didn't have access to the bank account, so I couldn't do the payment. So I said, look, I'll give you the money you do.

I said,

So it was challenging, yeah. Very challenging, very stressful.

So let's talk about that. Like, clearly the buildup and the path to acquiring the club was, I think it's fair to say, almost torturous. But what about after? the acquisition as you said okay i now get access to everything what were some of the first adjustments that you felt were important to make i mean clearly there were challenges all there's fires burning all over the place how did you decide where to begin so we we decided to just the first few weeks if not month or so was really just to try to understand what was going on there so we didn't really try to make it there was a few fires that we had to put out right salary

we we decided to just the first few weeks if not month or so was really just to try to understand what was going on there so we didn't really try to make it there was a few fires that we had to put out right salary Yeah, things like that, just making sure there was enough cash in the bank account. I still didn't have proper access to the bank account for six weeks after I bought the club because of various different bits of UK legislation because it was only two directors. One had resigned because he'd sold it and the other one was based in Hong Kong and it was a UK company. So that created some challenges that we hadn't thought about. So there was a lot of stuff like that. He was really trying to dig and see. where are all the skeletons let's try and find as many skeletons as possible so we can deal with them as quick as we can keep the club ticking over while we deal with that and then let's put a plan in place for how we deal with this and it was we put a plan in that we we wanted to be at ground zero as we were calling it but by the first of january so we wanted to have a fresh start know that everything's that's gone wrong in the past has been dealt with and then and then look to build on that and start again from there. So that was what we were working towards. We found probably another quarter of a million pound worth of debt that we hadn't been told about. So in total, I reckon it was probably about half a million pound worth of debt.

So not as good as it could have been, but certainly not as bad as it could be.

Happy in a funny sort of way that it wasn't. Thank God it's only half a million pounds.

it's only half a million pounds.

An extra quarter of a million that you didn't know about. It's weird that that's a good thing.

I'm so relieved. OK, so really just trying. So the first part, I think, is like a lot of people who come into either a new role or a new business. Right. There is that period of time where listening is really important. Right. To really get a sense of. And as someone who is an entrepreneur and who has started businesses, what's the problem? Or what are the problems? And prioritizing those. That's kind of the starting point, right?

kind of the starting point, right? Yeah, definitely. And one of the biggest problems was the local fans had been so disengaged by the previous owners. And not just the previous ones, the ones before to a certain degree as well. But they'd actually set up a group called Clarets. The nickname of the club is the Clarets. They called Clarets for Change. where they were protesting by not spending any money at the club. They would turn up at three o 'clock for kickoff, watch the game and leave. And leave and not spend anything.

And leave and not spend anything.

So the club wasn't getting any money. So I had to get those guys or try and get those guys back on board and get them engaged and helping us. And I had to convince all the fans that we were actually the good guys and we weren't like previous owners. And so one of the things I was told was... there's been no engagement for the last seven years. And I was like, well, if you just want engagement, I can talk to you all day long. That doesn't cost me a penny. That's one of the best things I can do because everything else is costing me money. So I set up a fans forum where on the first Monday of every month, I set up a board of directors and we have a board meeting from seven o 'clock till whenever we finish on the first Monday of every month. So I said, look, I'm going to be at the club on that day and some of the other directors will be there. So six to seven, we'll do a fans forum where I'll stand there and I'll answer any questions you've got. And so we've done that every month since I took over. And the very first question on the very first session I got asked was, we've heard all of this stuff before, new owners coming in, promising all this. What are you going to do to make us trust you today? Now, first of all, I hadn't promised anything at that stage. So it's quite interesting that that's what they chose to go with. But I think they were quite surprised by my answer, which was, I've got no intention of making you trust me today. Trust doesn't work like that. Trust is built up over time. And I said, I will tell you I'm going to do a series of things. And every 10 things, if I do all of them right and get them all right, you'll trust me that much more. If I get one of them wrong, you'll trust me a little bit less. If I get all 10 of them wrong, you'll trust me a lot less. So my job is to tell you what I'm going to do and then deliver it. And hopefully I do that more times than I get it wrong. And that will build up the trust. And so that was probably the, I think the most important thing I did was to engage with the fans and to tell them how I intended to do things. And I've just done that ever since, really. I do every podcast, every interview, any PR I can do to raise the profile of the club and show it in a good light and tell the story and what we're trying to do and how we want the community engaged. I take that opportunity and try and do that.

How does this align? with your other businesses that you run? Because as we've talked about, we've touched on, we haven't really talked a lot about the European Medical Journal, but that is obviously the principal source of your business success and source of revenues that have gone to help underwrite the club and everything like that. So there is this European Business Journal, a medical journal, and now the American Medical Journal, which is, like I said, the foundation of everything. When you go to tweak the business operations of a healthcare and media property, that's one thing, right? It's quite another thing to tweak the operations of a football club where people have, like you just talked about the fans, the fans are very invested. So because of that, they have this beloved football club. How has this adjusted your approach and thinking about business, right? Because you found success in one way, in one industry. But now you're trying to replicate that in something that's wholly different. So what adjustments to your approach and what things have you learned that are starting to pay dividends as you look down the road?

I've always been a really open and transparent person. I just say it how it is. And I don't ever mean to offend anyone. But I will always just say it how it is. And I will always, if I truly believe in something, I will fight to the death to defend it. Because if I don't believe it, I won't do it. Now, at EMJ, we've got our values, but our vision for the company is to elevate the quality of healthcare globally. Our mission is to become the go -to place for healthcare professionals. But our goal is to create gold medal winners. So everyone that works for us, all of our suppliers, all of our clients, we try to make them the best versions of themselves that they can be. So that's something that we enjoy doing, is taking people and helping them become better versions of themselves. marries across to sport very well. So we've always used a lot of sports analogies and we've had speakers at our events where we've had Olympic gold medalists. We've had people, Sir Clive Woodward, that won the Rugby World Cup with England. We've used people like that as coaches, as mentors, as speakers. So moving into football seemed like quite a natural sort of transition for us because we want to help everyone there be the best versions of themselves. With EMJ, we've always been ridiculously ambitious. I think in 13, 14 years of running the company, I've only ever hit our annual target once or twice because we set such ridiculously high goals, because we think that drives the right behaviour. We're relentless with that. We have a sort of a saying, 99 % of people need not apply because we are looking for people that are on the extremes of high performance. And that's exactly the same with the football club. We're looking for that level of high performance. I think when I first came in, people thought it was a bit of talk and didn't really believe it. But I think a year and a bit later, they're now seeing that I actually do mean that. We beat top of the league last night and they were the only team in the top six divisions of English football that hadn't lost a game all season and we beat them 2 -0. And I'm still not satisfied that that was the best performance we could have done and it was the best crowd we could have got there. It was great performance and it was a great crowd. But I think we can do better. And I'm always looking at not what worked well, it's what can we do better next time? So there's a lot of crossover. I think the biggest challenge, again, is in football, you've suddenly got X amount of thousand people that have got an opinion on the decisions you're making rather than just the staff that you pay that have it. But the way I deal with that is I'm always open and honest and I tell them why I've done it and I try and explain it. And if they don't agree, I'll listen to them and I'll tell them why I think I'm right and they're wrong or actually. Time will tell. We'll change it. We made a mistake.

will tell.

And I said to them, we will make mistakes without a shadow of a doubt, but we'll always make the mistakes for the right reasons. So if we get something wrong, I'll tell you why we did it so at least you understand. And I think most people, you know, they get that. And yes, in the heat of the moment, if you've just lost a game, people's emotions are high and they say things. But when you sit back and reflect on it, you're like, okay, I can see why they did do that now.

Let's talk about goal setting, because you have set some pretty audacious goals, some pretty big, hairy, audacious goals for Chelmsford City Football Club. And you've specified it. You have a time frame. It's Premier League by 2038. You like to set these high goals for you, the people who work with you, for the businesses, now that you've owned the team for a year and a half. What are the key steps that you need to take, you and the team need to take, to accomplish that goal by 2038?

I think the key thing for me off the pitch is I always need to be looking two leagues ahead. So we're National League South, but we're talking internally about, and externally to a certain degree, about being Football League ready. So that's promotion to the National League, then the Football League. So there's only so much we can do to control the results of the match. during 90 minutes but we can control a hell of a lot more off the pitch so we can make sure that our merchandise is as good as it can be our ticketing is as good as can be our stadiums as good as can be our our hrs as good as can be our commercial teams as good as can be so we we have a lot more controllers there's a phrase i use a lot controller controllables so let's make sure everything we're doing that we can control is done to the best of our ability so so the the biggest factor for us probably will be the stadium We're in a stadium that we can probably get to 4 ,000 quite easily, probably get to 5 ,000 relatively easily. To be in the Premier League, you need 15 ,000 as an absolute minimum. Yeah, slightly bigger. And up to 80 ,000. So that will be a big factor for us. We don't own the ground, so there's only so much we can do there without getting permission. But then there's not a lot of land around town that we can find a suitable location to do something different. So that's going to be our biggest challenge. We don't have our own training ground at the moment. We have a 3G pitch that we rent off the council. We rent some sports fields off a local private school, but we want to build our own centre of excellence. We're looking at doing that with Essex County Cricket Club. So facilities is probably our biggest challenge. Everything else is, we know we've got the footfall of fans to come to get us to the championship. And I always want to outperform, so let's go for the Premier League. We're an affluent area, so I think there's enough businesses around us to support us on that journey. Yeah, the facilities is going to be the big challenge for us.

I think that probably goes for a lot of sports clubs, particularly right now, as they seek what are the opportunities to drive new revenue, and facilities are the first and usually last stop on that particular section of train track. Spencer Gorey is owner of Chelmsford City FC, and I want to say thanks for the time. I think every sports fan has got that twinkle in their eye at some point or another about owning a sports team, having some sort of equity in the things that they support. For those that have access to resources that can make this something they're really sort of seriously considering, what lessons can you share about the process that... can help them as they go through their evaluations other than making sure you get due diligence done relatively timely yeah i mean i i think from a personal point of view if it's having that passion for my local side makes such a difference you know um when we won the game last night i went down on the pitch and i can congratulate the players and it really means something to me because they're my local team not just that we're building something together but but they're my local team

i mean i i think from a personal point of view if it's having that passion for my local side makes such a difference you know um when we won the game last night i went down on the pitch and i can congratulate the players and it really means something to me because they're my local team not just that we're building something together but but they're my local team So having that passion, I think, is really important, depending on how you want to do it. Or I would say, otherwise, go to the other extreme and pick a random team that you don't know anything about where you don't have that emotional tie, because that emotional tie is key one way or the other. So I'm spending probably 100 hours a week working on it at the moment. It's crazy busy. It's a huge amount of work for me. But I do it because I love doing it. So the other extreme is look at it purely as if you bought some shares in something and pick the right club to do it. I think it really is. There's only 92 professional football clubs in the UK. It's a very privileged position to be in, to be just below that, even though we're below that, just below that. I think people have said to me, how long before you make the club sustainable, you can't keep wasting money on it and stuff like that. For me, I don't look at it as an investment. I look at this as a hobby that I'm fortunate enough to be. in a position where I can afford to pay a bit more for my hobby than maybe some people can. But if I never make any money out of this, I've deliberately set the club up so I'm not putting any debt into the club. Every penny I put into the club, I do for a commercial sponsorship deal so I can never claim it back. So if I run out of money or go bust or get bored, the club won't owe me a penny. So I've done it very deliberately like that so that it is just a hobby. But I think if you're looking at the long term, if we get this right, it's a bit like buying a house in my opinion. So if you buy a house and you look after it, that house value is going to go up just because it's a limited commodity and house prices go up over time. If you don't look after it and the roof leaks and the windows leak, it's going to go down in value. But if you look after it and put an extension on and put a swimming pool in, the house price might go up quite a lot. And that's how I look at the football club is if I don't look after this properly, it's going to go down in value. If I just keep it plodding along as we are and I've cleared the debt or whatever, it will still go up in value. But if I can invest in it, you know, it will become more and more valuable. So if at some point I decide I need to sell because of health or wealth or whatever it might be, I'll probably make my money back and some on top of it. So, you know, it's a win -win from that point of view.

Yeah, so passion plus business plus goal settings starts to feel like it's a business, but one that gives back to the community with which you've sort of grew up and developed the passion for the club to begin with. Spencer, oh, sorry, go ahead.

I was just saying, when I bought the club, I wasn't even aware, because I'd had no due diligence, I wasn't even aware that we had a foundation. But we've got a charitable foundation. And when you start throwing that into the mix, the investment side of it becomes almost irrelevant. When you hear the amount of good work that we do in the community and the fact that there's kids that go to school and get free school dinners because they can't afford to eat at home, in the school holidays, they don't get... so much food because their families still don't have much money so we put on training sessions for them they come along for an hour and a half two hours train and then we give them a free meal afterwards when you hear stuff like that you're like jesus this is what it's really about it really is about helping the community and what good we can do here it's kind of a full circle moment right goes back to that moment where people were invested in these clubs as a resource for the communities to both rally around and invest back into

kind of a full circle moment right goes back to that moment where people were invested in these clubs as a resource for the communities to both rally around and invest back into Spencer Gore, he is the owner of Chelmford City SC. Spencer, thanks so much for spending the time today. But before I let you go, I got to put you in the lightning round. Okay, these are a couple of questions that I'm just going to throw at you. What I'd like you to do is just not think for a minute, just respond with the first thing that comes to your mind. Are you ready? I'll give it a go. Okay, that's the optimistic spirit we like to hear. All right, first off, most people in the U .S. are passingly familiar, as we discussed, with Wrexham FC. Now, that's the club owned by Rob McElhinney and Ryan Reynolds and featured in the Hulu series, Welcome to Wrexham. Spencer Gore, what film will you star in in order to raise the profile of Chelmford City FC?

A film that's already out, which would I remake?

In order to raise the profile of the club. So like a Ryan Reynolds, what role will you be taking on?

I think what they've done is brilliant. I really think what they've done is brilliant. It's that showing that how all the different aspects of the community pull together to make, you know, the sum of the parts are greater than the whole or the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, I should say. I think both of them.

of them.

Yeah, the way they've done it has been absolutely brilliant. I think anything you can do to get the club out on the national and even international stage is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

All right, very good. You grew up near Essex, which is close by Chelmsford City, as we've established. Now, I grew up in Essex, which is near Boston, Massachusetts, which is famous for its fried clams. Were you to take me out in your Essex, what would we get to eat?

What would you get to eat? Well, I live in a little village about 20 minutes away from Chelmsford now. And right near there, it's very famous for its oysters.

Oh, okay. So we've got kind of a bivalve thing going here.

Oysters is the big thing near us.

All right. All right. I'll bring some fried clams. We can do oysters and we can compare notes. You attended University College London but left before getting a degree. But you later returned to sit on UCL's Schools Management Advisory Board. So you really didn't need their fancy degree after all, did you?

You know what? My wife kills me for this because she was there as well. And we've got three kids now. And whenever they're not working hard. She's telling them they need to white card her. And they just turn around and say, well, he failed. Look at that, didn't need it.

Look at that, didn't need it.

What university did for me was taught me to grow up and look after myself and made some phenomenal connections. So the people I met there from friendships, from business, were just brilliant. So I got so much out of it. And I became football club captain. So I learned a lot more about running football teams. All right. So again, the foundation is laid.

All right. So again, the foundation is laid. Now, you also worked briefly in television, which included apparently some work on The Office. Your preference, Ricky Gervais or Steve Carell?

Do you know what? I've never seen The American Office. How can you not?

How can you not? It's like every meme on the internet is The Office. So Ricky was my boss when I was at university.

Ricky was my boss when I was at university. So I worked in the student union and he was my boss. And he got me into television when I failed my degree because his other half was a producer. And the last job I did was the second series of the office. So I feel a loyalty to the English office.

office. You have to go with the Ricky Gervais option there.

the Ricky Gervais option there.

All right. Well, look, if you're choosing between the two, you really can't go wrong. All right, last one. Chelford City's FC's main rival is Braintree Town. This is typically a family -friendly podcast, but please take this moment to relay any explicit comments you'd like to make about your rival.

Well, I would just ask them to look at the results because they're the league above us. And we played them in the FA Cup, which is the big national cup that all of the Premier League teams enter. And we knocked them out in the last round 4 -1 a couple of weeks ago. You

don't really have to get explicit. All you have to do is say, look at the scorecard.

They've had them for a little while, but we've got the bragging rights at the moment.

Spencer Gore, thanks for the time.

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on.