We’re diving into the heart of community spirit with the Sheppertonians FC, a small but mighty team from Shepperton that’s got big aspirations. We’re chatting with Chris Nisbet, who’s all about bringing the community together through football, and he’s got some wonderfully ambitious plans that’ll make you think 'why not?' From using local facilities to inspiring the youth and rekindling the love for the game in those who’ve hung up their boots, this club is all about creating a home for football in Shepperton. So grab a cuppa, sit back, and let’s explore how this little village team is aiming to make a big splash in the world of local sports!

Takeaways:

• Sheppertonians FC is a community-driven football club aiming to bring local pride and togetherness through sports.
• The club is focused on using Shepperton-based facilities to foster community involvement and participation in football.
• They aim to reconnect with former players and encourage the younger generation to stay active in sports.
• Despite limited resources, the club has big aspirations, believing that anything is possible when a community comes together.

•  Guildford and Woking Alliance League fixtures
• Sheppertonians FC on Instagram
• Sheppertonians FC on Facebook

Produced by Gareth Davies at The Sound Boutique

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A small but mighty little village team that has big aspirations.

Silly aspirations.

I mean, we haven't even got the facilities to justify them aspirations.

And that is what makes the project so exciting.

You tell me.

No, it can't be done.

I'll tell you three other ways we can try to make it work.

There's a particular kind of optimism you only get at the very beginning of something.

Before the fixtures, before the results.

I went looking for some of it on a training night recently on a 3G pitch in Staines with a Shepparton football club that is four months old.

Welcome to the Sheppartonian.

Before we get going, a thank you to the businesses paying for this to exist.

The Ferry Coffee Shop, purveyors of fine coffee, tea and snacks.

Me on Media, your small business support partner, and Island Motors, Shepparton based family run MOT and servicing.

Every episode you hear happens because local businesses decided that Shepperton having its own media platform was worth paying for.

So thank you.

And actually, the business club has changed a bit recently.

It used to be a choice between a couple of things.

Now there are loads of ways in starting at £10amonth.

So a sole trader working out of a van and a business with a shop front and staff aren't really being asked for the same thing.

And there's a quarter off for registered charities too.

Which brings me to the other new thing.

The Sheppartonian now has a local business directory.

Every trade, cafe, pub, shop, salon and professional service in the area in one searchable place.

So when someone needs a plumber or a hairdresser or somewhere to take the in laws for lunch, they find a business in or around Shepperton rather than whatever the Internet feels like showing them that day.

If you run a business here, get yourself [email protected] listings are free, so there's no catch.

But obviously you can explore paid advertising options while you're on the website.

Right then, Sheppartonians fc.

Chris Nisbett has run a gym on Shepparton High street for three years, which means he has spent three years listening to what people in Shepperton talk about.

So I created Shepperton Fitbox as a gym in the high street.

Main focus was there was a.

There was a hole in Shepparton High street that could do with filling with a different kind of business.

So we decided to go with that and then we've been there for three years, speaking to people, you know, talking to the local people, and the conversation always arose that there was no proper Local team.

If you went on Shepparton now, one of the Facebook pages or friends of Shepparton, it was always Chertsey Town, Walton and Hersham, they were always advertising, you know, come to our football club, come watch the men's first thing, come, anything but Shepparton.

And Shepparton was considered this small, leafy little village, which it is, but just considered, yeah, just come and join us and be part of their brand and their name.

And if you speak to any local from Shepparton, they consider themselves a Sheppartonian.

So we decided that, well, why not make a football club called Sheppartonians to represent the people of Shepparton and a football club that, you know, uses that name and what Sheppartonian people are, which is one club and one community, and a community that not many other villages or towns have.

I mean, how many have a dedicated big tree night, Shepparton fair, you know, the boat racing.

There's so many cool things that Shepparton provides that you don't really see in these other areas or I've not noticed personally.

So we were a big believer in trying to create something that the project had to be in Shepparton and only Shepparton.

So whether that be our football, men's surfs team, we're currently training at Matthew Arnold School, which is where we're at now, because the facilities are good here.

But the main goal, which is a challenging project, is that we want to only use Shepparton based facilities, whether it be the schools, the council facilities or assets that they have.

That's all we want to use to showcase that Shepparton can use its own space and become something special.

When we're a small village with big.

Ambitions, their page says a small club with unnecessarily large plans.

I wanted to know how unnecessary we're talking.

Oh, mate, they're terribly silly plans that realistically if you were to say to anyone, they can't happen, they won't happen and they shouldn't.

Well, no, one of the biggest aspirations I have, or inspiration I'd say is that Mark White from Dorking Wanderers came onto a podcast and he said what they achieved with Dorking Wanderers could never be done again.

It can't be replicated, it can't be copied.

And I felt like that was someone setting a challenge.

And I went, go on then, bring it on, we'll have a go.

I'm a massive fan of Mark White.

Big, big believer in what he's done with Dorking and really got A community together.

I mean, Dorking wonders.

Football club itself is in the centre of Dorking, and I think Shepparton could copy that and have its own little powerhouse and a club that really showcases what our community is about.

Every club needs players.

Not many clubs go looking for the ones who've already stopped.

I'm 31.

I wanted to get guys, you know, I'm aging terribly.

I wanted to get blokes who were actually, funny enough, I'm looking around now, that's one of our mini shepherds just over there.

So we've.

I mean, our main aim, first off, was we wanted to get men who've basically given up playing football.

They're starting to have children, they're married, they've given up on that dream or that once.

I love football, but now I don't think I can play anymore.

And the vets are beckoning them and they won't even play vets because they feel like they're too old and not fit.

So my big thing was, is to get these bunch of lads down to my gym or into these local.

Into my local football club or even on just the training to get these guys down, get them fit and say, look, we can still play, we can, you know, challenge a league, we can have some fun and we can try and win some trophies.

Because if you speak to most people in their footballing, short footballing careers, when they become men, what do they actually win?

99% Is nothing.

So why not have one more go?

Like a farewell swan song for them guys?

And the other end of the spectrum is the young lads who are turning 18, 19, and then they're starting to find girls and booze and anything else.

And we want to say, look, that's great, but keep the sport in you, because you are far too young to retire already.

Keep enjoying the sport, because once it's gone, especially when you get older and the commitments come, it's gone forever.

So please enjoy it.

And I think Shepperton itself has a lot of footballers that should still carry on playing football and can really showcase the community club as itself, what it should be, which is, we want you to keep playing, we want you to keep having fun.

It doesn't matter the level.

That was March months ago.

And in November, me and my wife Laura, who's the club secretary, were both sitting there in a bit of a lull period.

Not sure what to do.

We were looking at doing a second gym or we were looking around other areas, but I just didn't have the same drive cuz Shepperton was my place, it was, it felt like my home.

And football is my biggest passion, sports as a whole is my big passion, but football is my little niche.

And when I was younger I used to work full time coaching from under sevens all the way to under 18s.

But we turned around and said, well look, most of these kids are going to be already at clubs or doing their own thing, so why don't we go in the cohort below to our 3 year olds to 6 year olds and really get them to enjoy football.

We know the Mini kickers were in the area, we know other clubs or businesses were in the area and we thought, but there's no actual community club that for Sheppartonians, they can come down and go, well I'm a Sheppertonian, I want to play for Sheppard club.

So we decided that let's build a Mini shepherd for three to six year olds playing fun games, nothing serious, all about just understanding, do you like football?

That's great.

How about you try these fun games?

And as they get a bit older they start to ask questions going, how do I play this?

Or how do I, how do I get involved in more football?

And our six year olds, we had a quite a big cohort and they're becoming under sevens.

So we turn around and we're like, well we need to make teams of these age groups.

Well let's go and do it, let's find out how to do it.

And we have as of today finally found the league.

I mean bear in mind the season starts in a few weeks.

We have done on my, well actually not me, I, I want to repeat this.

My wife has been unbelievable and the club treasurer, her sister, which is incredible, it's a very family based, have found us the leagues to play in finally.

And these kids will now be able to play in Shepparton against other teams and they won't have to go to any other areas.

So we're very, very chuffed with that.

Our men's first team and Vets team will be playing at Bishop Duppers as well.

So the local home, would you call it a spiritual home?

That's what we're going to try and make it for Shepparton.

We want the Mini Shepherds to come down and watch our men's first team and be inspired by it.

Even the vets team to come down and enjoy Themselves knowing that it's never too late or you shouldn't give up on football playing the sport, because it's amazing.

Bishop Duppard's for us, really repeats that fact that we want our Mini Shepherds to train and play there, our under sevens and eights to train and play there, and then our men's first and vets team to train and play there because it has everything a club needs.

There's one gap in the plan and Chris is honest about why.

It's one of the tricky ones.

So under sevens, under eights are mixed anyway, so there will be, like, young girls in there with the women's team.

It's very difficult because of the catchment.

So most clubs who have women's teams have already got the majority of the female population that play football in this area.

So your Ashford towns, maybe your church, you're not too sure about how many other clubs have the female population of footballers.

So we didn't want to force it so hard and then let these girls down or let the ladies down.

So instead of letting them down, we kind of just let it go ahead one more season to grow the women's team.

And we found out there's a flexi league.

So you can play seven aside, women's or nine aside, 11 aside.

But if this podcast can help, we are calling the Sheppartonian Ladies to come down.

You can email me or email sheppartoniansfcmail.com and we can put together a female team because we would love to do that and we feel that it shouldn't just be a men's only representation.

It's just a bit hard with females because, like I say, most other areas have taken the catchment.

So we just need to build up.

Sheppartoniansfcmail.com that's the whole ask.

We were sitting in a sports centre in Staines.

Good facilities, warm, floodlit, 10 minutes from where the club is actually from.

So I asked him what a permanent home would really mean.

Shepparton itself deserves better facilities than it currently has, especially for our younger population.

If you were to look over the last few years, crime of the youth of Shepparton has gone up.

It has.

And that's not necessarily the fault of anything or anything other than they need better facilities.

They're bored.

I mean, the youth club's been shut down for way too long.

It's something that I'm a big advocate for.

We were down at the greenhouse centre discussing how we can get it back open again.

We want the facilities of Shepparton to be Readily available.

And I feel a football club, because it's such a popular sport, can help bring that change.

Especially if we're potentially to able maybe get a lease for an area where we could get start to get some funding from the FA and the grassroots.

It would be amazing.

It would be, you know, changing a village to what it deserves.

Yeah.

And hopefully at Bishop Duffas, your spiritual home.

Well, I call it the spiritual home because like I say, we started there with a hope that we might have 10, 15 kids at our first ever mini Shepherd's and within three months we've now got over 100 and we are now coming into their school year and like I say, we have an under 7 and under 8.

Over 115 children signed up to Mini Shepherds, a men's first and men's vets, potentially a men's Sunday.

But we're delaying right now to see if the numbers are there.

But it's just been phenomenal growth and I can't see how Spellform Council or anyone could really stop Shepparton having a spiritual home or some kind of place that we call home for the community.

The community deserves everything it gets.

I mean, if we were to go five years, all I want to see is participation in sport.

Go up with the Bishop duper.

They have 11 a side pitch, they have the small green on one side, they also have other parts of green that can be sectioned and all I want to see is a pitch or a field full of children participating in sport, a playground that can be then utilised loads because children can then go and play thereafter.

There's Baxter House around the back.

It's to me a club that's on the aging side that was once thriving and is now just surviving.

We would love to get that cleaned up and decorated and showcase again as another community hub that everyone can use.

We have the tennis courts, we have a nice pavilion there, we have the bowls club and we'd love to just rejuvenate that whole area so that the whole community, the whole public can use it still.

All we're looking to do is not take any private entity or anything.

We don't be the only people to use it.

All we're asking is that we want to help the council and say, look, can we make this better?

Can we relieve you of some stress and maintain these facilities through funding of the FA and grassroots and ourselves, just to make it a better experience for the community.

But if you want a five year plan for the men's first team, I'd love to be in the FA cup or the FA Vars or the FA Trophy.

The season starts on 5 September, which, by the time you hear this has already happened.

So the league actually haven't told us yet for our first game, which is worrying because it's soon.

It's September 5th, will be the start of the league.

Not sure if we're home or away.

We're basically trying to do an open day in October.

So October 10, as long as it's a home game, our plan is that we want everyone to come down, as many people as possible to support Sheppartonians, and we are going to get our Mini Shepherds to be our mascots, to walk out and at half time they can have a little match whilst we're getting ready for our second half and we're 30 up and to finish the other team off.

And we just want everyone down there, we want the local businesses to come down.

We've got some unbelievable sponsors.

Mullen Property Services, they've been great help to us.

Garden Angels have been amazing, which on the Shepparton ice sheet, they've been superb as well.

Some really good guys helping the local community club become something that the community needs and deserves.

You can bring anything and anyone.

It is a council pitch.

We are not allowed to charge you.

We don't want to charge you for this standard of football.

No one deserves to be charged to watch this football.

What we want you to come down is have a good laugh, meet the players after the game, tell us how bad we were, how good we were, we will take it on our stride, but we want you to come down and just enjoy the atmosphere.

You will never see a club or a community club that is literally saying, come down, have a laugh after the game, meet you in Bagster House, we'll have a drink, you can tell us how good or how bad we were or how you could have done it better.

And if you can do it better, you're more than welcome to get involved, sign up and win us the league.

So we like to consider ourselves as a professional grassroots club.

We don't want the youth section to be dealing with parents as such, to watch them look after kids, kids, football and footballer career as a whole, from the under sixes or sevens all the way to.

People don't realise it flies by.

And I've been part of football for a long time.

I don't want parents to sit there and go, I've got to look after this team.

They're getting stressed out because one parent thinks this and Another parent goes, you should have done this.

No, I want you to sit on the sideline and just enjoy watching your son or daughter play football, because you don't know when it'll be their last game.

So just go and enjoy it.

Let us take all that stress away from you and make sure you can enjoy their footballing career, albeit how long or short it's going to be with the men's football and everything else.

When you say what we need, we just want to showcase a club that really identifies Shepparton as a whole.

So a small but mighty little village team that has big aspirations, silly aspirations.

I mean, we haven't even got the facilities to justify them aspirations.

And that is what makes the project so exciting.

You tell me, no, it can't be done.

I'll tell you three other ways we can try to make it work.

We want silly things for Shepparton because we feel that, why not?

It can be done and why not Shepparton?

I asked Chris what one thing he'd want a Shepparton listener to actually do.

I mean, the biggest thing I just like the locals of Shepparton to be is just come down and watch us.

Just come down and watch your local team play.

You know, the Premier League is millions of miles away and to me, that's not football anymore, it's a theatre production, it's a theatre show.

Them players won't care when you're sitting there watching because they'll go home to their wife and kids like they should.

They're paid very well.

They're not going to hear the feedback, they're not going to see the feedback.

When we score that two one last minute winner and I look around and there's 50 people there, that's 50 people that I remember every single one of their faces.

And they'll remember that moment when we come steaming over to celebrate with you.

And then moments will last with you forever.

When I was a kid, I was a Man United fan up until I was about 13, 14, and I was going to Brentford home and away.

This is when Brentford were in the pits of League two and struggling.

And you'd go to that local match and the players could see you, they knew you if you were close enough.

And that connection was lovely.

And then I went even further down into Staintown and Bedford Sports and you could see the players in the bar after.

So that kind of connection you just don't get then.

It's a really special niche that the English pyramid has that, you know, many other countries don't really and it's just really special to have, especially if your local community.

You really like an underdog, don't you?

Oh, just for me, I love football and I love the non league because it really represents what football should be about.

And that is why there is so many people across the world wanting to invest in English football, because they just can see how special it is over here and Shepparton deserves to have that little bit of glory.

50 People.

That's the number he used.

50 People who'd remember it.

Sheppartonians FC will play their home games at Bishop Duppa's recreation ground, which is a council pitch, which means they're not allowed to charge you.

Bring the dog.

Check the fixtures before you set off because half the season they'll be somewhere else.

They're on the Guildford and Woking Alliance League page and I've put the link in the show notes.

And if you're a woman in Shepparton who'd play if there was somewhere to play, get in touch using the email sheppartoniansfcmail.com Chris Nisbett, chairman, manager, welfare officer and everything else.

I'm Gareth.

This has been the Sheppartonian.

Until next time.

I'll see you around.