Mark Hammond, CEO Bromley: ‘ You Don't Need to Play in the Premier League to Have a Premier League Mindset’ (Ep85)

0:00We're trying to compete with Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham, Tottenham, all those huge Premier League clubs which in the borough of Bromley all the parents are season ticket holders to but they come to watch us as a secondary option. We're a side dish so we had to make the perception of the parent or the player that we have to be a main dish. How did we do that? One of the points was to influence grassroots football. That moment put us on the map as we're on something we've just beaten Wrexham but I have to say after the game Ryan Reynolds walks out and he shook the owner's hand, my hand and he stood with us for 15 minutes congratulating us and talking normal, just a real human being and it was a moment of class and I've taken that, that's how you need to act and be humble in defeat.

0:44This time last year we were third from bottom, we sat in the boardroom and said we need to change the narrative. Our whole pursuit of getting into the football league and what we're just going to sit here now and accept safety so we drew a line and said no that's not acceptable. Hello and welcome to the Business of Sport, the show that takes you behind the scenes with the industry's leading owners, operators and athletes. Today we are delighted to welcome Mark Hammond to the show. Mark is the CEO of Bromley, one of the EFL's emerging success stories. Having only played one full season in the Football League and finishing a hugely respectable 11th last year, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the early stages of this club's acclimatisation to top-level football would focus on consolidation and survival.

1:29But you'd be wrong, as Mark very clearly told me when I was making similar assumptions. This is a club whose ambition is once again promotion. But it's not just the work the first team are doing on the pitch that makes Bromley such a standout case. An academy system that focuses not just on supplying first-team players, but also providing an education and opportunities beyond the pitch for hundreds of children, is going a long way to fixing some of the big problems football has when players give up everything to chase the almost impossible dream. Mark's career as a player, a coach and now a CEO is not the path you often see of a top football executive but that's what makes this interesting.

2:06We often succumb to conformity and different ideas and approaches to building exciting, sustainable entertainment products, doing the best for the fans and communities requires a different approach. Mark and Bromley's mantra, we're not teaching our kids to be professional footballers, we're teaching them to be professionals in football. We've done many shows looking at teams in the Football League, but none quite like this. We're delighted to welcome Mark to the business of sport. But first, some words from our valued partners. Now what if I told you that the same private equity deals that built sporting empires like Liverpool FC and the Golden State Warriors were now accessible to everyday investors?

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3:16the sports industry isn't slowing down it's accelerating and now you don't have to be a billionaire to own a piece of it if you're ready to step into the game go and visit go stride.com that's g-o-s-t-r-y-d-e dot com and discover how sports private equity can work for your portfolio and the company motto says it all stride exclusive but attainable mark thank you so much for joining us welcome to the business of sport thank you for having me hell of a ride you've been on with bromley isn't it yeah it probably probably transferred from a moped to a ferrari but yeah proud to sit here today it has been a brilliant journey but starting in performance and then ending up as a chief executive is an unusual route something that we haven't seen a huge amount of and i'd love to know what that journey has been like at bromley how you've actually managed to take those steps through yeah i didn't personally speaking i didn't know it was a route i had no knowledge or exposure or experience of that transition from performance into sort of the you know the board of directors or the chief exec role and i have to pay respect to the owner because he's borderline a genius um he sprints with it and you have to keep up but he's obviously seen something in me five years ago and he was going to employ somebody I was actually sporting director at the time I was academy director and sporting director at the time and he was going to employ somebody and he said he was standing in the shower and he was washing his hair and then he thought why am I employing that guy when I've got the guy running the club at the moment and I can take him on a journey and he threw me the keys he said right you're running the club and I was like I don't want to run the club and he went tough you're doing it he said just watch me take the business acumen that I've got how I do it watch me learn he said you don't realize how good you are I'm going to take you on a journey and yeah I'm really respectful and humbled by his decision putting the faith in me and putting me in the hot seat because let's put this into context right the rise of Bromley is incredible for people that don't No.

5:27You last season played your first season in the Football League. Ever. You finished 11th in that season. Yeah. Four points outside the playoff. Four points outside the playoff. Michael Cheek, your striker, got the top scorer and player of the year. Yeah. And PFA player of the year. And PFA player of the year in that division. And that has all really happened in a short space of time. How was it for you then going into that position where you become the chief executive? How was it for you trying to translate that ambition and make sure that you did it not only responsibly, but in a way that everyone could get behind?

6:03Stay true to who you are. I had many a night thinking, do I need to act this way? Do I need to do that? How do I need to act now? And then overnight, I just decided I just need to be me. With what I was doing, I wanted to put right what I got wrong as a player. I had a number of challenges as a player that didn't really sort of come off for whatever reason. I just wanted to put right what I got wrong. I knew it needed to be in the elite environment. What do you think you got wrong as a player? Ego. Yeah, ego. Thought sometimes in certain situations thought that I was better than what I needed to be, but actually didn't grasp the situation.

6:41Decision making, not on the pitch, but off the pitch. And then kind of chased nothing. and then before you know it reality hit and then I had to grow up quickly overnight and then that was a that was the epiphany moment where right okay I need to grow up this isn't this isn't the way it's working out I need to go and make me as a person but also make me as a professional that's a hard piece of self-reflection to to actually go through let alone put it into practice but it's honest and at the time I wasn't being honest with me but I wouldn't change any anything You know, I spent six months at Grimsby.

7:15Managers coming and going. They didn't even know I was at the sometimes. It was freezing cold. And I remember putting 50p in the phone box. And I rung my dad. And I said, Dad, I'm coming home. And he was like, no, no, what are you doing? Stay there. You've done everything to get there. And, you know, it's going to work out. Be strong. What are you doing? I was like, no, I'm coming home. And two days later, I was on a building site. My dad had a plumbing company. So two days later, I was cleaning toilets and smashing up bathrooms with my dad. And then six months later, he sacked me. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

7:52Your dad sacked you? Yeah. For the same issues that you just described that you had as a player? And was that your moment then? Yeah, that was it. All these pieces, these bits were just adding to the fuel in your belly. I was intelligent enough to know that it's just a wage. It's not going to set me up for life. I need to do something bigger and better if I'm to fulfil me. I want to represent something bigger and better than playing. And I think that moment, I didn't know that then, but I reflect on it now. And all those moments within the journey, I now sort of summarise that. That, yeah, this is what I was meant to be doing.

8:28So you found a place that you've been for, what, 12, 13 years. What's special about Bromley? Why has this been the place you've felt happiest that you've chosen to be a part of for such a long time? in so many different capacities. Community. It epitomises the word community, embodies community. Everything from the top to bottom. It's such a special place and within a special borough. But it's taken a lot of blood and guts to get to where we are. We're only just beginning, just getting going. Do you have to be careful when you go from non-league football into the football league that you don't lose any of those core qualities?

9:09Yeah, that's the important part. What are the biggest changes? Regulations, governance, FFP, the demand, the pressure, the tasks for each department now have increased, but yet the bandwidth of the individual might not dovetail with those demands. now you are here you have to stay there's no looking down there's no looking back you have to stay and it's not just about staying it's now embedding what we've built and slowly becoming an established EFL club but that's the beauty of the new part the new vision So last year you finished 11th you then come into let's say the pre-season that we've just had do you sit down and have a conversation with the team as in the management staff, the players you set expectations from the owner, the chief executive into the manager, how important is it that everyone sings from that same hymn sheet?

10:02The expectations are set from the owner. We've got a wonderful triangle. It's a unique triangle between the owner, myself and the manager. But also the manager, he's a serial winner. He's ambitious. And those expectations are with him as well. And they're all aligned between the three of us. And then that just is filtered throughout the club. But I also say that the back office has to be in front of what goes on on the pitch. Because I've always found that in football that the back office or what goes off the pitch is always chasing on the pitch. But I think you need to have it the other way round.

10:36If you're chasing what's going on the pitch, you're always playing catch up. If the back office is on the front foot, prepared, the aims, the objectives, the KPIs, everything's set. Everybody knows what they're doing. and the first team then have something to represent and they all know what they're working towards. So if I ask you what the goals now of the club are, how do you define them? What are the targets? First target would be promotion, which is bold. Then it would be playoffs and then it would be finish above 11th. So continual improvement. Continual improvement. We have to. How are the fans with it?

11:10How are the fans with this journey? It's always an interesting one because with success comes expectation. Yeah. And if you achieve beyond where that expectation was initially, it sets a new level of expectation. Even if it's somewhere that you maybe shouldn't have been in the first place. Do they really buy into this collectively? Do they understand how this has come about? Do they understand the realities of change within the systems that you play in? And to really give you the chance to succeed, there's a patience that inevitably has to be there. There's a patience, but there's also the adventure.

11:41All of us collectively, like I said, with the community, we're all part of the adventure. and the adventure is we don't know what is in front of us. It's down to us to go and make it happen and that's the beauty of Bromley Football Club. We're not like Manchester United who are comparing themselves to what Alex Ferguson did and everybody that comes through the door, it's unattainable at the moment. Whereas between the owner, myself and Andy Woodman, the future is for us to go and build, create and make and we've got nothing to compare against because it's for us to go and deliver on, which is part of the adventure and the excitement and the curiosity and the risk and the challenge.

12:24But that's us as three individuals and Anthony now who's invested. This is often set from the top. We talk about ownership a lot on the show. It's a hot topic in the sport always. Unfortunately, there are lots of stories in and around where there's problems with ownerships and the impact that has on clubs are huge. but when things go right generally you look at the the clubs where it's going right in and it starts with the ownership it's because you've got a great person or people at the top with the interest of both the business of the club and the fans at the heart of it what i love about what it looks like you have is you have robin a local bromley person passionate about the club and now also you've had an injection of money from u.s side that i would imagine is bringing something slightly different but tell us a little bit about that balance between the ownership and you the executive and how it's been impacted by the recent investment as well robin invested in into the club and for all of his fortune it was for those for those reasons he's from bromley he went to the the ravensbourne school which we've got a partnership with now through our education scheme which is quite sentimental to him and the club and then he had a dream and a vision that he wanted to take Bromley Football Club into the Football League and we've humbly achieved that but he sets the tone, pushes me, bashes me over the head which I love and it does set the tone and it inspires and motivates others because we are on that journey, we are building the vision.

14:00He's invested in the infrastructure, everything we have is on site So we have classrooms, analysis suite, ice baths, gym, offices, manager's office. We have a restaurant. We have the first team players lounge. We have, you know, table tennis pool. We call it the football wall room where all the departments come together and analyse, evaluate, target set. So everybody is together. And that's where it embodies the community of Romley Football Club. We're at a pinch point at the moment. We're looking at areas where we can sort of develop and grow as a club. but we don't want to lose the principle of all of us being together because if Andy Woodman wins, we all win.

14:40If we lose, we lose and learn and we're all behind everything that goes on the pitch. Hayes Lane, you own? Yeah, Robin owns the stadium. He's the sole owner. How do you look at developing that infrastructure as part of the growth of the club? Is this an investment that you see as critical to taking you or continuing to take you on that journey to become continually more sophisticated, better at everything that you do? We need to because we need to increase the capacity. When you increase the capacity, that then travels over onto your FFP, which gives Andy more money to spend on players or a budget.

15:14So we're developing the East Stand. That will take us to 6 ,000. And then in the future, we're looking to develop the North Stand and then hopefully within three to five years, develop the West Stand. So we're going to transform from a ground into a stadium. And you hear the stories such as, you know, we joke about sometimes in the boardroom about hashtag Bournemouth or hashtag Luton or you look at Lincoln. Lincoln were playing in the National League and then look at their rise. So it can be done but there's a lot of work going on in the background at the moment that can support that sustainability.

15:46We touched on the financial differences of competing in non-league and then moving into the league. How has that impacted you from a revenue perspective, the budgeting in the context of the league that you set? We're in the bottom tier for our budget. But Robin has always set the tone from the top, there's a discipline. And I was only having this conversation with the captain the other week about the discipline of not being overzealous with spending or being frivolous with how we go about it. There must be a discipline. But also from my sort of leadership or management behind that is sometimes if you tell staff or players or certain people within the club that we can't afford that or we don't have the money, that can be demotivating.

16:29So I've had to figure out that how do you keep people motivated when we don't have the money or the resources to spend on certain things, but keep them on track with what we're driving. It's interesting because when we've had particularly executives towards, shall we say, League One, League Two, they talk about the revenues and the budgets that come out of that and say, you can almost guarantee that it correlates with your performance. How much you can spend in a table quite often means where you finish in the table because your ability to spend on the players, on the infrastructure, on everything around the club directly impacts your position in the table.

17:08Yeah, it does. A huge it does. I think one of the most, the biggest cost or revenue drain is headcount. and the more that comes with success, you're going to need more, which means headcount. But I'm trying to keep a control and a balance on that and be clever and creative how we go about it. But we've got a unique setup with what we've got. So we've got the first team, we have the B team, and then we have the under-21s. And the difference between the under-21s and the B team is the under-21s are students. So they're studying a qualification. They're not signed footballers. But the B team are signed footballers, but they're fused together.

17:43So it's a sort of a platform for development. And then we have the under-18s. Now, the under-18s is separated between the college and education scheme in the EFL squad. But we have 20 science scholars, but then we also have non-scholars that come out of the education scheme that can train and develop with the scholars. And again, because of my understanding of player development and player pathway, and people develop at different times, our setup allows those developments to take place. And we had, I'll give you some case studies, we had a player that didn't get an EFL scholar but stayed in the education scheme.

18:21He developed at such a different rate. Within six months, he showed the promise. He then leapfrogged the EFL scheme and then we signed him straight to professional forms. Now, without our platform or our environment, we don't have that. We miss that opportunity. And then below that, we've got 350 students that are studying on an education scheme. I love the education piece. It's something we talk about all the time. Athletes who have to make a decision between going professional and hitting the heights of sport versus the sacrifice they have to make from being able to finish a degree. Well, finish school, not even get a degree.

18:58Absolutely. So the importance and even just the opportunity to do that while being part of a football club is so rare. Why has it been so important to you and how have you been able to take that mantle and actually run with it as a club where you create a system where young people can both complete an education and be a professional footballer? Well, only 0.777 % make it. I think that's the stat. So I think there's only 4 ,000 jobs. When you think about the ratio between the people that play football to the amount of jobs there are, everybody's fighting for such limited positions. And there's also different age groups.

19:37It's not to say that somebody that gets through the system at 16 and 18 and 21, they're going to go on to make it. So my passion and burning desire was to build an academy that catered for those students and players that are not going to make it. and we conceptualised the mantra of being a professional in football. So I don't tell a parent or a player that you're coming to Bromley Football Club to be a professional footballer. You're coming to be a professional in football. That's the first principle of what we do. I love that. Can you explain it? Everything that we do is professional. So it's elite.

20:12You don't need to play in the Premier League to have a Premier League mindset. Now, I've taken that from somebody else, but it's so true because if you think about the amount of jobs and the amount of positions that are within the Premier League, but there are so many elite minds that are out there and they do not get the opportunity, whereas they'll get the opportunity at Bromley Football Club. If you're not going to be a professional footballer, then you're going to be a professional teacher, you're going to be a professional physio, a professional analyst, a professional coach, a professional sports therapist.

20:44We provide all of those career destination pathways ways that underpin the industry of football. But every kid that comes, every young adult that comes and sets out on that football journey, they believe and they have to believe that they are going to become a professional footballer. Absolutely. So you want to balance the two, right? But we give them the honesty and the transparency from the outset. This is why you're joining Bromley Football Club. Now, the 1 % will always, or the ones that are going to get through, they're going to get through. There's also an opportunity for those that might be missed, that might show those characteristics at an early stage, but they might not be ready for professional football, but they can still take the time and the patience and progress over time within our environment and still get to the destination.

21:29The ones that might get there quick, they might fall off, but they can still have a career in professional football. Rather than it being cutthroat, unfortunately, we're not going to sign you. They've still got a career within Bromley Football Club if they wanted to. so the player care and the life skills are still being considered and catered for for all of our players. It's lovely in theory. How do you set it up? What do you have to do to actually make this a reality? We're 10 years in now and it started from 30 players and three staff. We've now got 47 staff and 350 players. We've got three pillars of development so we've got grassroots, we've got the Saturday JPL section which is sort of like the conduit or the bridge between grassroots and academy or youth academy and then we've got the EFL pillar but the other part of that strategy was that how do we increase not just the performance and bringing the players through because the important part is also to bring academy players through to the first team we have to do that we have to have a talent pipeline because that obviously influences the budget but also we need to sell players, which we are a selling club.

22:42And I'll come on to those case studies in a moment. Whilst that was happening simultaneously, we were growing a fan base because I don't think there's any football club in the country that allows, or sorry, I say allow, but they have a youth section that play in the kit on a Sunday in grassroots. So the idea was that we could have a thousand kids pulling on the Bromley shirt on a Sunday because we're trying to compete with Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham, Tottenham, Crystal Palace, all those huge Premier League clubs which in the borough of Bromley, all the parents are season ticket holders too, but they come to watch us as a secondary option.

23:22We're a side dish. So we had to make the perception of the parent or the player that we have to be a main dish. How did we do that? Well, one of the points or within the strategy was to influence grassroots football. So we have a thousand kids pull on the Bromley kit every Sunday. We've got 58 teams and whether their primary club is Chelsea or Tottenham or Crystal Palace, they're pulling on the Bromley shirt. So subconsciously, they're putting on the Bromley badge and they're performing across the southern region in grassroots level. It also influences our recruitment because within those 58 teams, we've now got a handle on the talent pathway and the talent ID that comes through South London and the neighbouring Kent boroughs.

24:05Tell me the cost of doing this though. How as a business are you able to support it? I'd imagine that's a lot of strain on resources when you have 58 teams going out there. How are you financing this and creating that opportunity while still living within the means of the broader club business? We don't finance it. The parents do. So the parents pay subscriptions. So it's just run like you could have Elite FC or Level 7 FC or you know ballers FC but the model is the parents pay the subscriptions that then influences the grassroots or the youth section P &L and then that pays the club the rent for the pitches and it's you know it's a seamless subsidiary to to what we do on the bigger scale of the club you touched on the importance of having a business model that also can trade on talent and creating players capable of making it hopefully at higher levels where you can and support the business model on that it's become more important than ever it's the primary way that a lot of clubs now can live within the means of the system is selling some of the top talent how's it been for you when you've got this incredible you set up have you seen the club create far more opportunities for you as a business to be able to trade in that way because you've got such a strong system at youth level but it's also a balance as well i'd imagine because you want to make sure that some make it through the team the best ones actually get to play for bromley perform at the highest level for you Yes, you're spot on.

25:28It's finding the balance. We've sold four players in the previous four seasons. One of them now plays four. It's a great story. We were paying him£50 a week at 17 and he actually started against Southend away and he was really slight. Such an amazing talent and Andy Woodham, trusted, played him. we won 1-0 against Southend and Kellan Fisher went on from there we sold him to Norwich and he's now he's a regular in Norwich and I've heard that he might be going to a Premier League club but he's also an England under 20 and just to think that three years ago we were paying him£50 a week he was studying a PT qualification and you know you look at what he can do it's just exceptional and I believe we've got a pipeline now coming that is going to be formidable.

26:23We've got 13 players right now out on loan and what part of the strategy is we get them in, get them up and get them out. For example, if an 18-year-old is still learning to play out from the back at academy football, he's not going to be learning the real moments of men's football. We have a mantra that if they're ready at 17, we want to get them out into non-league and semi-professional football to learn what real-life football is all about because it's only going to prepare them for the trajectory of where the football club's going. How are the fans with a strategy like that? Do they buy into this model?

26:58Do they support you and the structures that you've implemented to allow these players to, I don't want to say a stepping stone, but to be able to use the system that Bromley's provided to hit heights? Yeah, I believe so. I think the supporters have bought into this more than ever because they love their own. And we've created the environment and the perception of our players coming through and when they do make their debuts, that you really see an enthusiasm and an appetite for one of our own coming through and being placed into the first team setting. They really embrace it. How much the finances of the club rely on what we call the football lottery, i.e.

27:43the things that you can't necessarily guarantee or budget for at the start of the year, but say one of your young players performs exceedingly well and is bought for one million by a championship team. An amazing injection of cash into the club, but an injection that you wouldn't be able to forecast at the start of the year. But it comes down to the education. So the investment is within the academy. The staff model is critical with this. It's not so much the players, it's the staff model. And I believe that what we've got in place and what we're building is the best coach has to be the under-18s.

28:17The best coach at the football club has to be the under-18s coach. Not manager or how to win three points, but he has to be the best coach. The next step up has to be the iron fist because they're going to prepare that person. He's going to prepare them for the manager and the exposure to what three points and the first team environments has to be. Those are two key critical ingredients and principles for the thread of development. The other part is the under 14s coach. Some people have questioned me. Why do you find that more than the under 16s? because the under-14s are preparing them for that, but they're going to go through an eclectic mix of changing physicality, testosterone growth, GCSEs, home life, travel, and also the pivotal point of am I going to get a contract or not?

29:06Or where does the next stage take me? So it's key. So the under-14s coach has to prepare them mentally for those next steps in their journey. Do you see other clubs looking at you and trying to do similar things? I don't know because I've never compared. I've never looked outside and thought we need to be like them. We need to get closer to them, but it's what we've built within will always be the important part. Like I said with the staff model, we've built a culture that is based on good people. The principles of are you a good person? Because if you're a good person, you're going to be good to your provision, your practice, but also to the person.