Lewes FC: grabbing equality by the balls

Have you heard the one about the football club with lots of owners, beach huts, a vegetable garden and equal pay for women? asks Karen Dobres.

That’s right – it’s no joke – and it’s the award-winning Dripping Pan, home of the pioneering Lewes FC.

Did I say owners? Well, yes, there are currently 2,400 of them and rising, in 40 countries around the world. Each owner pays £50 or £100 a year for a single share in the club, which buys them a vote to elect the board as well as the chance to stand for the board in the annual elections. The renewal rate for these yearly subscriptions is an incredible 97% – so those exclusive perks, special offers, Owners App, and virtual town halls for Lewes FC’s many owners must be working.

Lewes is a football club that does things very differently: its mission as a collective is ‘to use football as an engine for social change’. In fact, Lewes supporters are known as ‘#Fans of Change’. The club is seen by its owners and directors as a ‘sacred community asset’, accessible to its whole community and with an agenda to create value for that community, whether its local, global, or the community of interest – i.e. football itself. We believe that we can do things differently.

Aware of the global language of the sport, its huge influence over hearts and minds the world over, and its resulting potential to impact the world, the club launched ‘Equality FC’ in July 2107. It became the first pro or semi-pro club in the world (and is still the only one) to value, resource and pay its women’s team equally to its men’s team, so creating international headlines in an instant.

Change is a hard road to travel. It would be easier to accept things as they are and put up with football’s wallpaper of sexism, homophobia, and racism, and leave the ground to the blokey-blokes to beat their chests and abuse the ref. But Lewes FC is made of strong, determined stuff and grabs the chance to show the world what is possible when you treat people fairly and include and look after them. If sponsors would like to help us in our pioneering efforts to shift culture forward, please get in touch. We’re always looking for fellow travellers.

The club has a female CEO, a female Sporting Director, as well as a good supply of women on the board. Overt ED&I at Lewes has helped business. After the introduction of gender equality the women’s home attendances quadrupled in just two seasons. Equality doesn’t mean doing everything exactly the same, but recognising the differences and accommodating them (the men’s team wear white shorts but the women changed to black a couple of seasons ago – an easy win). The women’s team won a grant for a state of the art grass hybrid pitch, and the men are delighted about it. One of the pitch perimeter boards proudly states ‘Equality is A Rising Tide That Lifts All Our Boats’.

As part of its campaigning initiatives Lewes FC has a network of ‘Sisterships’ – organisations that empower women and/or girls in some way, with which the club enjoys bespoke and mutually supportive relationships. From designing leadership courses for females in Sussex Police, to working with Survivors Network on Lewes FC Men’s #CallHimOut campaign (the players have sparked a movement to actively call out misogyny and sexism in themselves and others), this club does everything it can to welcome ‘unwelcome women’ to its ground, and create an atmosphere which everyone can safely enjoy.

If this sounds like something you’d like to be part of, become an owner. And if you’d like to play an active role in assisting the club in its mission, have a chat with Stef@lewesfc.com about sponsorship: we need as many people as possible on board to fulfil our mission and change the way women are perceived in the world through football.

And, finally, if it sounds like something you’d like to see in action – come to a game! Lewes take on Coventry in the FA Women’s Championship on Sunday 2nd April at 2pm. There’s a pre-match choir singing, loaded fries, oat milk for your tea, Prosecco on tap in the bar, and an 8-foot-high statue of 18th Century female pirates by the chip hut. You won’t be disappointed.

Karen Dobres, Board Advisor, Lewes FC.

www.lewesfc.com