Ben Edwards Football

Bridlington Town play in the Northern Premier League East Division and are my local team. My journey took me from mascot to ball boy, to social media manager and volunteer coordinator – with a spell as club secretary thrown in as well.

I started going to watch the team when I was about four. My dad was the sports reporter for the local newspaper and used to cover The Seasiders every week. The club let me be the mascot a few times and I led the team out on to the pitch at Queensgate.

As I got older, I was ballboy, standing out in all weathers and getting a close-up view of the action

When football resumed after the pandemic, I got involved much more with the club. I volunteered to improve Brid’s social media output. I started Tweeting live updates during home games and things took off from there. I designed a range of graphics for goals, substitutions, starting line-ups and more.

As I built up my skills, I posted regularly to promote games, to try to increase attendances and generate more money for the club. I started to travel to award games more and began doing video interviews with players and managers.

I wrote match previews and reports for local newspapers and the club website. My work was published each week in the Bridlington Free Press, the Hull Daily Mail, and the national Non-League Paper, as well as in the monthly Bridlington Echo.

In the 2022-23 season, I took over as interim club secretary for a month while the secretary was out of the country. This involved liaising with the match officials on matchdays, completing all the necessary paperwork and even registering transfers. I was only 16, when I officially registered the signing of two players aged 17 and 18 from York City – it must have been the youngest transfer in non-league history!

By 2023-24, I had passed my driving test and was travelling to all away games and was in the dugout every week, alongside the management team. I also acted as kitman, transporting kit and equipment to the away games and travelled hundreds of miles with Bridlington Town.

This was on top of my social media work and other commitments, and for home games, I took over as volunteer coordinator, making sure we had someone in place for all of the jobs – programme sales, raffle sales and other essential jobs. I also wrote a column for the matchday programme each week.