Friday Freebie: Growth is natural, sustaining it is something else

2023 might nearly be done but 2024 has lots to look forward to

Welcome to the Friday Freebie, this is the free post coming at you every Friday as a taster of what you can find behind the paywall. Please feel free to share these posts far and wide, there’s something for both paid and free subscribers to my site.

If you like what you see and enjoy what you read please consider becoming a paid subscriber for just £5 a month (£1.16 per week) which gets you 8 paid for blogs as a minimum and the 4 free ones also, not bad for your money!

Or if you prefer subscribe annually which works out cheaper at £4 a month or 93p a week, just an absolute bargain especially adding in the relaunched ‘Trev Talks’ podcast, no price rises, no inflation, just great non-league content.

Why not take advantage of the Xmas offer linked below where you can enjoy 20% off for 12 months, that’s £4 a month or £36.80 for the year, staggering value and the perfect late present for the non-league football fan you know available until 2^nd January.

This is the last Freebie of the year, a year of growth once again. If you stand still too long then you stagnate so I always set myself targets to be in a better position after each 12 months pass.

This year is no different. Alongside this blog is of course the ‘Trev Talks’ podcast, relaunched this year and averaging over 100 downloads per episode. There is also on the same Substack platform ‘So you wouldn’t believe what happened at Barnet FC’, a free blog from trevorknell.substack.com which has over 200 subscribers and generally keeps www.footballwriting.co.uk diverse with the odd Bees article thrown in the mix.

The Freebie itself has been a huge hit, they provoke reaction and comment just as they are designed to do, but what it does do is give every subscriber something whether they are free or paying customers.

The subscription numbers have stayed steady for those paying although they have risen from 30 close to 50, total subscribers rising to over 700 across the site, this time last year I was sitting at under 400 total.

The programme column service I offer any non-league club has doubled this season and currently six clubs from the National League down to Step 6 have individual and unique columns every home matchday programme they produce.

No column has the same topic nor the same words no matter how many are at home on a given matchday, again more growth along the lines of everything else above.

So, what am I looking for in 2024? Well, there are some plans beginning to bear fruit that would mean my targets jumping levels and everything football wise would really start to take off.

Nothing would change in terms of what is offered, more time to devote to even better quality work is the way forward. It would also give opportunity to branch out into more coverage in certain areas of the game and that would just be the beginning.

Simple targets however would be to double the amount of all subscribers for both this site and the Bees blog, there is enough scope to do so. Ensure the podcast keeps it’s growth, there are no end of people wanting to record, it’s all about finding the right guests at the right moment and the time to record, all of these plans should allow everything to fall into place over the coming 12 months.

As we head into a New Year I would like to thank all of you for your support as a free subscriber, as a paid subscriber, as someone who shares the posts around or listening to the podcast and interacting as these posts go up.

Non-league football is the beautiful, pure in places, side of the game in a world where the top level continue to detach themselves from us, the paying public unless you want to watch the game constantly from your sofa.

Make a resolution to persuade an extra person to take in a game with you, it’s better live than on the TV screen, there’s no VAR, you aren’t just a number and your pound notes are greatly appreciated, and while you’re at it, give www.footballwriting.co.uk a little mention to them, be rude not to……..