Brothers Rafa and Stefano Petruzzo became the new owners of Hampton & Richmond Borough FC in December 2022, with the club in a precarious financial position and the prospect of relegation a serious threat.

Fast forward to April 2023 and the Beavers have all but secured their Vanarama National League Status with a feel-good factor comfortably reaffirmed back at the club.

Rafael, half of the brother duo at Hampton & Richmond FC, shares his thoughts on a season to remember and how the only way is up for the Richmond-based club.

By Rafael Petruzzo

We are officially safe! 

Over 3 months ago, with the backing of an enlightened and cross-industry investor group, my brother Stefano Petruzzo and I took over a club that was facing a critical financial situation and a downward spiral of relegation doom. 

Our strategy was straightforward - deploy all of our combined experience in corporate transformation and demonstrate to the world that you can build a sustainable, community-first and youth led football business. 

A lot of people said we were mad for going into football, and admittedly the first couple of weeks weren't as smooth as I had expected. 

The first thing I realised was that my persona would inevitably become more public which led to increased aggro from the traditionalists that would have preferred their club to be relegated than actually embrace positive growth and transformation.

In fact, I've always considered myself as a strong character, after all, my idea of fun is risking my life either by jumping out of a plane or going into extreme expeditions to the heart of darkness. However, the unexpected resistance and vitriol coming from a minority of detractors started impacting my mental health and for the first time in my recent history I started allowing thoughts of doubt into my mind. 

That's when I realised that I could pull on my previous experiences to march on and focus on the objective; if I survived the Congolese jungle, I can certainly survive this. So what did we do? 

We focused on culture and community, in its truest sense of the word. In less than three months we proved a lot of people wrong by focusing on youth and family experiences. We recruited a world class football manager, Mel Gwinnett, who was aligned with our values and wholeheartedly bought in to the project. 

A happy team is a winning team

We then recruited young and motivated professionals that believed in the vision whilst embracing the unique opportunity for them. We deployed clear values and embedded them across all areas of the club. 

We welcomed and encouraged families to come to our matches, including initiatives such as U16s coming in for free. And proved to everybody that youth can operate just as well adults if given the right structure and mentorship; if you come to one of our matches you will see that 80% of our match day operations from turnstiles to club shop are managed by our academy students that are empowered to do their job and get paid well above the minimum for their age group. 

Hampton & Richmond Borough FC adopt Ted Lasso's mantra of BELIEVE

We also made our club a platform for community businesses; our food is now provided by a local Turkish restaurant which adds diversity and relevance to a Club that was historically and predominantly white and middle aged. We recruit local musicians and artists to provide entertainment and engage with fans personally; we focus on local youth and community constituents for any work available. 

Crucially, we are building a positive culture that embraces change and promotes diversity of creed, thought and action. So what's the lesson? Remain undaunted and focus on the objective, and always remember that culture eats strategy for breakfast.

David Fisher scoring the final goal against Dover

A very strong sense of gratitude goes towards HRH Prince of Wales and to our investors who have made this possible. Without their backing and funding we couldn't have delivered such rapid transformation.

We couldn't have achieved this without the backing of all the Hampton & Richmond community, not least the HRBFC Supporters' Trust for the stewardship and support in everyday operations.

We now look forward to our final match of the season (at home) on the 29th of April and celebrate our collective achievement with the community!

A special thanks goes to our fantastic team:

Steven HRBFC Academy Manager - legendary academy manager and assistant first team manager

William King - your relentless enthusiasm and support with our youth teams

Sam Fung - the person that makes it all work in the background

Grace Zhewei Zhang - incredible filming and social media skills

Louis Fell - the best press officer and comms manager in the league

Julia Rosiak - most recent joiner that has dramatically improved match day experience

Karen Shortland - incredible drive for execution and delivery

Tom Garcia - for his personal commitment 24/7

Mark George - for his relentless media support and expertise

Charlotte Rance - for volunteering and mentoring our Academy lads

Louis Fell - Best commentary in the league.

Francois AA Mahop - for rapidly integrating and supporting our first team conditioning

Thom Lang - the best photographer in the League

Erol Umut - for his world class physio support

Stuart Higgins - for his invaluable perspective on the local community

Roderick Cain - for skilling us up with everything tech/agile/kan ban

Our incredible sponsors who believed in us from the beginning:

Chris Davies at Uncommon

Konstantinos Tampakakis at Amphitrite Underwriting Limited

James Garvey at Quarterback

Our lawyers Jamie Goldberg and Simon Davers Geldards LLP and our CFO Ben Korklin at Lawrence Grant LLP

Existing staff club chairman and vice-chairman Jacques Le Bars and Ben Hudson, FCIPD who have helped us and continue to do so in navigating the waters of non-league football.

And special appreciation goes to our collaborators and mentors, Paul Tisdale, Luis Vicente, and Michael Broughton; without a doubt leading experts in the business of football from whom we learn everyday.

Paul Tisdale - World Class Football Operator

And last but not least our investors led by the chairman of our investment vehicle, Scott Forbes - without you this would not have happened. 

Thank You.