Giving 30 years of grassroots football the platform it deserved.
The situation
Pickwick Youth FC has been part of Portsmouth's sporting fabric since 1992. With over 20 teams, around 200 players each season, and FA Charter Standard status, the club was one of the city's most established grassroots outfits. But none of that was visible online. There was no website, no central place for parents to find information, nowhere for prospective players to make enquiries, or for sponsors to understand what they were supporting.
A club that had spent three decades building a community had nothing to show for it the moment someone searched for them.
The challenge
Starting from scratch meant no existing content and no established visual identity to build from. The site needed to work hard on multiple fronts at once: communicate the scale and credibility of the club, make it easy for families to find their way in, give sponsors proper visibility, and be simple enough for a volunteer-run organisation to manage without ongoing agency support.
With no digital footprint to speak of, the stakes were high. A generic solution wouldn't cut it.
Our approach
We started by understanding what Pickwick actually was, its history, its structure, its values, and built the content and design framework around that. Rather than a generic sports template, we designed something that reflected the club's specific character: community-rooted, long-standing, and serious about developing young players at every level.
Every page was structured to guide the right person to the right information quickly, whether that's a parent looking to sign up their child, a local business weighing up a sponsorship, or a family wanting to follow a specific team across a season.
The solution
We delivered a fully designed and built website from the ground up. A clean, structured site that brings together the club's teams, history, sponsors, and news in one place. Built to be maintained by volunteers without needing a developer. Designed to give Pickwick a professional presence that finally matches the reputation they've earned on the pitch over three decades.
The results
The impact was immediate. In their first season with the site live, Pickwick received over 100 player enquiries, the kind of volume that's only possible when people can actually find you.
The Nursery Training Squad, which feeds players into the wider club, grew from an average of 10 players per week to 25. That growth in revenue has since been reinvested into new kit, equipment and the maintenance of their playing grounds.
Rollo's support in building our new website has been integral for the growth of the club. Notably, our player enquiries have increased massively and allowed us to add to existing teams as well as create new ones. Our Nursery Training Squad, which feeds teams into the club and allows for consistent growth, has grown from an average of 10 players a week to 25. We have invested this new revenue into new kit, equipment and maintenance of our playing grounds.