Non-League and Academy football writer

Harinder Sanghera is the chairman and founder of Essex Alliance Football League Premier Division East side Kit Out London FC. Founded in 2020, Kit Out London’s men’s senior team currently play their football at step 8 (the Essex Alliance Premier Division East) of the non-League system. However, last season Kit Out London were playing at step 7, in the Essex Alliance Football Senior Division. I recently had the pleasure of speaking to the club’s founder and chairman, Harinder Sanghera, about Kit Out London.

Could you talk me through a bit about your background in football?

Harinder: I wouldn’t say that I’ve specifically got a background in football as such, but I’ve just always enjoyed playing football, to be honest. Football is a release for me and an opportunity to get out and about. When I was younger we used to play in these football tournaments, up in the Midlands. Even now a lot of my mates are those who I’ve met from playing football with back then. And for me football has always been about the social side of it, and I never had any interest in trying to make it as a professional. The closest that I ever came to that, was being picked (from one of these tournaments) to play against Millwall’s Academy. But football for me has always been a way of life.

Before the Essex Alliance Football League existed, there used to be the Essex Business House League. I played in that for teams like Ilford District, but I also used to play for my uncle’s club, East Ham Inter, as well. 

Would you be able to talk me through how the idea of starting the club (Kit Out London) came about? 

Harinder: So to be honest I’d always wanted to start my own club up, and I had been a part of other clubs in the past, such as East Ham Inter, with it being my uncle’s club. I’d quit playing football in my 20s, and I only started playing again in my late 20s. When I returned, we started to try to improve East Ham Inter, and also bring in a new manager and also just start to get us back in to being a Saturday side, rather than just a Sunday side. After things didn’t really work out as hoped with East Ham Inter, I’d pretty much had enough, and so I folded the club, because by then it was just me and a mate running the club. However, before all this I actually started a printing company, called Kit Out London. So I was doing t-shirts, hoodies, etc. So that was meant to be a sports brand, but as we came out of Covid, having had a bit of break from football, I had the idea of bringing this printing company and football together.

Fundamentally the printing company was to try and celebrate the diversity of London. Because when you’re customising clothing, you are bringing in a lot of ideas from different cultures, and so it was all about celebrating that. So I decided to form the club (Kit Out London FC), and so although the printing company had died off, the club was born. I always wanted to run a football club that was organic to me, and also do things how I wanted to do them, rather than always having people above me. So in 2020 we were initially going to start Kit Out London as a Sunday side, and then work our way into Saturday football. So after some of the lads had joined the club, including someone who’d played academy football out in Morocco, and also played youth international football over there, he would go onto invite some of his friends down to the club. And so in the end everyone wanted to play Saturday football.

We tried to start off as a new entity, but as the Essex Alliance Football League already knew me, they were trying to push us up a bit higher up the divisions. We started off in division one, and we did really well. With that season ending early, the league put us up as champions, and then put us in a cup-final against DT FC (now known as Cannons Wood), and we only lost that final 2-1. Off the back of that we were now playing premier/senior division football. I always wanted to build the youth football side of the club up, as to me the only way that you can build a sustainable senior club, is if you’ve got youth teams as part of the club. We started off with only a handful of youth players at Kit Out London. But at present we’ve got about 150 youth players at the club, over the different youth teams. My main focus over the last year and a half has been to really cultivate and grow a youth section at the club, to then have a pathway into our senior team.

At Kit Out London, we’re not out here trying to sell a dream to people that we’re going to help make youth players into professional footballers. For me it’s about letting those youth players enjoy that whole footballing journey that they are on. So we’re very honest to the youth players. 

Could you talk me through a bit about the club (Kit Out London) since it was founded in 2020?

Harinder: So as a club we have the men’s side, which we started at the beginning, and then we have our several youth sides, but we also want to start a Sunday side again, and also start a vets team, as well. We’re more than half way there, in terms of really growing the youth section of the club. Our plan with the men’s team over five to six years, was to reach step 5, but we’re not that much closer to that aim at this moment in time. We wanted to acquire a facility for the club on a longterm basis, because that’s the only way that a club can be sustainable. But it’s very difficult to acquire a facility for your club. We are pushing on with the club, and the various sections of it. Our men’s team are at Parsloes Park for this coming season, but we’ve got to see in the near future whether our aims of going up the leagues, and with acquiring a facility, are achievable.

Every club has a plan, but you’ve got to be focused 24 hours a day, to achieve your goals. After last season (2023/24) in the senior division and being relegated from that division, I didn’t even know this season whether we’d be able to put a men’s side out in the league. Because I wanted to look at a more sustainable way of keeping the club going, such as investing more in the youth teams, or in a college team.

What are some of your standout footballing memories (so far) of Kit Out London FC?

Harinder: I’d say that our first season in the Essex Alliance Football League was definitely one. It was a bit of a rush, but then all of a sudden we had all of these phenomenal players at the club, and we just really had to turn up against the other sides, and we’d just win games. Also, really building up the youth section of the club is another real highlight for me. When we had our end of season awards for the club’s youth teams, there was about 200-300 people there. Also, the cup-final game with DT FC, that was a really good occasion for the club and the players. The last four years of the club have been hard work, but it is what it says it is, and we are where we are because of that.

What are some of your thoughts ahead of the new 2024/25 Essex Alliance Football League Premier Division East season?

Harinder: To be honest it’s just another season for me. Things aren’t really going to change, apart from the amount of league games that we’ll be playing this season, with there being less teams in the divisions at step 8. What I’ve said to the senior side for this season, is if you can make a go of it then do it, if not then I’ll probably be looking at the best strategic way to use the resources of the club. And by that I mean creating an Under 21/18 side for the club, because I think that could be better and more productive for the club, rather than a senior side, where everyone wants to play as high up as possible. And the problem with that is that there’s no point moving up to a step 5 or 6 side, if you’re not actually going to play for them. We will get behind the senior team and see what happens, and although winning promotion back to the senior division would be nice, it’s not an expectation.

The stability and growth of the club is very important to me, and I’m hoping to see some of our youth players make their way into the senior teams, over the next couple of years.

What are some of your hopes for the future for Kit Out London?

Harinder: So the above answer is basically that. We’ve started doing some outreach work with the council, with young people in the local community. So if we can start reaching out and building a social enterprise with the club and local community, with regard to the printing side of the club, that would be really good. So I just want to continue that sustained growth of Kit Out London, which will hopefully see more people become a part of the club. Also, if we can acquire that longterm facility, then that would be very important to give us our own space, as a club.