Durham Women, the second-tier outsiders now backed by lottery winners

There is an old saying and it goes something like this: how do you make a small fortune in football? Frances Connolly is familiar with this particular cliche and she supplies the punchline. “You start off with a big fortune, don’t you?” she asks and she is smiling. “Trust me, that’s not happening. The girls won’t be staying at the Ritz when they’re playing in London.”

The girls in question are Durham Women FC, who play in the Women’s Championship, the second tier of English football. The Connollys — Frances and her husband, Patrick — are, as of three months ago, directors and part-owners. They also happen to have won £115million ($153m) on the EuroMillions lottery in 2019, which, in one way, embodies a unique club’s rags-to-riches story and, in another, is wholly unrepresentative of its reality.

Durham Women remain the ultimate outsiders. Only two clubs in the top two divisions do not have an umbilical connection to a men’s team, with the identity and funding that goes with it. London City Lionesses are one, but they are owned and bankrolled by Michele Kang, the billionaire owner of Washington Spirit. Durham are the other and the two sides played out a 1-1 draw last weekend, but their history is quite different.

Back in 2006, Lee Sanders wanted somewhere for Brooke, his daughter, to play. Lacking other options, he established his own team. “We didn’t have anything,” he says. They now have designs on a place in the Women’s Super League (WSL) and plans for their own stadium. It is all of their own making.

Durham is a compact city in the north east of England, famous for its magnificent cathedral and historic university, which joined forces with Sanders’ South Durham & Cestria Girls in 2014 to form Durham Women. This gave the team access to first-rate student facilities, albeit with a tiny budget, and an opportunity to join what is now the Championship. In a football-obsessed region — home to Newcastle United, Sunderland and Middlesbrough — they were a new force, forever striving and battling.

In those early days, rival teams would travel to games in luxury coaches; Durham would pile into nine-seater minivans. Quite often, they would win. Back then, Sanders was the manager and pretty much everything else — he would print the names and numbers on players’ shirts — and what he didn’t do would be done by Dawn Hepple, the club secretary, who was with him from the start and whose daughter, Beth, played in midfield for the team.

That all three are still there, still integral, illustrates the kind of club Durham Women are. Ask Beth, the club’s record appearance-maker and goalscorer, what it stands for and she says “underdogs”. Sanders also chooses a canine-adjacent word: “dogged”. Dawn Hepple says “defiance”. For Mark Donnelly, the chief operating officer, it is “community”. Adam Furness, the head coach, says, “This is a club that will find a way.”

Adam Furness has been the full-time head coach of Durham since the start of the 2022-23 season (George Caulkin/The Athletic)

To have grown from nothing, to have carried on existing and, far more than that, to have thrived, is a triumph of dedication and innovation. As interest in the women’s games has soared, they have risen with it, turning full-time professional in the 2022-23 season. With (sensible) investment from the Connollys, Sanders and Hepple Sr took ownership of the club from the university in February, a logical step in progressing to the next level.

But let’s get one thing straight. “We won’t be doing that on our own,” Frances Connolly says. “We can’t. We don’t have that kind of money. We don’t have multi-millions to spend.” With one game left to play this season, Durham are fourth in the table — above Newcastle and Sunderland — which is an achievement itself given the competition, but to get to where they want to go, they will need more help, more investment, still doing things differently, but on a grander stage.

They are a tough, committed team, with other long-serving players alongside Beth Hepple. They have a small home pitch, where they crowd their opponents and get in their faces. By all accounts, they are a nightmare to play against.

“We’ve had to work really hard for everything we’ve got,” Sanders says. “We’ve never been able to say to an owner or a men’s club, ‘Can we have this or that next season?’. We’ve had to create everything for ourselves. We’re still doing that.” Sanders is now a director and the head of football, but on match day, he sits in the dugout and will “chuck my opinion in every now and again”. Dawn Hepple helps out in the club shop.

The day before we speak, Sanders was once again printing shirts.

Durham’s change of owner has not brought much in the way of material change. Not yet, anyway. As Connolly says, it’s not as if the team is being put up in five-star hotels, but a bit of cash was spent on “blankets for players to put on their knees on the bench because they were getting cold”. Beth Hepple says, “It’s not like an immediate, ‘Oh my god, we’re living in a different world now’, but it’s so exciting.”

Life for the players has been a whirlwind anyway. Three years ago, most were either students or had full-time jobs, juggling that with after-work training sessions, late nights and early starts after away fixtures. It meant sacrifice. Hepple, 28, was serving drinks at her partner’s pub-restaurant but now is a professional athlete. “You have time to relax and see family, which is total transformation,” she says. “In the first year, I didn’t know what to do with myself.”

This story is replicated across the women’s game in the top two divisions. Like everybody else, Durham have had to expand rapidly. “We employ pretty much 45 full-time staff and players now, which is a big jump from where we were,” Sanders says. The team have an analyst; training sessions are filmed and watched back.

They have been assisted by the university spending £35million on upgrading their sports facilities in Maiden Castle, which clings to the River Wear just outside the city centre. “We’ve got changing rooms, physio rooms, gyms, a pitch which is ours when we need it,” Sanders says. “The next part of the jigsaw is owning that ourselves.”

“Manchester United coming into our league in 2018 (they did not previously have a women’s side) was a game-changer,” Dawn Hepple says. “It put more eyeballs on the sport and big investment from a massive club like that raised everybody’s standards. Everybody just took a step back and thought, ‘Wow, we’re going to have to up our game here’.”

At other clubs, that might mean expanding budgets or allowing the women’s team to share men’s facilities or staff. Durham have never had that comfort blanket (or straitjacket). “There was always maybe a question of, ‘How are we going to keep up?’,” Beth Hepple says. “How do we compete with clubs that chucking millions of pounds a year at it? How, as a standalone club, can you physically do that?”

“It’s been a challenge we’ve all relished,” Donnelly says. “It’s made us think differently about recruitment, sponsorship, how we grow a fanbase. There have been moments of difficulty, like at any club, but that’s part of what makes it fun and satisfying to work here. When you get those wins, you understand how much work has gone into it.”

In any case, Sanders describes Durham’s independence as their “super-strength. We don’t have to cut through red tape to make decisions; we can be very agile”.

The increased involvement of the Connolly family allows Durham to look to the future. “It feels like business as usual,” Donnelly says, “except we’ve got that extra support from Patrick and Frances. If you look at what they do, they’re so passionate about the north east. Everyone looks at the EuroMillions, but they’re successful businesspeople and they’re great sounding boards to make sure we keep doing the right things.

“This was something we were always looking at because we knew the game was going this way. We recognised we needed to push on.”

Beth Hepple poses for a photo with Durham fans (Jess Hornby – The FA via Getty Images)

Having their own ground would be a game-changer; last month, the club announced a joint partnership with Durham Cricket to create “the UK’s first new stadium designed around the needs of the female athlete and fan” in Chester-le-Street. “That would be transformative because you’ve got an asset that can be used outside of training times,” Donnelly says. “The possibilities are endless.”

Beth Hepple blows out her cheeks. “To even think about us having our own facility, seeing where we started from 10 years ago, is mind-blowing,” she says. “It’s crazy. But it’s so motivating. You want to be part of that journey.”

“It’s exciting. Terrifying.” Dawn Hepple says. “It’s something that we need, strategically,” says Sanders. “And it’s something that’s needed for the female game in the area, for the grassroots community. There is a lack of sports facilities in County Durham for young people.”

“If you look closely at the stadium plans, you’ll see there’s space for (baby) buggies,” Connolly says. “That might seem like a little thing, but it says everything. We’re already thinking about what we can do for our team, our players, our fans. It’s still not exactly a family-friendly sport. We want this to be a family place that people can bring their children to and have a day out.”

More funding will be required. “We’ve had tremendous support from Patrick and Frances; they’ve given us the platform to open up and take on additional investment, which we’re exploring,” Sanders says. “We’ve got a lot of discussions going on from different parts of the world. That’s the next part of the plan and would allow us to jump more quickly to the next level.”

The ambition is bold, but it is not a fantasy. Durham have consistently punched above their weight and delivered. In a division limited to one promotion place, they finished second, third and fourth between 2019 and 2021. On the sunny spring day we meet, Donnelly has just submitted the club’s application to play in the WSL, although it will not be happening this season. The race is now between London City and Birmingham City.

For much of their existence, Durham have been defined by what they do not have. “Because we’ve built this from nothing, our fans support us for who we are in our own right,” Beth Hepple says. “That’s huge. When I tell people what I do for a living and who I play for, there’s perhaps been a perception — less so of late — of, ‘Oh, you’re probably not that good then’. I don’t think we’ve ever been massively respected. We’ve always had that underdog spirit.”

“We’ve still got the same core of players and it’s ingrained in them,” says Donnelly. “It’s ingrained in us as a club. Because we don’t have the big men’s team badge, that’s always going to be part of who we are, our drive. We’re an incredibly tight community; players, staff, fanbase.” Supporters come to Maiden Castle from 9am on matchdays for tea and bacon sandwiches, to chat and be together.

So who are they, these underdogs? “Durham stands on its own two feet as an independent club that’s had a tradition of not caring about anybody else and doing it our way,” says Furness. “When you talk about the DNA of the team, we’ve got a lot of girls who have been here a long time and there’s a clear identity of what Durham is about. Not many teams look forward to coming here because they know what they’re going to get. We’re pretty good at what we do.

“Despite all the other clubs that have put loads of money into the game, we’re still pushing, we’re still fighting to try to get into the WSL. And we will keep upsetting people along the way because, you know, it’s little old Durham. But I don’t think we’re going to be little old Durham for too much longer.”

Other questions Connolly has been asked plenty of times before: why? Why football, why Durham, why use their money to help others, full stop? The last one still causes Frances some confusion. “I’ve got used to it now, but it really surprised me in the beginning because my answer is, ‘Why wouldn’t you?’. It’s just who we are. Maybe it comes from being Irish and being poor, starting out from a little community in the arse-end of nowhere.

“We weren’t poor poor — my dad was a joiner and my mother was a childminder — but we shared. When I was at university, because I didn’t drink, I was the only one of my friends with any food, so everybody came round to my house and I fed them! In Ireland, if somebody dies, all the young ones go around and make the teas at the wake. It might be on a bigger scale now, but it’s just what we do.”

For context, Patrick and Frances moved from Moira in Northern Ireland to Hartlepool in County Durham decades ago. Their good fortune has allowed them to support causes and charities and organisations across the region, including Durham Women, of whom they were long-time sponsors anyway. Frances estimates that, in total, they have given £60m of their fortune away.

The Connollys have a daughter who is the same age as Sanders’. They played against each other in the same league and the parents got talking, which is how the connection to Durham came about. “I’ve got a really annoying habit of getting enthusiastic about all sorts of things that people introduce me to,” Frances says, laughing. “I get really involved and we had the capacity to help.

“Durham were never struggling — I cannot emphasise enough what a fantastic job they were doing and they would have carried on doing a fantastic job without us — but it was a chore for them to get enough money. It became our pleasure to make things a bit easier for them over the past few years, so they haven’t had to go cap in hand for £2 here and £3 there. I love the club and what it represents.”

The new arrangement and ownership model is different, but Connolly says, “It’s not that much of a different scale. It just needed formalising. There’s more money coming into the game now but there’s also a lot more cost involvement as the league has become more professional. The amount of money it costs to run a team now is obscene. And we’re a club that wants to look after our players, to do the best we can for them.

“As a family, we have a budget and it doesn’t involve us having multi-millions to put into a football club, but we’re hoping our investment allows them to progress, that it will start the ball rolling to get bigger investors to help with the rest of it.”

For Durham Women to be in this position is astonishing, but like their entire existence, it is also very grounded. “It’s organic,” Sanders says. “We didn’t start the club with this as an end goal. It was a hobby. It was voluntary. Then, obviously, it becomes a bit of a job, then a lot of a job, then a full-time job, then everything…”

Dawn Hepple breaks the silence. “We’ve always done it against all the odds. People who don’t know much about the club are amazed. Sometimes we have to take stock and think about how far we’ve come and what we’ve had to go through. You just get so caught up in how busy it is. It’s 24/7. You live and breathe it. You have to at this level.”

“It’s always been a passion and an obsession, but you couldn’t have seen back then what it would become,” says Sanders. “It didn’t seem realistic. But you get over the challenges and now it’s the reality we live every day. Now we’ve got new challenges. And, obviously, they’re a lot more expensive.”

(Top photo: Durham Women)

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