‘Viral video took social media followers from 130 to 10,000’

Doing a job you love is always a huge life achievement and for Taunton Town Football Club’s Jake Crump, this is something he can tick off on his life goals list.

Jake moved from managing a local team to being The Peacocks’ social media guru who has been responsible for giving the club an enviable presence on a number of platforms.

Speaking to Somerset’s Alive!, Jake speaks about how he became involved at Wordsworth Drive, and the passion he has for the National League South club.

Jake explained: “I first got involved with Taunton in the 2021/22 season after leaving a management role at Combe St Nicholas FC to join the media team after deciding I wanted to work in a more creative field of football.”

He continued to share how the opportunity came about: “I was good friends with Josh Perkins, who was part of the media team at Taunton at the time and he organised the chance for me to come along to Taunton’s friendly against Yeovil Town.

“I started off behind the camera, filming the match highlights and occasionally providing some co commentary alongside Josh before being asked to take over the club’s TikTok account which at the time had around 130 followers.”

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Jake was then responsible for a huge increase in the club’s social media following. He was modest with his thoughts on this.

He continued: “With some dumb luck and some semi viral video I eventually grew the account to have over 10,000 followers and began focusing more on learning the ropes of all of the aspects of the media that Taunton put out!.”

The role has become a labour of love for Jake and he is now overseeing the creative output of the club.

Jake said: “I love being the voice behind the camera for the club’s interviews, having originally started off in the world of radio, taking over the broadcast style side of things has taken me back to my roots and chatting to new signings and Rob Dray [Taunton Town manager] so consistently has brought me a lot closer to the team.

“Rob is fantastic to interview, and always makes it so easy regardless of the result. He clearly understands the importance of the media output and will always give us the time we need after a match to get the content we need.”

There have been quite a few highlights in recent seasons with Taunton being on the up, rising from the Southern League to the National South and then showing that they have what it takes to compete at that level.

Jake revealed his favourite moment during his time at the club and it was the magic of the FA Cup which grabbed the top spot.

He said: “It’s almost hard to pick my best highlights over the last two seasons and into the my third season now.

“Our FA Cup run last season leading to MK Dons in the First Round Proper was really special, having a triple A pass to such a huge ground and rubbing shoulders with one of my favourite ex West Ham players, David Martin, is something I’ll never forget.”

Jake continued: “The fans that day out-sung the home support and despite the 5-0 loss celebrated the achievement of the boy’s getting that far at full time as if we’d won the game!

“Winning the league in my first season is of course up there too, though I don’t remember much of what happened after… that was some celebration!”

Jake believes that Taunton Town have done well to continue their National League South journey and that being the underdogs on many occasion has helped fire their performances.

He told Somerset’s Alive!: “We proved last season that, even though we aren’t the big boys in this league, we’ll blood some noses and take some scalps and battle to prove we deserve to be here.

“We’ve had some fantastic additions on the pitch and behind the scenes the lads are an incredibly close unit, it’ll be another battle but we’ll still be here next season.

“Fans of course can look forward to a number of local games with Yeovil, Torquay, Weston and Truro coming into the league, it’s bound to be an exciting season.”

Off the pitch, Jake is confident that the club will continue to improve their creativeness in bringing new fans to watching Taunton Town.

He said: “We’ve got a really strong team within the media side of Taunton this season, Paul Smith from Word Gets Around has been instrumental to keeping the social media running smoothly between us and created some really smart graphics for all of our content.

“Debbie Gould is hands down the best in the business when it comes to non-league photography and we as a club are super lucky to have her on board.”

Jake added: “Andy Power’s work in all the written pieces for the website often flies under the radar but it’s vital to the content output we have here at the club, and Darren Harris is always happy to step into almost any role, a real Swiss Army knife and another face that we are lucky to have around the club.”