Annie Bassett was Exeter City’s commercial director in 2003 and helped set up the sponsorship deal with Flybe that only ended with the airline’s demise seventeen years later.

Annie grew up in the Reading area and, after fifteen years running businesses in Australia, returned to Berkshire in the late 1980s and became general manager of Reading FC. The first woman to hold such a position in English football she was believed to be the inspiration for The Manageress, a television drama of the time that featured a female football manager and was filmed at Reading’s old Elm Park ground.

After Reading, Annie worked at Birmingham and AFC Bournemouth before arriving at St James’ Park where, amidst all the turmoil of the John Russell and Mike Lewis era, she was able to establish a commercial arrangement with the Exeter-based Flybe airline that had been rebranded from Jersey European Airways in 2002.

Although Annie wasn’t around to see the lasting effects of the airline’s shirt sponsorship deal, the process she had enabled was of enormous financial help to the newly supporter-owned club and was to continue for seventeen years until Flybe folded in 2020.

Also working for Fulham, Annie settled in East Devon and became chair of Classics Galore! organising concerts on behalf of Force, a Devon cancer charity.