PunkFootball

Source: This is Lancashire

By Marc Higginson

RADCLIFFE Boro have announced that they will play host to FC United in their first friendly of next season on Saturday, July, 15.

It will be the second time the Red Rebels have played at the Inn2gether Stadium following their league game with Castleton Gabriels last September.

Boro are expecting a large crowd, and manager Andy Johnston said: “It will be an excellent occasion and a very testing game against FC United, who have had a marvellous first season.

“They have a number of players who used to play for our club, in fact six or seven, and Karl Marginson was also a popular player here before leaving to become their manager.

“I think it will be a good test for both clubs in preparation for their season’s and, having already played at the Inn2gether Stadium this season, we are sure their supporters will once again enjoy our warm and friendly hospitality.”

Ticket price and details will be announced in the near future, along with the rest of Boro’s pre-season schedule.

Source: The Independent (edited from longer article)

The other “fans’ club”, FC United of Manchester, did gain promotion. Their support appears to be unaffected by the realisation, back at Old Trafford, that the Glazers, so far at least, are not the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Source: BBC

AFC Telford United beat Manchester’s FC United 3-0 in Saturday’s benefit match at the New Bucks Head.

The game was held to raise funds for Jamie Turner, a Man Utd fan from Shropshire who was attacked and seriously injured last year.

His namesake Jimmy Turner scored twice to put the Unibond Premier League side into the lead.

Steve Pope scored Telford’s third and final goal from the spot to seal the win in front of a crowd of 1,379.

Each part is roughly 7m 30s.

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Source: NW Enquirer

FEW gave FC United much of a chance when it was formed by a group of disguntled Old Trafford regulars for whom Malcolm Glazer was the final straw. But a year on the club is thriving: attendances are booming and the team has just won promotion. Author and journalist Mark Metcalf followed them home and away and discovered a real people’s club…

A small but not insignificant number of long-standing Manchester United supporters are this month celebrating the success of FC United of Manchester. [FCUM] This is the club they established to protest against the increasing commercialisation of football in general but the Old Trafford club in particular.

Their new club, not yet a year old, has romped to promotion and a first league title. No matter that it is the North West Counties Division Two trophy that has been collected; to put together a new club, get players and coaching staff from scratch, buy some new kit and balls and find some sponsors is a huge achievement in itself. But in addition to root out a pitch to play on and to get a crowd of even a few hundred would have been a success – but to get crowds running to over two to three thousand, to get promoted, to win the league!!!

Amazing and highly satisfying for all those who’ve swapped the ‘glamour’ of visits to Anfield, Highbury and Stamford Bridge for away matches with Flixton, Chadderton and Cheadle Town.

Ryan Giggs has been replaced by Joshua Howard and Wayne Rooney by Rory Patterson, as fans favourites, and being the superstars that they aren’t then they love it.

Instead of roaring on Manchester United club captain Gary Neville FCUM fans are also having to get used to backing a Manchester City fan, Dave Chadwick, as their skipper and whilst Neville is believed to be on just under £60,000 a week Chadwick is getting by on a decent wage packet of £40,000 a year as a window fitter as well as “some expenses for a few beers after each game”. An engaging character Chadwick had like most of the players got involved after a phone call from FC United’s manager Karl Marginson just weeks before the season was due to get underway.

And whilst Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson is rubbing along with a salary of £3.5 million a year spare a thought for Marginson who gets out of bed at 3.00am on six days a week to deliver fruit and veg in a job that earns him just £19,000 a year but means he is “finished just after dinner time and can concentrate on my football” for which he clearly has a talent, and one which, unlike Ferguson, has seen him lead his team to a league title this season.

Playing down his role Marginson says that after he attended one of the steering group meetings in May 2005 “it wasn’t that difficult getting players involved. I played at Division Two level and the things they were talking about at that meeting wouldn’t even be discussed at Division Two clubs.”

“I knew the belief was there. It has been very enjoyable, there has been no backbiting, it has been about getting this club up and running, it is a community club.”

Jules Spencer was one of those on the ‘self-appointed’ steering group. He admits that at the start the aim was to “bring together fans from different backgrounds” that could “in a matter of weeks get things sorted and get a team into a league”.

Determined however that the club would be run democratically a Special Annual General Meeting was held in July 2005 and along with others Jules put himself up for election to the board of directors. He was successful, a board of 11 was elected, nine had of whom had been on the original steering group.

Half the positions on the board will be up for re-election shortly, no-one knows which ones as these will be drawn from a hat, which was exactly the process used to decide that ‘The Bhopal Medical Appeal and Sambhavna Trust’ would be the main club sponsor this season. It makes a change from Vodafone, Carlsberg or O2.

Jules said that “on the board there are often differences of opinion, we just try and work through these, we are honest and frank enough to disagree but work together”.

He admits that the “first time FC United ran out in the match against Leigh the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and the game in January when we got 4,000 and beat the team in 2nd place was as good as anything I can remember”.

And what of those fans that have torn up the North West Counties figures for record attendances? Don’t for second think that they’re passive – this is football fever 70s style, but thankfully without the background of violence and racism that often accompanied matches of that period. There are songs old and new [dozens of them in fact] scarf waving, supporters standing next to their mates, kids running around at the front of the stand and a healthy sprinkling of families.

At the Chadderton away game on April 19th April that was played at Oldham Athletic’s ground over 90% of those present in the 2,352 crowd were backing FC United, resulting in “record gate receipts for us” said the Chadderton Treasurer Ian Cefferty “helping after expenses to put around seven thousand pounds into our coffers”. Chadderton’s previous highest gate of the season was 101.

Three days later at Gigg Lane, Bury where FC United have played their home games this season the players picked up the League Trophy in front of 6,000 fans.

And people are enjoying themselves, which is after all what the game of football is all about. Martin Walker, a former Manchester United season ticket holder for many years remarked that 2005-06 had “been one of the best seasons ever for watching football” whilst for Chris Hammond, speaking at a Supporters Group meeting in early April, “the great thing about FC United is the community element, we’ve got a little community building up, and there’s lot of ideas flying around, probably too many, but we’ve got to give them a try.”

Meanwhile Rob Petts praised the example of AFC Wimbledon. This was the club established after the Football League agreed that Wimbledon could uproot from their South London home and re-locate to that hot bed of football Milton Keynes in 2004. The one time Manchester United season ticket holder said “Without their example it would have been a lot more difficult to get FCUM started,” Petts provided a perfect summary for why the club was established when he said that “fans are being priced out of the game. Football has got to change; it’s only a matter of time before the G14 super rich clubs fall away to do their own thing. I think what has happened at Manchester United will happen at other clubs; we are trying to take things back to the fans and make it accessible and in doing so bring back the atmosphere at matches. “

It’s not just silverware, it seems, that FC United are blazing a trail for.

Source: M.E.N.

By Stuart Brennan

KARL Marginson and FC United have struck another blow for grass roots football – with the rebel club’s manager being named as Manchester’s Sports Personality of the Month.

The 35-year-old led the fledgling club, only founded last summer in protest at Malcolm Glazer’s takeover of Manchester United, to promotion and then the North West Counties League second division title.

Charged with achieving two promotions in the club’s first three seasons, but also briefed to put out a team which will entertain supporters who have grown up on Old Trafford’s attacking, entertaining tradition, Marginson has come good on both.

The 35-year-old, who gets up at 4am most mornings to work as a fruit and veg delivery driver, was named as winner of the monthly award by a joint panel from the sports desks at the Manchester Evening News and BBC Radio Manchester.

Leading the praise for Marginson was his gaffer, FC general manager Andy Walsh, who said: “Karl has been outstanding, not just in terms of putting a team out on the pitch but in over-seeing the future playing direction of the club as well.

Important

“Many people thought we should have gone for a more experienced manager but our concern was to get someone who understood what the club was all about – and it was important to us that he is a Red.”

In his first managerial job, Marginson ended up in charge of a team playing in front of a non-league record crowd of over 6,000, but took it in his stride.

“No-one foresaw just how big the club was going to get,” says Walsh. “But he has gone from his first press conference, where he got changed from his work clothes in his van parked outside the Midland Hotel, to being interviewed by Russian television and French and Belgian journalists at one match.

“Some supporters want success, others want entertaining football, and Karl has relished those two pressures. Lesser men might have buckled.”

Marginson beat off challenges from some more illustrious names to land the award, including Lancashire newcomer Tom Smith, who has made a big impact at the start of the season.

Also in the frame were Salford City Reds star David Hodgson, Manchester City youth team captain Michael Johnson and Andy Morris, who successfully defended his British featherweight title.

Source: M.E.N. (no online content)

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