FC United of Manchester

In 2015, East Manchester got itself another football club. Not the billionaire-backed, world-famous kind. Not a heritage brand traded on the stock market. This was punk football — grassroots, rebellious, and stubbornly independent. FC United of Manchester, born in 2005 from the frustration of Manchester United supporters who’d simply had enough.

The Glazer takeover of Old Trafford that year was the spark, but the disillusionment had been building for years. Changing kick-off times dictated by television contracts, soaring ticket prices, soulless all-seater stadiums full of spectators rather than supporters, heavy-handed stewarding — and a creeping sense that matchday was now a sanitised product, not a living, breathing community ritual. For some fans, the Glazer deal was the last straw.

In May 2005, when efforts to block the takeover failed — unlike the successful repulsion of Rupert Murdoch’s bid in 1998 — a “last resort” idea from that earlier campaign was revived. If they couldn’t save United from what they saw as the corporate carve-up, they would create a new club in its image: member-owned, democratic, not-for-profit, and embedded in Greater Manchester’s community. “Our Club, Our Rules.”

From day one, FC United was set up as a Community Benefit Society. Every member — whether they paid £25 a year or £5 as a junior — had one share, one vote. No one could own more influence than anyone else. Ticket prices were to be kept affordable. Youth participation, on and off the pitch, would be encouraged. The club would be accessible to all, discriminating against none. Shirt sponsorship? Not allowed. Outright commercialism? To be avoided wherever possible.

Their first game in the North West Counties Football League Division Two — the 10th tier of English football — was a 5–2 away win at Leek CSOB in August 2005. It set the tone. FC stormed through three consecutive promotions in their first three seasons. By 2010–11, they were pulling off FA Cup giant-killings, the most famous being a 3–2 win over Rochdale to reach the second round proper.

For the first nine seasons, they shared Bury FC’s Gigg Lane. The ambition, though, was always to come home to east Manchester, where Manchester United themselves had been born in Newton Heath more than a century before. In 2010, plans were announced for a 5,000-capacity ground on the Ten Acres Lane sports ground site in Newton Heath, right next to the old Jacksons Brickworks. But by 2011, Manchester City Council had withdrawn its support, and the project collapsed.

A new site was quickly found in Moston. Broadhurst Park — capacity 4,400 — opened in May 2015 at a cost of £6.5 million, part-funded by a £2 million Community Share Scheme and a patchwork of grants. The ground even incorporated the old Dane Bank Terrace from Northwich Victoria. Four covered stands wrap the pitch: the St Mary’s Road End, the North Stand, the Lightbowne Road End, and the Main Stand with its seating, bar, catering, offices, medical suite, classroom, and changing rooms. The ground is shared with local junior club Moston Juniors FC, reinforcing FC’s community-first ethos.

On the pitch, FC United have bobbed between the Northern Premier League Premier Division and National League North (tier 6), with promotions and relegations keeping them competitive but firmly rooted in non-league’s upper tiers. Off it, they remain one of the biggest fan-owned clubs in the country — around 2,300 members — and are renowned for their matchday atmosphere. Their first season in 2005–06 saw an average home gate of over 3,000, the second-highest in non-league football. Attendances settled at around 2,000 before soaring again after the move to Broadhurst Park, peaking at 3,394 in 2015–16.

The badge tells its own story. Red, white, black, and yellow — the colours of Manchester — and free from commercial clutter. It borrows from Manchester’s coat of arms: the merchant ship representing the city’s industrial might and global trade connections; the shield from the heraldic crest of Robert de Gresle, the first lord of the manor of Manchester in the 12th century, whose statue still watches over Albert Square from the Town Hall. The ship speaks to the Manchester Ship Canal, opened in 1894, which turned the landlocked Cottonopolis into a major port. The shield’s three bendlets enhanced gules are a rare heraldic flourish, giving the badge a unique geometry that sets it apart in the footballing landscape.

FC United’s colours are, unsurprisingly, red, white, and black — the same as Manchester United. The home kit is plain red shirt, white shorts, black socks; the away strip changes periodically but is usually white; a third kit has sometimes been blue with the club’s clenched-fist “Our Club, Our Rules” motif on the chest. And unlike most clubs, there’s no shirt sponsor — a constitutional safeguard to keep the shirts clean and the game uncluttered by advertising.

Philosophy runs deeper than aesthetics. Members vote on kit designs, ticket prices, and major club decisions. The club prioritises affordable football and genuine supporter culture over chasing the biggest gate receipts possible. It runs on volunteer work, from matchday stewards to youth coaches, and invests back into north Manchester through community projects and education programmes.

Critics at the start wondered why these disillusioned United fans didn’t just go and support other cash-strapped local clubs. But for the founders, that wouldn’t have been theirs. It wouldn’t have been United. And it wouldn’t have been right to take over another club after watching their own be taken over. FC United was about keeping the protest alive, keeping the songs alive, and keeping the community of supporters together — still singing United songs, still playing in red, but on their own terms.

Today, they’re in the Northern Premier League Premier Division, still at Broadhurst Park, still singing, still owned by the fans. The professional game may have sped further into the arms of billionaires and broadcasters, but FC United remains a living reminder that there’s another way to run a football club — one that puts supporters first, doesn’t sell its identity, and carries a badge that means exactly what it says.

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