In 2005, FC United of Manchester was founded by disaffected fans of Manchester United. They
created their own club, one that will forever be fan-owned, and began playing at the bottom of the
English football pyramid, about as far from the bright lights of Old Trafford as one can go. From
the beginning, FCUM fan Matthew Wilkinson has been traveling far and wide in support of the club
and photographing much of their adventure as it has gone on.
This week's non-league videos of the week features four matches from the Second Round of the FA
Trophy. With only thirty-two teams left in the competition at this stage, the scent of a Wembley
final is starting to drift into the air, and our four matches tonight feature twenty-five goals.
First up is a match between two clubs that are owned by their supporters, as Ebbsfleet United of
the Blue Square Premier play Chester of the Northern Premier League.
Although a lucky handful of clubs were still involved in the FA Cup this weekend, most
non-league clubs were back to the league this weekend, and we have the highlights from four matches
from yesterday for you tonight. First up are the Blue Square Premier matches between AFC Telford
United and Kettering Town, and Mansfield Town and Forest Green Rovers.
On Monday I knew that I could wake up and forget about work for at least another 24 hours as it
was a public holiday. Therefore I decided that I would go to a football ground in my home city that
I'd been meaning to go to for quite some time.
The Arriva Stadium, at one time known as Rossett Park before the ground was sponsored by the
Arriva bus company, is the home of Marine AFC and lies in the outer Liverpool suburb of Crosby.
Brazilian football legend Socrates has died at the age of 57 it has been reported today.
The former Botafogo, São Paulo, Corinthians, Flamengo and Fiorentina player was taken to
hospital on Friday with food poisoning and later died through an intestinal infection.
Socrates was perhaps best known amongst football followers for his performances with the
Brazilian national team in the 1982 and 1986 FIFA World Cups and it is sad that he is one of few
Brazilians superstar players never to win a major tournament with the Seleção.
The bulldozers moved in at College Grove in Wakefield last week. This, of
itself, should probably not have come as too much of a surprise to those that have been watching
the recent difficulties of Wakefield Football Club of the Northern Premier League for most of this
year, but as a visual analogy it was depressingly appropriate that a club which has had a
disastrous year should have seen its home almost completely razed to the ground in favour of a
multi-sport complex by its owners at the same time that those running the club confirmed that it
was on the brink of closure.
Just read this article from the Thackley website, Looks like they are looking forward to our visit
on Saturday.Expect fireworks (of the legal and enjoyable kind) as the Seadogs hope to rocket
up the league and the Dennyboys look to avoid a damp squib.Whilst there is still the League Cup
to play for, the mantra of "concentrating on the league" is perhaps uppermost in Thackley minds as
they look forward to entertaining Scarborough Athletic on Saturday.
OADBY TOWN 5-0 GRAHAM STREET PRIMSSaturday 8th October 2011
East Midlands Counties League
Greene King Park
Following on from a disappointing 1-1 draw last Saturday against Ibstock United, Oadby are at home
again for the third successive Saturday. For good measure Oadby will be at home again next Saturday
as well in a rearranged game against high flying Heanor Town.
This week's non-league videos of the week come from a variety of different competitions,
including the Second Qualifying Round of the FA Vase. First up, though, is the match between
Cambridge City and Banbury United in the Southern League Premier Division. Cambridge were beaten in
the play-offs in this league last season, and are hoping to go one better than that this this
season, whilst Banbury United are are hoping to challenge for the championship themselves.
We have noted on here before that non-league football can be a hand to mouth existence for many
clubs, all of which makes the recent behaviour of Northern Premier League club Chorley FC in
relation to the ticketing and policing arrangements for their match against FC United of Manchester
on Saturday even more perplexing than they might otherwise be.
It was Non-League Day this weekend, as you will all now be thoroughly aware, so to close up on
this it's time for this week's Non-League Videos Of The Week, this week featuring no fewer than six
matches, from the Blue Square Premier, the Blue Square South, the Northern Premier League, the
Southern League and the FA Cup.
QUORN 0-0 OADBY TOWN Saturday 3rd September 2011 FA Cup Preliminary Round Farley Way
Stadium
Today sees me head to Quorn FC for the first time since 16th August 2005 when I watched Oadby Town
record a 2-0 victory in a Midland Alliance encounter. I had not originally planned this fixture but
intended to watch a North Leicestershire League match between Castle Donington and ATI Garryson.
QUORN 0-0 OADBY TOWNSaturday 3rd September 2011FA Cup Preliminary RoundFarley Way
Stadium
Today sees me head to Quorn FC for the first time since 16th August 2005 when I watched Oadby Town
record a 2-0 victory in a Midland Alliance encounter. I had not originally planned this fixture but
intended to watch a North Leicestershire League match between Castle Donington and ATI Garryson.
There is, perhaps, no other non-league club that sums up the cycle of perpetual crisis in
which so many smaller football clubs find themselves than Northwich Victoria, and there can seldom
be a day that goes by during which supporters of the seemingly perpetually beleagured Northern
Premier League club don't curse the decision to leave their historic home, The Drill Field, for The
Victoria Stadium.
As some of the regulars on this site will have been aware for some time now, we have been
writing up the pre-season on this site for several weeks now, with the intention of putting the
whole thing together as one downloadable PDF file. I'm delighted to be able to confirm that, with a
couple of hours left before the start of the Premier League and non-league seasons, it's
finished.
After last year's comfortable win in the Premier Division of the Northern Premier League (and,
for those of you that are wondering, we are dropping the sponsors' names from this and the Southern
League to avoid confusion, since they are both being sponsored by the same adhesives brand this
year) for FC Halifax Town, this year's competition seems set to heavily feature another reformed
former Football League club, this time in the form of Chester FC.
CARLTON TOWN 2-0 STAVELEY MINERS WELFARESaturday 23rd July 2011Pre-season friendlyBill Stokeld
Stadium
My second game of the day is a trip to the other side of Nottingham to Carlton. The journey through
Nottingham city centre from Beeston took around half an hour and following lunch in a well known
ubiquitous fast food joint I arrived with around 20 minutes before kick-off.
CARLTON TOWN 2-0 STAVELEY MINERS WELFARESaturday 23rd July 2011Pre-season friendlyBill Stokeld
Stadium
My second game of the day is a trip to the other side of Nottingham to Carlton. The journey through
Nottingham city centre from Beeston took around half an hour and following lunch in a well known
ubiquitous fast food joint I arrived with around 20 minutes before kick-off.
July, some say, is a little too early for the football season to start. The new season lumbers
to life each year likein the manner of a bear awakening from hibernation. We don't merely leap to
life, ready to jump into another year of those twin false gods of hope and despair, though. We have
to be spoonfed our addiction, as if on a drip and we have to be cajoled back into action.
It's the day of the annual Supporters Direct Conference in Chester, and one issue seems likely
too hang over the day's festivities like a black cloud: funding. Now is probably not the time to
rehash the events of last month, but it is worth reflecting upon the uncertainty that continues to
envelop the organisation.
It's the day of the annual Supporters Direct Conference in Chester, and one issue seems likely
too hang over the day's festivities like a black cloud: funding. Now is probably not the time to
rehash the events of last month, but it is worth reflecting upon the uncertainty that continues to
envelop the organisation.
The history of football in Fleetwood, Lancashire, is one of boom and bust. The town's original
club, Fleetwood FC, renamed itself Fleetwood Town and were founder members of the Northern Premier
League in 1968, before folding in 1976. A new club sprang up the following year, reached the final
of the FA Vase in 1985 and won back its place in the Premier Division of the Northern Premier
League three years later.
05.05.2011 - Para atenuar la crudeza del invierno los miembros de un club de criquet se
juntaban a jugar al fútbol, su fútbol. Era 1855, en Sheffield (South Yorkshire, Inglaterra).
Amistosos y no tan amistosos se multiplicaron hasta que el 24 de octubre de 1857,
William
Prest y
Nathaniel Creswick formaron el club más antiguo del mundo (FIFA):
The
Sheffield Football Club y, dos años después (1859), en un hotel de la ciudad, elaboraron las
reglas del juego:
"Reglas, regulaciones y leyes del Sheffield F.
There was, perhaps, something inevitable that it would all come down to a ninety minute
shoot-out. That FC United of Manchester is in itself an extraordinary part of our football culture
is without doubt, but even the most optimistic of their supporters could scarcely have guessed at
the amount of drama that they have managed this season, from an FA Cup run that took in a last
minute win at Rochdale and a last minute penalty save at Brighton to a league season that saw them
end last year nearer to relegation than the play-off places, yet has ended up on the North Wales
coast on a Bank Holiday Monday, with 2,000 people packed inside Llanelian Road and hundreds more
perched atop a hill overlooking the ground.
The end of the domestic football season can perhaps be best summarised as a full sensory
overload. It's an intoxicating mixture of the stifling warmth of the spring, mixed with
stomach-wrenching nervousness and the occasional feeling, or realisation, that something, or rather
something else, is happening elsewhere.
The Southern League play-offs weren't the only matches being played last night. Play-off
semi-finals were also being played in the Northern Premier League and we were lucky enough to have
Andrew Gibney offer to write up the match between Bradford Park Avenue and FC
United of Manchester for us.
Like a moth to the flame, we are often drawn to commenting on the shadowy underbelly of
football culture. Whether because it is under-reported, overlooked, or generally swept aside,
issues of football finance, supporter tension over club directives, or the vagaries of rules
administration provide ample fodder for analysis and debate.
Date: Wednesday Dec 29 2010
Ground: Farrar Road
Comp: Welsh Premier League (Welsh step one)
Match: Bangor City 2 Prestatyn Town 1 HT: 0-0
Jones 54 Morley 79: Rogers 53
ATT: 716
Additional: Entrance £7.00, Programme £2
Farrar Road in pictures
Bangor City or Clwb Pêl-droed Dinas Bangor are an old club with a fascinating history.
Date: Wednesday Dec 29 2010
Ground: Farrar Road
Comp: Welsh Premier League (Welsh step one)
Match: Bangor City 2 Prestatyn Town 1 HT: 0-0
Jones 54 Morley 79: Rogers 53
ATT: 716
Additional: Entrance £7.00, Programme £2
Farrar Road in pictures
Bangor City or Clwb Pêl-droed Dinas Bangor are an old club with a fascinating history.
The Northern League, Division One of which is Step 5 in the non-league pyramid, is a bit of a
world of its own. Despite its name, it's really a North East league, which was incorporated into
the pyramid only in 1991. Even since then only a handful of teams have ever been promoted from it.
They have some great team names Bedlington Terriers, Jarrow Roofing, Norton and Stockton Ancients
and, everyone's favourite, Billington Synthonia but most of these teams have been in the Northern
League for years with little thought of integrating into the wider pyramid.
