http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/RSS.php FC United of Manchester Latest News en-GB Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:45:50 CET Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:45:50 CET http://www.fc-utd.co.uk http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4037 Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:24:00 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4036
If you know any supporters already travelling or in the Whitby area can you please get the message to them that the game is off.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.]]> Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:20:22 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4035 -->

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.
(Others just mingle in the company of greatness).

Join true United greats such as Frank Stapleton, Arthur Albiston and Jimmy Greenhoff at the United Greats Sporting Dinner, relive stories of United back in the 70’s and 80’s. £35 entry (including a three course dinner) represents great value, so the tickets are sure to be in great demand.

Get your ticket now to be sure of a great night.

Date: 1st March
Venue: Sedgley Park Rugby Club, Park Lane, Whitefield, Manchester, M45 7DZ.
Time: 1930 onwards
Tickets: £35 are available from :
FC United office: 0161 273 8950 or office@fc-utd.co.uk
The Frost Foundation (Wendy Veevers): 07790 429462

Vegetarian option available.

Poster can be downloaded from here.
]]> Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:16:06 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4034
This year players Mike Norton and Nicky Platt will be leading the way as we try to match the tremendous amount that was raised in sponsorship for FC last year of over £6,400.

At the moment we have 23 runners registered whereas last year we had 49. It’s a big year for the Club - the move to Moston is on the horizon and every penny counts as we aim to fulfil our dreams of building our own ground.

Please join us in the Run if you can, it’s a fantastic occasion. You can also see how you measure up to Mike and Nicky and have a sandwich and pint with them afterwards.

To register for the Run and for more information go to http://www.greatrun.org

Please also let us know if you’ve entered at promotions@fc-utd.co.uk]]> Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:55:19 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4033
How it works

easyfundraising is one of the simplest ways to raise funds for FC United. You shop online with your favourite stores and you raise money at the same time. It’s that easy.

easyfundraising works with thousands of well known retailers including Amazon, Boden, M&S, Argos, and many more. easyfundraising retailers love supporting good causes and will donate a percentage of your spend to FC United when you shop with them through the easyfundraising site.

For example, spend £50 with Boden and you’ll raise £1.25. Insure your car with the RAC and they’ll donate up to £30 to FC United.

What’s more, easyfundraising works closely with their retailers to find voucher codes and discounts so you can save money on your shopping too.

And with the Find & Remind tool, easyfundraising even tell you when you start to shop with an easyfundraising retailer, no matter where you are on the web. Which means your cause will never miss out on a donation from our retailers.

Will my shopping cost me more?

Absolutely not. You pay exactly the same price exactly as you would if you visited each retailer’s website directly.

Sounds good? Then register today:

1. Firstly, register for free and tell easyfundraising you want to support FC United.

2. When you’ve registered, you’re ready to shop and raise money! Simply click on the retailer you want, then shop as you would normally. When you make a purchase, easyfundraising will send you an email telling you how much you’ve raised and pass the donation to FC United.

FC United would love to have you on board so register now click here and start raising funds today.
]]> Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:13:23 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4032
Members can find this draft in the members’ area of the website and accordingly we would like to open a period of consultation with members, before a final draft is put to the spring General Meeting for debate and possible adoption. This will ensure that they are in place for the AGM in the autumn.

Any members who wish to comment on this draft or suggest any amendments are asked to email office@fc-utd.co.uk with their suggestions no later than Sunday 19th February. All comments will be noted and it is envisaged that a meeting will be arranged later this month, to finalise a draft. The meeting will most likely be held on the evening of Monday 27th February.

Rules and procedures for the election of our club board are not the most exciting of subjects yet they are a vital part of our governance and the board is grateful for the input of those members who have contributed to the discussion in drawing up the new standing orders.

]]> Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:56:43 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4031
Do you think your young ’un can beat the players? For the last few years some of the youngsters have thrashed them and we would like the embarrassment to continue.

So, if you are free to bring them to the bowl at Ashton Moss on the afternoon of Sunday February 26th from 2pm you are welcome to come and join us. The price for the afternoon is £6.95 for FC Junior members and £8.95 for non-members. This will include 2 games of bowling, food (hot dog, burger or pizza and fries, plus a soft drink) They will also receive a memento of the day, and the fun of beating the players.

Please can you book as soon as possible if they would like to come, as places are limited, by emailing Chris Boulderstone at chrisb@fc-utd.co.uk

Last year after the bowling some of us went to the Chinese restaurant next door to the bowling alley and had a lovely meal to round off the wonderful afternoon. If you would like to join us for that, please let Chris know soon and she can book tables. It is an all you can eat buffet and costs £11.90 per person and £6.50 for children under 145cm height.

The players and management staff have all received individual invitations to the event, so we are expecting quite a few of them to attend. We have had confirmation from the following players/staff so far:

Carlos Roca
Mike Norton
John Marsden
Roy Soule
Adam Jones
Karl Marginson

]]> Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:10:11 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4030
There was also a tremendous total for the Development Fund Barrels on Saturday of £493. This figure included a fantastic donation by the MAD Theatre Group of £100, who had a collection for the DF at one of their recent productions. A big thank you to all at MAD for that.

Saturday’s cash means that the running total for the season is now £7,140, a terrific effort. Thanks to everyone who bought a ticket and all who donated into the barrels. We have now raised over £30,000 in the barrels in approximately three and a half years - not bad for a bit of loose change!
]]> Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:07:55 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4029 Whitby Town FC v FC United of Manchester, Saturday 4th February 2012, Kick off 3pm

This game is to be played at Whitby Town’s, Turnbull Ground, Upgang Lane, Whitby, North Yorkshire, YO21 3HZ

Admission prices are as follows:

Adults £8
Concessions £5
Under 16s £2

Travel

Coach:

The Club will be running a coach for this fixture which is currently fully booked. However we are taking bookings for a second coach but will only run if there is sufficient demand.

The coach will depart from Chorlton Street in Manchester City Centre (next to the Britannia Hotel) at 10am.

The cost is £15 for adults, £7 for Under 16s.

To book please click here or ring the FC United office on 0161 273 8950.

By Car:

From The South Travel North on the A1M leave A1M at Junction 45 Joining the A64 signposted York, Follow A64 to Malton by pass, join A169 signposted Whitby, Pickering, follow A169 through Pickering and Sleights to the A171 where you should turn right towards Whitby, turn left at B1460, keep left then turn left after passing a filling station on your left signposted West Cliffe ( this is love lane ) at A174 turn right (this is upgang lane) the ground is on your left.

From the North Travel south on the A19 and join the A171 sign posted Whitby, follow A171 bypassing Guisborough to junction with A169 from where directions are as above.

By Train:

Takes approximately 4 hours 10 minutes from Manchester Piccadilly (change at Middlesbrough), followed by a 15 minute walk. Alternatively (saves 30 minutes) Piccadilly to Malton takes 1 hour 50 minutes from there catch the number 840 Coastliner 1 hour 20 minutes to Whitby

Train details can be found at www.thetrainline.com
]]> Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:32:08 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4028 Eccles and District Branch

The next meeting of the FCUM Eccles and District Supporters’ Branch will take place on Thursday 2nd February at The Ellesmere Inn, 26 King William Street, Winton, M30 8HZ commencing from 8pm.

Everyone is welcome.

Newton Heath Branch

The Newton Heath branch will be holding meetings at 8pm this Thursday 2nd February at The Railway Hotel, 82 Dean Lane, Newton Heath, M40 3AE

FC United manager Karl Marginson has been confirmed as this month’s guest speaker.

Everybody is welcome to attend.]]> Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:52:06 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4027
The most recent meeting of the FC United board was a special one-day strategy ‘away day’ held on 17 January 2012. These away days are held at least once a year and enable the board to take stock and look at more strategic issues than maybe they have the chance to at the regular monthly board meetings. For these strategy days, board members take a day out of their own work to attend the sessions, the latest of which was held in a Manchester College building in Newton Heath last week.

The meeting discussed three main issues. Firstly, governance – how FC United runs itself as an organisation and how areas like the election process can be improved so that it is seen to be more transparent and open. The Moston stadium project was also on the agenda, with officials from Manchester City Council invited along so board members could ask them questions on the progress to date and get a feeling for how the council saw things. Board members also took the opportunity to get an update on the community shares scheme and discuss the best next steps to enable FC to raise its funding targets to get the club to Moston.

The discussion on governance was part of ongoing work by the board to develop a new set of standing orders, streamline, tighten-up and improve the elections process and generally to respond to members’ questions, raised at the recent AGM and other FC members’ meetings, to make the club’s procedures more efficient and easier to understand. The board has been working with a number of members to help develop some ideas and proposals in this area, prior to releasing them for consultation with the wider membership. The board has had some valuable member input in this area and whilst our constitution clearly makes FC one of the most accountable clubs in the country the board recognises there is room for improvement, member scrutiny and involvement in all the club does is a key element of our governance processes. The results of these discussions and this ongoing process will be shared with members very soon.

The board meeting also heard from Manchester City Council Head of Community and Cultural Services, Eamonn O’Rourke and Principal Sport Development Manager Lee Preston. This was an opportunity for the board to discuss the Moston project with senior council officials and to ‘take their temperature’ first hand, as it were, on how they saw the latest developments. Being able to ask representatives from the local authority how they view FC’s progress on the project to date, what the current and future obstacles might be and what they want from FC as a partner was tremendously helpful and gave board members a real insight into how the council views the scheme.

The board was very encouraged by what they heard from Eamonn and Lee and it is clear from what they said that there is a firm long term commitment from the council to FC United, the scheme and the residents of Moston. The council clearly understands that FC is proposing to build much more than a football ground and that the community facility aspect of the project, and the delivery of real and lasting community benefits to the local area, is well and truly grasped by the local authority - and at the very highest level.

The final item up for discussion during the away day was the community shares scheme and the latest progress towards achieving the financial targets. Board members were delighted with the magnificent efforts of members in raising 85% of our shares target and the point was made by more than one board member that to achieve £1.4m in the current economic climate was fantastic. Board members took inspiration from this in their discussions on developing a strategy to raise the remaining £200,000 to make sure that FC hits its targets that will unlock other funding and grant income.

The board discussed ways to continue the active involvement of members and the need for all members to be part of our ‘sales force’:

Key community shares targets and messages:
Conversion of remaining TAL investors
Social impact and tax benefits
Members who have not yet invested
Wider promotion of the instalment scheme
Top ups from existing investors

The next meeting of the FC United board will be a special meeting to further discuss the stadium project on 6 February, followed by a full meeting of the board on 13 February. We’ll be posting updates on the FC website on the key issues discussed at those meetings, so watch this space.

Access to full board minutes are only available to members of FC United, these minutes are published in the members’ section on the site’s front page.]]> Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:30:00 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4026 Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:27:00 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4025
The visitors came into the game on the back of a good win at league leaders Chester last weekend and the Reds knew they would have to be at their best to beat the team currently riding high.

United could have had the lead with less than a minute on the clock as Wolfenden was presented with a chance after a lucky deflection but his effort from the edge of the area was easily saved by visiting ’keeper Dan Crane.

The Pitmen soon looked to get the opening goal as winger Ben Jevons cut in from the right and his shot to the bottom right hand corner of James Spencer’s goal had the United shot-stopper using every inch of his reach to get his fingertips to the ball to turn it out for a corner.

After a frantic start with both teams going close to troubling the newly re-installed scoreboard at Gigg Lane, the next 30 minutes were more of a chess match as both teams looked to figure the other out and take control of the possession and tempo of the game.

United were lookeing dangerous on both flanks with Carlos Roca and Stephen Johnson cutting in from and causing the visiting fullbacks no end of problems. Roca had the best chances of the opening 45 minutes, again cutting in from both wings; as he and Johnson comfortably swapped sides throughout. A couple of well struck efforts called Crane into action but the goalkeeper kept the scores level.

Johnson wasn’t to be left in the shade by his fellow wide man and he tried an effort of his own saved by Crane, before Norton agonisingly saw his effort hit the post, although any potential agony was quickly removed as the referee’s assistant had his flag raised for an offside.

Despite the scores being level at the break, United had been the far better team and the influence of the five men in midfield on the game was apparent as Jake Cottrell, Dean Stott and Wolfenden controlled the centre of the park, whilst Roca and Johnson provided the penetration and attacking threat from the sides, a trait which continued after the break.

The big difference with the second half was that United got the early breakthrough as Johnson; this time on the right, beat his man and crossed the ball for Matthew Wolfenden to powerfully head home from inside the six yard box to give United the lead and bag his 10th league goal of the campaign in the process.

After this the Pitmen had to abandon their game plan of soaking United’s pressure up and looking to steal something. As such, the visitors began to push men up field leaving gaps at the back, something which United looked to exploit with wave after wave of counter-attacks in the second half.

Norton then had a great opportunity to grab his 51st goal for the club. Roca jinked in from the left and fired a ball across the goal not more than a yard out, Norton threw his body forward to try to connect the ball but just couldn’t get anything on the cross.

Wolfenden must still be wondering how he didn’t double his tally for the day as he was the first to react as Crane spilt an effort from Norton. The former Oldham Athletic forward kept his calm, rounded ‘keeper after using a good dummy and fired the ball towards the bottom corner only to see his effort cleared off the line by defender Michael Ricketts.

The Reds’ surges up field kept coming as Johnson and Wolfenden both went close again. Moments later, United broke with substitute Astley Mulholland, on for Roca, creating another good opportunity for Norton. The striker had time on his hands but dragged the ball wide of the near post as United struggled in getting the second goal that would surely kill off the visitors.

Thankfully, Norton did get the second with less than ten minutes left, as Johnson crossed the ball from the right before the United hitman rose well and headed home to clinch all three points.

There was still time for another close effort for the men in red as Mulholland used his pace to beat the weary Hednesford defenders in stoppage time before shifting the ball to the right and around Crane. Unfortunately, he saw his coolly slotted effort from an ever decreasing angle hitting the post before being cleared for a corner.

United were simply fantastic on this afternoon and you would of struggled to find a team that could have contained them, they now travel to Whitby next Saturday looking to build on this confidence boosting win over a team who are now just eight points ahead of them having played one game more.

Website man of the match: Stephen Johnson – could have been any of the five midfield players on the park today but Johnson provided both goals and looked dangerous throughout the full 90 minutes.

Report by Craig Phillips
]]> Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:20:44 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4022
As it happens the hackers were not able to do much damage other than replace a few pages and we were able to return the majority of our site back to normal very quickly as we noticed that they were active and were able to stop them in their tracks. We will remain extra vigilant in order to keep intruders out.

The Juniors’ website will unfortunately remain down until such time we can be assured that it too is safe. It will require more extensive upgrading so this will not be a quick operation.

We thank the members and juniors for their patience and understanding.]]> Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:15:31 +0100 http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/story.php?story_id=4021
But that does not mean we should not keep our processes, rules and way of working regularly under review or that improvements cannot be made.

Since the Autumn, we have been examining how improvements can be made to the way we communicate, addressing issues that both the Board and members had identified as needing attention: the transparency of board activity, our governance and the level of membership engagement.
The following are some changes that will be introduced in the coming weeks to improve the way we do things.

Minutes of board meetings

There will always be a natural ‘lag’ in terms of when minutes are taken and when they get published. The minutes have to be agreed at the following meeting as a true and accurate record before they get published. We will continue to review this particular way of working, but accept that this means that by the time they do get published the matter discussed may no longer be pertinent. Therefore we propose to introduce a ‘digest’ board discussion to be published on the main page of our website in the week following any meeting. This will give supporters a better insight into the key issues that are under discussion.

Members’ forum

The Q&A forum that was introduced before the last AGM was popular and allowed members to ask direct questions of prospective Board candidates. This forum will be resurrected.

The members’ forum will allow members to put direct questions to individual board members as well as allow members somewhere to freely debate and discuss other matters of interest.

Supporter and volunteers’ liaison officer

Following his election in October and having been involved in initial meetings with members regarding transparency, Paul Farrell (Faz) has been given responsibility for supporter and volunteer liaison. Faz is currently in the process of drafting a discussion paper for wider consideration. Jules Spencer will continue to help facilitate the process of re-drafting our election processes and will offer assistance to Faz where necessary.

Press and communications officer

The board has appointed Andy Walker to the voluntary position of club Press and Communications Officer. In the past the club’s external press and media role has been filled from within the board. Andy is an FC United member with extensive professional experience in this area and he is currently reviewing our external communications and assisting the board and relevant volunteers in the development of a comprehensive communications strategy.

Board responsibilities

A full structure of how the club operates that includes Board members areas of responsibilities will be published soon.

Review of election rules and standing orders

A process that was started by the Board last year has continued post AGM with the help of members’ input. We intend to publish the latest draft on the members’ area of the website as soon as it is back up and running. We want to encourage members to have their input, ahead of a final version being put to the Spring General Meeting, for debate and potential adoption.

Members’ blog

Initially introduced to provide a means for more informal news and activities, we accept that the existing members’ blog has not been used as such of late and instead has been used as a means of imparting official, sometimes sensitive statements. We propose to introduce a new blog to help improve the flow of information on club activities.

Members’ meetings

At the 2011 AGM the Board made a commitment to hold two additional informal meetings of members a year. The first of these meetings will be held on Saturday 11th February 2012 at Bury Social Club, Gigg Lane, commencing at 10am.

We will also announce further stadium consultation meetings soon.

Survey

Over the next few days we will send out a survey to supporters specifically on the subject of communication. Your input into this survey would be greatly appreciated and will help shape future policy

More

This isn’t the sum total of any improvements that can be made. We have been consulting with others from outside of the club to see if any other lessons can be learnt or whether a different perspective can be offered. There are some interesting and exciting suggestions that have come from this, which we hope to develop after the General Meeting as we build towards the AGM in the Autumn.


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