Sunday, November 08, 2015

FC United of Manchester-Bloody Hell!

Tomorrow I will be visiting my parents then taking my dad for a curry in north Manchester before watching FC United of Manchester play Chesterfield, an English league club, in the FA Cup. The game has been moved from Saturday for the sake of television, this time BT Sport. FC United came about because of the Glazer takeover of Manchester United and the general commercialisation of football. Laudable sentiments with which I concur completely.

The game was moved to suit the Football Association and BT Sport. But we are a democratic club and voted, some years ago, to compete in the FA Cup knowing that games could be moved for TV. So it seems reasonable to me that we accept, albeit begrudgingly and while making our views known, the game being moved. But no, the Football Taliban have gone into overdrive and want to boycott the first half and abuse anybody who disagrees. Well tough!

In 2010 we played Rochdale in the FA Cup. The game was moved to a Friday night (Nov 5th) but there was no boycott. When this is raised with the boycotters it seems that the goalposts move and the argument is not that kick off should be 3 00 on a Saturday but that Friday is less inconvenient than Monday night. That is moving the argument away from one of principle to a group of spoilt brats spitting their dummies out. Pathetic.

Certain elements of FC United's support have decided to boycott the first half of the game and regard those of us who disagree as not real supporters. They are the leftie element who scream intolerance at anybody they disagree with but are generally the most intolerant and bigoted people you are likely to come across, if you dare to disagree with them.

We'll enjoy our pre-match curry and be in there in good time for kick off, whatever anybody else says or does.

1 comment:

Frank said...

Well said. I'm sick to the back teeth of this whole saga. I am a founder member and was at old Trafford the night the Glazer's first turned up, am a community shareholder, member and season ticket holder right from the club's inception.

People walked away from Old Trafford for a variety of reasons and for me the movement of fixtures due to TV was an annoyance more than anything. It was not in my top 5 reasons to walk away, but respect others opinions. I have every sympathy with the movement of fixtures for TV that make it virtually impossible for an away fan to attend a match and would have supported action for this fixture IF the away team was from the South of Birmingham AND the club/supporters representatives of that team confirm that travel to make the fixture is an issue. The movement of this fixture is mildly annoying but that annoyance is offset by the additional revenue and in my view comprises no principles and certainly not mine.

There are elements at this club who seem to think any form of revenue/income is a dirty word - suspect that will be the left leaning amongst our support.

Lets be clear £67k = is what? the best of part of 3-4 seasons worth of people digging deep for the matchday barrels/development fund. At our level, its a huge amount of money to just turn away for a mild inconvenience. We're not being bought, it's a business transaction.

What the FC board have done here, is basically say we don't want TV at all, ever, Full Stop. This is going to kill the club that I love. I have no objection as a co-owner in accepting money from TV for games where supporters are not being significantly inconvenienced.

Also, from a profile perspective positive TV coverage of the club is vital to our success. Just look at what TV exposure has given us in the past? Rochdale, the BBC Inside Out documentary, etc. Attendances and Membership soared on the back of this.

I too voted to join the FC cup all those years back, and I fully understood the consequences. And I agree if people feel strongly about it protest within the stadium and get a resolution raised at the next AGM where we can all vote on it.

Tomorrow will be interesting, and it will be interesting to see how boycotters there really are. I respect their decision but am baffled by it.

For the record I previously supportted the Curzon, Darwin and Chorley Boycotts. I supported the action on Ramsbottom ticket prices and although I was bemused by the Benfica program saga, the club should have seen that one coming, the re-action was obvious.

Interesting times ahaead.......