Rebel Club are Champions!

FC United of Manchester (FCUM), the breakaway club formed by disgruntled Manchester United supporters after the Glazer takeover last May, has been promoted as champions from the Moore & Co. North West Counties Division Two (NWCD2) after Flixton drew 0-0 away at Holker Old Boys and Nelson lost 2-0 away at Oldham Town. FCUM's promotion had been confirmed the previous week after beating Chadderton 4-0 at Gigg Lane. NWCD2 is the tenth rung of the football pyramid, just six steps away from Division Two and professional football.

The promotion, as champions, is a remarkable feat for a club only formed last summer and staffed with players from public trials. 900 players applied to take part in the trials, of whom 200 were selected to do so and 17 were chosen to play for F.C. United. Credit must go to manager Karl Marginson, the club's founders, and the outstanding level of support that the club has gained over the past few months.

FCUM is amongst a new breed of football club, in that it is both owned and democratically run by its members, who are predominantly people local to the Manchester area. From the start FCUM were formed as a non-profit making entity on the Industrial and Provident Society company model. The club has no shirt sponsor - and will never do so - and for the moment have stuck rigidly to their club constitution. Inspiration for the club came in particular from AFC Wimbledon, which was founded in 2004 when their greedy, already rich owners, moved the club 70 miles away to Milton Keynes in order to make even more money.

The new United is, of course, everything that Manchester United is not, created to address the concerns of ordinary fans who have seen the Reds develop into a multi-national mega-club run for profit, not the supporters. The straw that broke many supporters' back was the takeover by Malcolm Glazer but it is fair to say that fans' grievances had been building up over at least a decade.

Although I continue to support Manchester United - attending games at Old Trafford, not Gigg Lane - I fully sympathize with the ideals of FCUM. From a personal point of view I wish FCUM all the best and continue to track their development. I hope FCUM's entry into the FA Cup during the 2006/7 season brings a good run and a match with Manchester United!

The future looks very bright for FCUM. In a division where the typical gate is less than 200, FCUM has achieved average crowds of 2,884 at Bury's Gigg Lane ground, a similar level of support to many League Two sides, making FCUM - in attendance terms - the 88th largest club in England! At this rate, providing the club maintains that level of support, FCUM could very well find themselves in the football league within a decade, depending on successive promotions and continued Football Association tinkering with the football pyramid.

The current system sees FCUM at step 6 of the pyramid, after restructuring in 2004/5, and the structure means that the club will need to finish in the top two of each subsequent division to continue being promoted. Although the FA plan to streamline the pyramid once again for 2007/8 FCUM will play in the North West Counties Division 1 next season, then the Northern Premier League Division 1, the Northern Premier League Premier Division, the Football Conference North, and finally the Football Conference around 2012!