Spiked MEN piece by @FCUnitedMcr insider:

FC United: A Fairy Story



Back in May FC United played a friendly against Benfica to mark the opening of their magnificent new ground at Broadhurst Park. The infamously notoriously cynical Red Issue columnist ‘Mr Spleen’ wrote lauding the significance of it all. “What a magnificent, unparalleled achievement. And what an example … Everyone was happy. And that's the FC effect.” That recent past seems like a different country now.



Below the surface there were rumblings of discontent even then. The stresses of the interminable delay in the ground’s opening – Chief Executive Andy Walsh emailed the membership in October 2014 claiming that completion was just “weeks away”; handover didn’t occur until mid-June this year – on top of hugely increased costs had resulted in squeezed budgets and meant the club’s management looked to eke as much revenue out of May’s prestige friendly as possible. To that end Walsh authorised a revamped commemorative programme for which the club could impose an increased charge. To some of FC’s notoriously bolshie supporters this inevitably caused consternation, with the programme editor himself voicing opposition that kick-started a chain of events still rumbling on now.



This insubordination saw him carpeted by Walsh and, following a public naming and shaming in a statement on the matter by the club Board, the editor felt bullied into resigning his post. This left many members deeply uncomfortable: not only did the price increase appear to breach one of the club’s founding principles, the club management’s decision to stop selling concessionary tickets for the Benfica game also appeared to breach another. Members demanding explanations were slapped down by Board member Kate Ramsey dismissing them as but “a small number of individuals” - a line many recognised as straight out of Martin Edwards’ handbook. Meanwhile, the slow drift away from the club’s ideals continued as the club tweeted pictures of staff at a swish corporate shindig at which Walsh was nominated for ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ on account of what FC’s fans had achieved in financing Broadhurst Park. But what really grated about that amongst those who’d chosen to boycott Old Trafford on principle was that Walsh was cavorting with the same type of venture capitalists as the Glazers. The winning ‘entrepreneur’ had actually replicated a Glazer-style leveraged buy-out.



Further calamities followed. The tacky promotion of a minor club sponsor reminded fans of MUFC PLC-style commercialism (another founding principle down). In October four club officials posed preening on the Broadhurst pitch with Treasury minister Damian Hinds during the Tory conference, breaching their own recently introduced rule about not allowing politicians to use the club for party political promotion. This outraged many supporters who had just days before marched in protest against Hinds’ government’s cuts.



Early last month FC gained kudos in many quarters for the Board’s objection to BT Sport’s request to move the club’s FA Cup 1st Round tie to a Monday night for television. However, many supporters actually wondered what the problem was - they’d already voted on two resolutions on the matter. One had accepted playing in the FA Cup and any connected TV fixture changes; another had outlined the criteria for objecting to TV fixture changes, none of which appeared to be breached. With the Board grandstanding against the apparent chore of having BT pay £67,000 into their cash-hungry coffers, suggestions that they should therefore give the money to charity fell on conveniently deaf ears. Meanwhile, whilst a minority went ahead with a protest against BT by boycotting the first half, a number of those Board members who’d encouraged them to do so shamelessly took up places in the ground regardless.



More was to follow. During the summer tumult the constant refrain from the Board’s defenders was, “Put your complaints in a resolution to the AGM”. The club’s founder – the person who in 2005 wrote the FC blueprint and coordinated the small group which got FC up and running within weeks – did just that. He constructed over 30 different resolutions and votes to put to members, aimed at improving the club’s governance and re-uniting it with its original ethos. However, upon trying to renew his membership to submit the motions the Board blocked him due to what they called “untested” allegations. The Board demanded a meeting, coincidentally after the deadline for the resolutions to be submitted, to ascertain the facts. FC’s founder’s protested that such a move was unconstitutional and requested the legal basis of the ruling. Over several weeks the club’s Board refused to provide any and deadlock resulted. The membership application was eventually ‘refused’ on the very day of the AGM, thereby effectively banning the club founder from attending and preventing him contributing to any debate.



Despite FC constantly heralding its “democracy”, the AGM passed with fewer than a tenth of its membership participating. Kate Ramsey, up for re-election, polled just 39% but was voted back in by 3 votes, with 9 ballots being deemed “spoilt” – some merely for being placed in the wrong ballot box. (Interestingly, despite being a candidate, Ramsey also helped collect voting slips on the night!) Another Board member is currently being investigated following claims of attempts to undermine the backers of reform-based resolutions by questioning whether they had ever volunteered for the club. “Some are more equal than others”?



It certainly appears to have all gone a bit Animal Farm. Given the banning of agitators and a move towards Show Trials to approve membership applications, it’s hard not to think even Sepp Blatter might view it all as a touch undemocratic. Certainly the fallout is disillusioning many of FC’s old guard - at least fifty are said to have already ceased all financial contributions and even ‘Mr Spleen’ is set to follow them: the month he gave the Board to sort the mess out runs out this week. But with FC’s founder now taking legal action against the club following the Board and Andy Walsh’s false and defamatory association of him with “threats” that have reportedly made to staff members, it appears things are only going to get a whole lot worse before they can begin to get any better.

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