Using the web to give football back to its fans
In May this year, four and a half thousand people packed out the new Broadhurst Park Stadium to watch their local team, FC United Manchester (FCUM) take on the Portuguese team S.L. Benfica.
Their first match in a brand new stadium was a demonstration of how the internet and a .uk address can connect communities of fans to create something special. Football may now be the plaything of global billionaires, but FC United are a welcome reminder of why local roots are still at its heart.
“You have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by that and there were many people moved that night, no question.”
“Seeing grown men and women cry just with the sheer joy and exhilaration of what has been achieved, it touches you,” Andy Walker, fundraising and press and communications officer at FCUM said. “You have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by that and there were many people moved that night, no question.”
FCUM started ten years ago when fans in Manchester became frustrated with the direction football was taking — clubs not taking supporter’s views into account, match days becoming more sanitised and ticket prices rising significantly. They decided to take matters in to their own hands and started a club designed, owned, and managed entirely by their supporters. As Walker explained, their .uk site has been integral to that process.
“The club has been fortunate in having volunteers who helped develop the website, the shop and the different information forums the club has at its disposal,” he said. “The use of the Internet has been crucial in keeping members informed, in highlighting particular issues that needed to be addressed, and in particular during the build process (of the new stadium) where regular updates were posted online.”
Their .uk site has in particular allowed the club to reach an international fan base.
“We have supporter groups in all different parts of the world — in Scandinavia, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden”
“By membership number we are the largest supporter owned football club in the country. We have 4,284 members and obviously the majority of them are based in the UK, but not exclusively. We have supporter groups in all different parts of the world — in Scandinavia, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. We have a branch that’s just been set up in China and recently we appeared in the major football magazine in China. We also played a football friendly in South Korea a number of years ago.”
FCUM have used a range of innovative features to keep in touch with this international base, including a radio station, FCUM radio, which broadcasts live commentary of all games, and a TV station, FCUM TV, where they post game highlights, interviews and feature material. But their site has never been more important than in the process of building their stadium. Not being able to rely on big donors like other clubs, it was the membership who had to raise the funds to get the project going. Walker explains:
“The club have been absolutely clear that from day one, the structure of one-member-one vote should not be compromised by any of the club’s fundraising activity in order to build the ground. So one of the things we did to build the ground was that we looked at a thing called community shares, which is a way in which cooperatives and third sector organisations can raise capital income without compromising the ownership structure of the club.”
The club raised millions of pounds this way — an international community coming together to build the infrastructure they needed to thrive. That culminated in the opening of the Broadhurst Park Stadium, a new home for one the UK’s newest clubs.
Their .uk let FCUM reach out to the world. And now the sky is the limit. In 2015 FCUM became champions of the Northern Premier League and are now only two promotions away from the professional football league. The world is at their feet.
This story is one of 30 celebrating the launch of .uk domain names in 1985. To read the others visit our 30 Years of .uk hub. To start your own .uk story check out www.agreatplacetobe.uk.
