A GROUP of disillusioned City fans are planning to set up their own semi-professional club, to be known as Fans' Football Club City.
The group of 15 Blues are intent on following the route taken by angry United supporters who have formed FC United since their club was taken over by Malcolm Glazer in May.
They aim to enter a team into the non-league pyramid in 2006-07.
The organisers expect to announce a date for a public meeting in September so more details of the latest example of fan power can be aired.
One of the supporters behind the FFC City idea is Simon Cooper, a lifelong City fan, who says that - as with FC United - players greed and lack of atmosphere in the Premier League has proved to be the motivation.
FC United has been a big success so far, with 4,000 putting their names down as members, 2,500 going to the first game at Leigh RMI and around 1,000 making the long trek to play AFC Wimbledon at the weekend.
Many FC United supporters still intend to follow Manchester United as well, and Cooper stresses that the FFC City idea is not intended to be a rival to Manchester City, just an alternative for supporters who cannot afford to go to Sportcity or who are fed up with the increasing commercialisation of the game.
Option
"We feel as a group that the game is going out of the working man's reach," says Cooper. "We have had a meeting and we are all for building another option for City fans to go to.
"The framework is fragile at the moment, but the City fans we have approached have been 75 per cent in favour. The club doesn't seem to be listening to fans and the game in general seems to be pricing ordinary fans out of it.
"We will call ourselves FFC City, which stands for Fans' Football Club. We consider ourselves to be hard-core City fans - before I had my two kids I was home and away for 21 years.
"But it has got to the point where the spirit has died. You can't stand and sing, and the passion and atmosphere has disappeared.
"We are all Blues and will be City till we die, but football is pricing people like us out of the game. It's not just City - I speak to Birmingham and Middlesbrough fans I know and they say the same thing.
"I have spoken to quite a few Blues who have said that if FC United didn't have that name, and wasn't associated with the Reds, they would watch them - people are that fed up."
Another supporter behind the idea is City Supporters Association secretary Phil Gatenby, who is also a driving force in the Safe Standing campaign and on the national committee of the Football Supporters Federation.
"I am totally disillusioned with football - it's not anything City have done in particular. I haven't decided whether I will be going to games this season yet, but I turned away in disgust when I went to pick up my membership card recently and they wanted £20 for it.
"The whole idea about going to football has changed completely. I can't take my two kids to games, and even away games are beyond me at £80 or £90 a throw, and I have been a season ticket holder since 1980.
"And when I saw the FC United advert in the M.E.N. for their match at Leigh, saying they could go along and stand on the terraces with their mates, I must admit I was envious."
Any City fans wanting to know more can email ffc-city@excite.com
What do you think of the idea? Have your say.
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Boring! Get over copying Utd.
Nothing better to do obviously
This has got to be a wind up.
mite fone talksport
is this a wind-up? if people have grievances about the state of football (and i can understand why they would) why presume to tag their desultory protest kick-around with City's name? and why open the club and its fans up to mockery by doing so?
This has got to be a joke. I for one only support one club, always have, always will.
CTID.
There are a huge amount of non-league clubs already, and each one of them would welcome the support of disillusioned football fans. I don't see the need to set up your own club.
I had the same feeling with Premiership football a couple of years ago, gave up my City season ticket, and got involved with Glossop North End, a club with a rich history but an uncertain future. Anybody is welcome there and help is always needed.
I sure Phil Gatenby could find a club within 2 miles of his front door that would love his input
spiffing idea ar kid
keeps it real an that
Instead of running away and setting up a new club, why don't these fans who claim to want to be able to stand and sing with a bit of passion at a real game of football just go and support one of the lower League clubs in the area?
Rochdale, Stockport, Macclesfield and Bury could all do with more support and you can get involved and stand on terraces at all of them. (Except Bury, so forget them!)
FCUM and FFCC are nothing more than a waste of time.
Disillusioned? Deluded more like. Heard rent a quote Gatenby on the radio this morning talking about it. From the pearls of wisdom he spouted it's clear that this idea has no substance, reason or point. There is only one football team to come from Manchester - and if you want to get involved with another team then off you go. CTID - not until someone has an idea that I'll copy like a sheep for my own self promotion.
Surely not !. Is it 1st April ?.
The club need to do something about the atmosphere at Eastlands. The problem isn't going to go away. They just need to subdivide it into noisy and quiet sections and let people make a choice as to which section they want to sit in. I am a noisy person sat in a quiet area, so I tend to stay quiet too. It gets a little embarrassing making a noise on your own. As for FFC City, I wish them well. I won't be going (I can still stand on the terraces at the Gay Meadow), but I sympathise with their motives. They'd be far better off pooling limited resources with FC United. They just need to negotiate a name change.
already been done they are called maine road fc and play in chorlton.
Why don't they go to watch the reserves?
If this isn't a wind up its just plain embassassing. There are literally dozens of alternatives to turn to if your disillusioned with Premier league football. Every small town in the Greater Manchester area has a non league club and some have lowere league clubs. Why on earth is there a need to set one up with a City (or United) theme? There is and always will be only 1 City in my heart.
Its easy to have a cheap pop at this and at FC United, but I totally understand the rationale behind these set ups, and anyone who does not think that footballers are greedy sods with no loyalty, are living on another planet. And anyone who thinks the atmosphere at COMs is usually any good is going to different games than i go to...its usually like a morgue..Football is in severe danger of turning people away from watching games, the solution may be less agents...certainly i like United's policy of refusing to pay agents fees, all clubs should follow suit...and preferably get a wage cap into the league...its no longer a sport isn't prem league football, its pure business, The club with the most money will win the most trophies...fact.
Ha HA Ha always following in Uniteds shadows.
Why don,t they just go and watch citys reserve team instead its cheap to get in and stands will be much better than non league grounds
hope your idea falls flat on your face and you waste loads of money in the process. grow up and get behind the boyz.
Plenty of lower league and non-league teams out there who'd gladly welcome the extra support... nuff said.
Don't know if this is the way to deal with the obvious frustration the sport of football brings with it these days. But I can understand the frustration fully. Football has changed a lot over the years and unfortunately not in favour of the fans most of the times. The atmosphere is definitely not as good as it was when people were allowed to stand up (not only in the COMS, but in a lot of stadiums mainly because of this 'keep your butt to the seat' rule). Not only in the stadium, also within the clubs it seems that familiarity is missing more and more. Also I do miss the old English game. Football wasn't that good, yet it was exciting and we loved the players (with and without the front teeth) who played for the shirt with passion on a muddy pitch. Especially in the PL all the foreign players raised the level (well, the money did or else these players would not have come), they also made the traditional way of British play disappear. I remember the last game at Maine Road. I was fortunate to get hold of a ticket, only to find out during the weekend I was over that mates of mine, and many die-hard fans didn't got a ticket. I was lucky to be foreign and it was the first time I didn't feel comfortable with that, to be honest. Let alone some of them paying Southamptonfans 10 times the money for their ticket. Anyway, it's a subject we can talk about for hours, I just wanted to point out I can understand the way a lot of fans feel (I presume the ones that 35-plus). I don't see it as a copy of the FC United-idea, as that was born out of the Glazer situation. It's a nice subject to discuss with my City-mates next time I'm over. And who knows, maybe we will be in the stands drinking the old pine a bitter and watch FFC City beat the hell out of FC United.
If so dissillusioned with premiership football, why not go and watch Altrincham instead of this pathetic attempt to slag off City.
Its good to know that other people have similiar feelings to myself. I havent renewed my season ticket this season for reasons similiar to those described in the article - greedy players, commercialisation, lack of success, expense, lack of atnosphere in the ground. The game has been taken away from the people who were once its lifeblood, normal working people. Forming a non league club is one answer, but what fans should be doing is campaigning to change the structure of the league and the way that the game is funded. We already know that one of three teams is going to win the league this season, that is a huge deterrent for fans supporting a club outside the top tier. Why should a team finishing fourth in the prem get an extra 20 million in TV revenue? The funding structure of the league makes it nigh on impossible for aspirational clubs like city to break into it. Untill these issues are resolved there will be increased disillusionment and within a few years grounds will be empty like in the 1980's.
No logic whatsoever to this. So Gatenby was envious of the FC United fans was he? Well go and join them. This reads as if its an elaborate wind up of the FCUM but on the other hand I guess there really are people that sad out there. CTID.
I'm 33, slightly over the hill and will play for B#35,000 a week if they're interested.