Affordable football at FC United (PART 2)

What we can all do to help to ensure that FC United compete with clubs in our league whilst remaining true to our founding principles.

In Part 1 of this article published yesterday, (see here) we asked the question;

How can FC United compete with clubs in our league whilst remaining true to our founding principles?

One way is to continue to attract more supporters through the turnstiles. Last season FC United were the fourth best supported team in non-league football behind established, former leagues clubs, Tranmere Rovers, Wrexham and Grimsby Town. Our average attendance in our first season at Broadhurst Park was 3,394, an increase of 58% on the previous season’s average and testament to the years of graft in securing our own ground in Moston.



For the coming season we are aiming, once again, to sell 2,000 season tickets. With less than three weeks to go before the new season starts, we are now just over half way to meeting our target and we’ll be doing all we can to promote them over the next few weeks, in particular encouraging those supporters who bought a season ticket last season to renew.

But gate revenue is only part of the story. Whilst attendances boomed and matchday revenue surged in 2015-16 the financial report for the first nine months of the 2015-16 financial year revealed some gaping holes in our matchday and other income. Of the first eighteen home league games last season, for instance, only six were sponsored and match ball and programme sponsorship were similarly below target.

We’ve been offering sponsorship since we first kicked a ball back in 2005 and in the early years sponsoring a match or the match ball or a player proved to be popular with supporters often choosing to club together to sponsors things.

But clearly there is a limit to how much our supporters can contribute financially; we can’t simply keep asking the same people to contribute over and over again. We must think more creatively about how we can encourage others to contribute financially and in other ways.

At Broadhurst Park we now have facilities that are the envy of many and these are available for hire. Aside from our lower than expected sponsorship income the most worrying revelation of the financial report was that in the first nine months of 2015-16 we generated nowhere near the amount of money we had planned from hiring out function rooms, pitches and classrooms.

Of the £232k we had planned from function room hire, for instance, we managed to generate only £41k, missing our target by a whopping 82%. Since this revelation the club has done much to encourage the hire of facilities and a brochure, compiled by some of our volunteers, advertising the various facilities that we have to offer is now available. Over the coming months we will be working hard to promote this.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FUNCTIONS AND FACILITIES BROCHURE

Please take the time to have a look at this brochure and share it as widely as you can. Could you encourage friends, family or work colleagues to hire our function room out for parties, weddings, birthdays or anniversaries? Maybe there’s a few of you that fancy hiring a 3G pitch out for a regular game of football?

Does your workplace hold conferences, off-site meetings or away days? If so, could you persuade them to hold any of them at Broadhurst Park? Or would your organisation be interested in advertising at the ground or sponsoring a match or a player thus helping to raise its profile? Likewise if you run your own business would you consider advertising at the ground or sponsoring the club?

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SPONSORSHIP & ADVERTISING PACKAGES

We saw a significant increase in the number of new fans coming to watch FC United last season. If you are one of our newer supporters who enjoy the matchday atmosphere and understand the ethos and the principles on which the club was founded then please consider supporting the club in other ways whether it’s financially or simply by sharing the brochure with others who may be interested in offering sponsorship or hiring out facilities.

Of course, it’s not all about asking you to keep digging into your pockets. If you can’t give money, could you spare your time, your skills or your expertise to help the club? Keeping our costs as low as possible is as important to our financial stability as bringing in additional revenue and our already large team of volunteers assist hugely in this.



In recent weeks a team of volunteers undertook a crucial piece of work at the ground building a sturdy new perimeter wall, without which the league would not have allowed us to play home games at Broadhurst Park. Four bricklayers and supporting labourers worked weekdays, evenings and weekends to complete the job, in the process saving the club thousands of pounds. (Read more about it here)

One inspiring example from many of the wonderful work that our many volunteers do.

Whatever skills and talent you have, whether it’s bricklaying, painting, bean counting or running your own business we want to hear from you.

What can you do now?

Firstly, if you haven’t yet bought a Season Ticket, please consider doing so at the earliest convenience.

BUY YOUR SEASON TICKET HERE

Likewise please don’t forget to buy or renew your membership for the new season. The health of this football club rests on its members playing an active role in all aspects of the running of the club; asking questions of the board and ensuring that the club, in everything it does, remains true to its founding principles. FC United’s one member one vote democracy means that membership offers the opportunity for us all to have our say in the running of our football club.

Membership is £12 for adults and £3 for juniors under the age of 16 and the membership year runs from 1st July 2016 to 30th June 2017.

BUY MEMBERSHIP HERE

Have a look through our documents relating to sponsorship and facilities and function room hire.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SPONSORSHIP & ADVERTISING PACKAGES

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FUNCTIONS AND FACILITIES BROCHURE

Do you have any good contacts that we can approach? If so send us an email to office@fc-utd.uk or ring us on 0161 769 2005.

If you are interested in volunteering - just drop us an email to office@fc-utd.uk or telephone us on 0161 769 2005 outlining ways you can help and skills you have on offer and we’ll get in touch to discuss opportunities with you.

And finally, on Friday 29th July, we are hosting a very special ‘Course You Can Malcolm’ inspired event in the function room at Broadhurst Park, as part of Rochdale pre-season friendly match the following day, to thank and acknowledge all the hundreds of volunteers that make the Club so special. The Rochdale game is dedicated to them and a reminder of what an incredible force we are when all pulling in the same direction. Click here for details

FC United is all about the fans that run it. It’s truly ours and in building this football club from scratch we have proudly shown that ordinary people can collectively build something that emphatically demonstrates that a better world is possible.

It’s down to us to shape our own future. Onwards.