‘Not For Sale’? The Destruction and Reformation of Football Communities in the Glazer Takeover of Manchester United

Abstract

This paper explores the background, fan culture and scope of the oppositional stance taken by many Manchester United fans to the corporate takeover of their club by the US-based Glazer family. The paper will situate the takeover battle within a number of trends within United's fandom, namely: the reassertion of locality among United's Mancunian fan base; the formations of fan groups at Manchester United;[1] the nature of fan communities. The paper will explore the failure of highly politicized and radicalized fan organizations to stop the takeover and the destruction of community that this entailed. It will conclude by exploring the formation of a new, fan-owned football club -FC United of Manchester, established by disaffected and disillusioned Manchester United fans -and begin to situate this within different theoretical approaches to 'community'. The DenouementIt was around 5 p.m. on 29 June that the text message arrived at hundreds of mobile phones in Manchester: 'Joel Glazer is at OT now -spotted arriving in blacked out car behind Gill and Edwards -get everyone down there as soon as possible.' The message referred to the son of the new American tycoon owner of Manchester United who was paying his first, heavily guarded, visit to the Old Trafford ground, along with his two bothers. That he was accompanied by the despised former Chief Executive of the club, Martin Edwards, and the current incumbent, David Gill, who had previously publicly opposed the Glazer's takeover, made it even more bitter for fans to take. Supporters had waged a sophisticated and vitriolic battle against the takeover for the previous 18 months: now was its denouement.

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