«Not for sale»? The destruction and reformation of football communities in the Glazer take-over of Manchester United

Abstract

This paper will explore 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 take-over 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 (Nash, 2000; Brown, 1998); the nature of fan communities. The paper will explore the failure of highly politicised and radicalised fan organisations to stop the take over 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».