Fletcher Moss Rangers, the club where Marcus Rashford and Danny Welbeck first played football, have pleaded with Manchester United to save them from extinction.
Rashford was back in class studying for his BTEC in sport at Ashton on Mersey School Sixth Form yesterday after experiencing a remarkable week that would have not looked out of place in a Roy of the Rovers comic strip.
The 18-year-old United academy graduate, who grew up five miles from Old Trafford, found the net twice on debut against Midtjylland last Thursday and then scored another double on his maiden Barclays Premier League appearance at home to Arsenal three days later.
It would be fair to assume that Rashford’s classmates did their best to bring English football’s supposed great new hope back down to earth.
And if any more sobriety were required, Rashford should take note of what is happening at his old club Fletcher Moss, who are located on the outskirts of Didsbury in south Manchester.
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Away from the bright lights of the Theatre of Dreams, life is not so rosy for those who run Fletcher Moss.
“We are not asking for the earth here. They have had plenty out of us.
The reality is that their facilities are dilapidated and poorly designed, while league fees, council bills and running costs are a heavy burden.
The ageing brick building that contains one big changing room and a cramped meeting room, is “not fit for purpose,” Ron Jamieson, the club’s secretary, told The Times.
Jamieson says that Fletcher Moss are struggling to pay the £10,000 running costs they incur every year and they have to find another £6,000 a year to lease the pitches on Mersey Bank playing fields for their 17 youth teams.
The club’s girls teams had to be disbanded because the council was not happy that they had to use the same changing facilities as their male counterparts.
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In all, Jamieson wants £2 million to replace the old pavilion with a new one that contains six changing rooms and a communal room, which could provide the club with extra revenue through renting it out for other functions. The money would also be spent on state of the art 3G pitches and floodlights.
The figure may sound extreme, but when you consider how much local clubs, particularly United, have benefited from Fletcher Moss’s coaching and commitment to youth football in the area, it may prove to be a worthwhile investment.
As Jamieson is keen to point out, his club have provided United with plenty of valuable assets in the past. Rashford, Tyler Blackett, Welbeck, Ravel Morrison, Zeki Fryers, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Wes Brown are among the players who United have picked up from Fletcher Moss.
Rules dictate that United are not obliged to compensate the club for players they take from local clubs, although they did receive a one-off payment a few years ago, Jamieson says, but that was only enough to buy some new kit.
Jamieson is hoping that on the back of Rashford’s success, United will find some more cash to help the club. “I would imagine they [United] would help us,” Jamieson said.
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“We are not asking for the earth here. They have had plenty out of us. They got £16 million for Danny Welbeck. And it didn’t cost them £16 million to bring in Danny Welbeck, did it?
“They sold Ravel Morrison on too. And now you have Marcus coming through too so £2 million is not a lot to someone like them.”
The potential consequences of a failure to invest in Fletcher Moss are grave.
“There are a lot of other kids that could get the opportunity to be in Marcus’s position, but if our organisation happens to fold because our facility isn’t safe to be in, then that is a tragedy,” said Dave Horrocks, the club’s academy development officer and skills coach.
“The building we are in is falling into a state of disrepair and the council have not got the money to repair it.”
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Rashford’s future may be looking bright, but that of his former club could be decidedly bleaker unless someone somewhere comes to their rescue.
