Inside the Lower Leagues: Mancunian Unity's togetherness shines through ahead of 'dream' Newcastle United FA Cup tie
The Tier 6 side is only four years old and due to COVID-19 has only completed two full seasons, but this Sunday they'll face giants Newcastle United in the FA Cup. WFC spoke to the people behind it...
Staring solely at a list of names, it’s easy to get sucked in solely by the uniqueness of what Tier 3 side Newcastle United face this weekend in the first round of the FA Cup.
It is, after all, the magic of the cup. But for a side with aspirations of reaching the second division at the first time of asking come May, it is not Manchester who stand in their way, but Mancunian. Not United, but Unity.
Mancunian Unity, currently of sixth-tier regional north west league. As I said, the name stands out, but beyond the name is a much broader, heart-warming story which their journey from nowhere to what faces them this Sunday in just four short years only tells a small part of.
Set up by current manager Phil Burke - who has guided them through three enthralling qualifying rounds which included a 6-5 and a 5-3 score line - as recent as 2019, the odds were already stacked against a side with no major benefactor, even more so when you consider the COVID-19 pandemic hit just months after their start to life.
“I just thought ‘let’s do this’ and make a club into what I think is right, create a safe space…”
It means, incredibly, the team has only completed two full seasons, with the 2019-20 and 2020-21 campaigns curtailed due to the pandemic, but they have been promoted in both of them, and are already top of their league again this season as they look to move just one division away from a step into the FA Women’s National League.
To many, the term Unity may be somewhat of a cliché, but it doesn’t take too much time speaking to those at the club to realise this is one of those places where it is not just a cliché, but the actual foundation of the club’s creation.
“I was working at another football club in the community and girls sector,” tells Burke, just before taking the final session before the match against Newcastle on Sunday. “I knew a few people who played for the team and I used to go and watch as a fan really. It got to a point where one came to me and just burst into tears. She said she didn’t want to play football and she wanted to quit.
“What happened was a select few were getting bullied, made to feel they weren’t wanted and they didn’t want to play football anymore. For myself, I had the ambition to be a professional coach and I just thought ‘let’s do this’ and make a club into what I think is right, create a safe space, an enjoyable environment for women and girls and to develop people to drive them to be the best they can be and climb that pyramid.”
In the earliest days, he relied on those he knew best. His current captain, Jess Bamber, was a close primary school and high school friend, and after giving up the game she’d fallen out of love with, Bamber got back involved only because it was Burke on the other end of a phone call, and now four years on she’s preparing to lead her side out against a side linked with a Premier League giant.
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“No, never,” she smiles, when I ask if she ever imagined it would come to this. “We’ve worked hard and I don’t think anyone deserves it more than we do. We train for about four hours all week. Behind the scenes, the work from the coaches and staff is incredible, we just go out and win the games for them. This is all mind-blowing, but we’re buzzing and we can’t wait for it.”
On how she got involved with Unity, Bamber adds “Phil rang me one day and said ‘I’m starting my own club’. I was about 25, 26 and I said ‘I think I’m past it now Phil, I’m knackered’, but he said to come down and give it a shot. It took me a few months, I was a bit of an ‘as and when’ at first, but I fell back in love with it. He’s my best mate and doing this with him is completely different, that’s why I’m here.”
Bamber played at local amateur level for Middleton Athletic but had quickly fallen out of love with the game through a constant streak of injuries and niggles, as she puts it, but in her first match for Unity she scored a last-minute winner in a cup match and it re-lit the match inside of her.
“What you get here you don’t get anywhere else. It’s not just training and games, we have a life outside of this. We go out together, we socialise together, it is a unity. Everyone loves each other, it’s great to be involved in it.”
“I went to training once and absolutely loved it, I’ve never loved being in a team so much in my life…”
It’s a sentiment also echoed by vice-captain Molly Etchells, who only joined the club in 2022 and as Burke puts it took a “huge gamble” by dropping two divisions to join the club after spells in both the USA at college and then Salford City back home.
Etchells admits there is “some nerves” ahead of their biggest occasion yet on Sunday, but she too has bought into what this club is all about.
“I’ve got so much respect for Phil for bringing us where we are,” says Etchells. “I came down two tiers because I bought into it. I went to training once and absolutely loved it, I’ve never loved being in a team so much in my life and I’m playing the best I’ve ever played.
“I’ve made best friends for life and the things Phil has done for this club is ridiculous. It’s amazing what he’s done, the fact we’re getting recognition now, it will put is on the map. We’re not just a little club, we’re a unity.”
There is a reality to it all too. While Burke believed these days will come and he is aiming for much more, as high as the Barclays Women’s Super League, he knows the challenges they face, but even to bring them as far as he has in four years is a huge achievement.
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The players all pay to play, rather than the other way around, and they are reliant solely on sponsors, as is evident by local company Couture Cat Sitting Services branded on the bespoke black and yellow training gear they’re all wearing.
Within the circular logo which brandishes the club name is a bee, a symbol closely linked to Manchester after the devastating Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, another sign of what closely links this club to the local community, based at the Heywood Sports Village just outside Rochdale, a few miles from the city.
“It’s all a little bit surreal, but from the second we started…” Burke pauses, reflecting on the journey, and adds “Look, we had no badge, no name, no kit, no money, nothing. People were very quick to jump at the opinion that we’d fail and fold within a month, especially when the pandemic hit, but four years and two full seasons later here we are in the FA Cup first round against Newcastle United.”
One sponsor, Harvey Supplies, has paid £4,000 and that allows them to keep their stadium in Oldham where they’ll host the Magpies this weekend, while the FA Cup prize money increase has been life-changing for the club, with even defeat on Sunday ensuring they would take home £10,300 for their three qualifying round wins and a first round encounter.
“I can’t even explain how important it’s been. We have the ambition to get to a point where the players don’t have to pay, we want to take that barrier away from them. We want to keep our stadium, but things like that and our kits and what not cost a lot of money and every season that resets. We know the further we go up the more money we will need behind us and we will need to get better at everything we do, but the prize money has meant the world.”
Etchells adds “That’s what we do, we play for the love of the game. Whatever we do get, we appreciate so much and the money we get from this will be huge. People don’t appreciate how much we appreciate it. We had nothing, so it will go so far to help us out.”
Burke believes “we can cause a shock”, but is realistic about what they face up to on Sunday, a side currently unbeaten in a league three tiers and a financial world above them.
But, their own success shows their talent, and Etchells is adamant there are several within the squad who could play at National League and don’t because of work/life circumstances only.
“There’s no pressure on us, we’re completely the underdogs, but they’ll be shocked,” says the vice-captain. “We’ve got a few players who are unreal and could be playing at that level. If we’re on it, Liz, Maya, Ella are unreal players, it’s a great test for everyone.”
“We always say it. We’re little Unity, just little Unity…”
For all of them, the football and work balance remains, while for Newcastle’s players it’s a distant memory after the club committed to a professional full-time programme after promotion last season.
Etchells, along with several others in the squad, is a police officer and cannot always commit to training and games, while Bamber is a customer service team leader at a local bedding company.
Striker Kaitland Harter, who joined back in 2020, works in events including music festivals, and spent the summer in countries like Portugal working at festivals, so unsurprisingly admits she’s taken on the role of team DJ, but her own story is extrinsically linked to that of Burke’s.
Her and Burke worked together in the same sports coaching company and for 18 months owned a business called ‘Sports by Unity’ together, before Harter moved on to pursue her passion in events, but she too has dropped down the divisions to play under her current manager.
“He was talking about his football team all the time and I told him I played football and would come down, and I’ve been here ever since!” says Harter. “I’ve never, ever been at a better team.
“A lot of it is the girls we play with. It’s such a good group of girls, everyone gets along. I’ve been at teams higher up where the standard is better, but you train, jump straight in your car and go home. That’s it, you don’t speak again until training. Here, we have our group chat, we have nights out, everyone really gets along.”
Harter was in Tier 6 when she persuaded to drop down to then Tier 8 in Unity’s second season, and now she’s back where it all began and like everyone else is only looking upwards, with the Newcastle clash symptomatic of the club’s wider plans to ensure these are not just one-offs, but regular fixtures in years to come.
“We always say it. We’re little Unity, just little Unity,” says Harter, as it becomes clear somewhat of a siege mentality has been created among the doubts over them as an entity. “We’ve been promoted twice in a row but we’ll have people messaging saying ‘you’re going to get battered this season’ and every year we’re like ‘Look at little Unity, we’ve done it again’.
“Look at us now, we’ve drawn Newcastle United.”
Bamber echoes it “We call ourselves ‘Little old Unity’. Phil’s done it himself from bare bones, his own pocket and I’ve got so much respect for him for that. We don’t have the backing of anyone else, we rely on our sponsors and whatever else comes in, that’s why we’ve worked so hard because this money keeps us afloat.”
Burke himself knows it too and admits “people do say we’re crazy” when he talks about one day wanting to reach the WSL, but the reality is what they face this Sunday was also once a pipedream, given less than five years Unity didn’t even exist.
More realistically, he is at least targeting the National League which would mean two more promotions from where they are now, but won’t go back on the club’s ethos, knowing that is until now what has helped get them to where they are.
“We take the meaning of the world Unity very seriously,” he says. “We try and drive a togetherness on and off the field, we’re so passionate about our identity and what we want to project to people and what we want to become.
“Newcastle United is surreal, it’s incredible, it was a dream but it’s a dream we’ve seen become real. We said we wanted Newcastle, we wanted it away in case it would be at St James’ Park, but there’s something magical about hosting them too.”
“It’s not just this weekend, leading them out every week is a privilege for me…”
For Bamber, she will be the one who gets to lead the team out on Sunday and it will continue an incredibly affinity with the club given she never expected to play football again.
Playing under the man she has known and been best friends with for two decades, Bamber has already lifted seven trophies with the Unity, including two league titles and now back-to-back treble winning seasons through local cup competitions.
“It’s not just this weekend, leading them out every week is a privilege for me,” she smiles. “The love everyone has for each other, the respect we have for Phil and the staff. Hopefully the crowd will be big and we can enjoy the moment.
“You look at Newcastle, they do it every day and get paid for it. Most of us work 9-5, we have a couple of police officers, midwives, we still have to go to work and we don’t get paid, we do it for the sheer enjoyment. We love it and that’s why we do it and we’ve been rewarded.”
Thankfully, vice-captain Etchells has managed to ensure her work won’t clash with this weekend’s game and she’ll definitely be available on Sunday, but while the game grows at the top-level, the realities of a work/balance remain for Unity and many others.
“Whether I can get to both is a very low chance!” she laughs. “I work night shifts, afternoon shifts, early shifts. Sometimes I can train and not play, sometimes I play but don’t train, so I appreciate every moment I play football now because I can’t play all the time.
“There’s a few others who are police offers too, but Phil is so understanding, he knows I’m not missing it because I don’t want to be here. Luckily, I’m off this weekend and playing Newcastle makes everything worthwhile. It’s what you work for and what you live for.”
While the first round of the FA Cup isn’t yet the televised event of the latter rounds, more so waiting for an email or refreshing the tournament’s social media accounts, the reality of what they wanted soon hit home.
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Burke was sat in his car frantically refreshing the page the day after their 5-3 win over Penrith which saw them into the hat for the first round when his assistant rang him to say they’d drawn Newcastle.
Bamber found out through her dad and word soon spread to the rest of the squad, and while they know the task will be an almost impossible one, they are looking forward to having the chance to put Unity on the football map.
“We’re very close-knit,” says Etchells. “We don’t have much, but we have 40 or 50 fans who follow us everywhere, and a good few who come to home games, so hopefully there’s plenty there. From parents to people who don’t even know us, they come and watch. It’s a family, we’re a small club, but we’re going to get bigger.
“It’s an unusual name, not one people are used to seeing. People will soon realise we’re not just a name, we can actually play football. We won’t get bullied.”
Harter adds “It’s very rare you get an experience like this. We’ve said that, we’re here to give them a good game, but this is a chance we would never usually get and never had before.
“It means a lot to us girls, especially in terms of our families too. My family all watch football themselves, they come and watch me and to be able to watch one of their family members in a game like this, I can see the pride in them.”
As for Burke, he was the one who founded Unity, took on the role of manager as well as everything behind the scenes, and he’ll be the one in the home dugout looking to cause the shock of all shocks come Sunday.
“I just genuinely believe every single person at the club deserves this, deserves this moment. Hopefully everyone will just have a great day come Sunday.”
Brilliant post! Will be looking out for Unity’s progress now.
Great article. I wondered how and where this team came from & now I know. A good example of what football can offer, on and off the field.