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Forever in Blue Jeans - Margy celebrates 11 years in charge at FC United

Forever in Blue Jeans - Margy celebrates 11 years in charge at FC UnitedOn 22nd June 2005 Karl Marginson was appointed manager of FC United.

On 22nd June 2005 Karl Marginson was appointed manager of FC United. With no previous managerial experience Karl joined a football club that was only eight days old and set up by a group of football supporters who had no experience in running a football club……. 11 years on Karl (better known as Margy) is now one of the longest serving managers in the country and FC United is an established football club competing in the sixth tier of English football in a ground of its own.

In his first three seasons, Karl led FC United to three successive promotions and after four consecutive defeats in the Northern Premier League play-offs, Margy finally secured automatic promotion to the National League North in 2014/15.



Born in 1970, United fan Karl was brought up in Ancoats, just three miles from FC United’s ground in Moston. At the age of 16, he was a trainee at Stockport County at a time when the Youth Training Scheme was being introduced at football clubs. His Dad however had other ideas and was keen for his son to get a ‘proper job’. So instead of furthering his footballing career with other trainees at Stockport he found himself making clocks in Ancoats and playing for a pub team in Rusholme.

With ambitions of still becoming a professional footballer, Karl had trials at Tranmere Rovers and Blackpool and whilst at Blackpool he played in the FA Youth Cup under the first team manager at the time, Sam Ellis. At half-time, Ellis laid into Blackpool’s number 4 for not being tough enough. Margy felt sorry for this player, but then realised it was he who was wearing the number 4 shirt. Karl took the comments on board, and in a bid to toughen himself up he went to play for a Droylsden-based Sunday League side that had a reputation for being quite hard.

Karl, who by then had become a milkman, went onto play for Curzon Ashton before moving to Ashton United in 1990 where he played 146 times, scoring 62 goals over a three year period.

At the age of 23, now married with a young child, he finally achieved his ambition of becoming a professional footballer when he signed for Rotherham United, who were then playing in the third tier of English League football. But despite being at the South Yorkshire club for more than two years, he played only 15 games. After suffering a bad injury he was sent on loan to Macclesfield and went on to play for them on a permanent basis.

After a spell at Chorley, he played for Barrow in 1997, where he scored the winning goal to clinch the title and promotion to the Conference against nearest rivals Boston United. By that time Karl had also switched jobs and was now delivering fruit and vegetables instead of milk.

After leaving Barrow in 1999, Karl had spells with Stalybridge, Hyde, Salford and Radcliffe Borough before a succession of injuries forced him to think about hanging up his boots. At the end of the 2004/05 season he wondered what the future may hold.

At the same time a large number of Manchester United fans were also contemplating their future following Malcolm Glazer’s takeover of their Club. After the idea of creating a new football club was floated in the United fanzine Red Issue, a group of fans met in a curry house in Rusholme where the idea of FC United was finally conceived. Within weeks the club was established, and with the aim of getting a team ready for the new season in the North West Counties League, the search for a manager and players began.

FC United’s first signing, Joz Mitten, suggested Karl as a potential manager to FC United’s steering group and after a phone call by Joz and subsequent meetings with the members of the steering group, Karl was named as FC United’s on 22nd June 2005.

In an early documentary, about FC United, BBC North West followed Margy on his early morning fruit and veg rounds and it wasn’t long before the FC United fans were singing songs about Margy’s van being full of fruit and ‘He sells asparagus’.



A couple of years later, Karl was able to give up his fruit and veg job to work at Manchester College as part of a partnership with FC United’s communities team where he would assist in football coaching and personal development of young people aged 16-19, a position he still holds today.

He did have a very brief footballing come back, coming on as a substitute for FC United in our final league match of the 2006/07 season against Formby. The picture tells its own story.



In between playing, managing and delivering milk, apples and potatoes, Karl has developed a keen interest in card tricks, regularly practicing them on team mates on long away trips. He’s also not adverse to a bit of acting.

As a kid at St. Mark’s primary school in Anocats he took the parts of the Artful Dodger and Scrooge and in 2009 he appeared in short film playing a 1894 football manager as part of MaD Theatre’s production ‘Angels with Manky Faces’.

Seven years on, Karl will once again be appearing in another Mad Theatre production called ‘Conceived in a Curry House’ which tells the story of FC United. This time Karl is playing a 2005 football manager known as ‘Margy’. Rob Lees from MaD describes Karl playing a ‘version of himself’, but as far of Karl is concerned the depiction of the character is pretty much accurate.



Unfortunately due to pre-season friendly commitments Karl can’t perform on-stage but he will feature in the films that accompany this multi-media production.

‘Conceived in a Curry House’ will bring the terraces to the theatre, it will be decked out with flags and scarves and the audience will be encouraged to sing and chant along to the action. And just like an FC home game there will be a bar, half time draw and club merchandise will be on sale.

There will be 8 performances at Moston’s Simpson Memorial Hall between the 7th – 16th July with additional shows at Manchester Communication Academy in Harpurhey on 4th July and The Lowry, Salford Quays on 11th August.

The tickets are priced the same as the admission prices at FC United at a very affordable £9 Adults, £5 Concessions and £2 for under 18s.

So get yourself to that theatre and relive the incredible journey of our fantastic football club.

For more information about the play and to buy tickets click here

On behalf of everyone associated with FC United, we’d like to say a huge thanks to Karl for everything he has achieved over the last 11 years.



First Posted ~ 08:04 Wed 22 Jun 2016
News ID ~ 6884
Last Updated ~ 16:00 Fri 19 Feb 2021