City Fans United
City Fans United are the supporters group which own Chester Football Club. For £12 a year you can become an owner too! To find out more please visit our dedicated website www.cityfansunited.com/
The current elected and co-opted board members for the CFU are as follows…
CFU Directors:
- Andrew Morris
- David Harrington-Wright
- David Williams
- Jeff Banks
- Kieron Shiel
- Mike Day
- Mark Jones
- Paul McDermott (External)
Non- Executive
- Rich Lynes
- Chris Robertson
We also have a number of fans groups at the club. These are;
Chester Exiles – our fans who live away from Chester
Inclusive Blues – our group for disabled supporters
Junior Blues – our group for under 18s
Senior Blues – our group for our older supporters
More information about these groups is available on the CFU website.
Our club is run almost entirely by volunteers which include groups for fundraising, our office volunteers, cleaning, our board of directors and more. If you are interested in volunteering please email – info@chesterfc.com
History
City Fans United (CFU) was founded by Chester City FC supporters after two supporters groups – Chester City Supporters Trust and Chester City Independent Supporters Association (ISA) – amalgamated just months before Chester City FC was wound up in the High Court in March 2010. The group quickly set about building a new club to ensure the continuation of Chester FC which has been in existence since 1885.
CFU successfully secured a lease to the Deva Stadium from the council and were then placed in the North West Counties Premier Division – the 10th tier of English football. The club appealed against the decision which led to the club starting out in the Northern Premier League Division One North – the 8th tier.
CFU then hired Neil Young as the club’s manager and started to rebuild the club which started out without a bib, cone or football to its name.
Players were signed and the amazing band of volunteers our club is based on worked non-stop to get the ground up to scratch before the season started.
In an historic friendly away to Colwyn Bay FC, an estimated 1500 Chester FC fans turned up to support their new team, in the clubs first ever game. The game resulted in a 2-0 loss, but it couldn’t take the shine off the success of the club and CFU.
The success off the field was soon replicated on it as Chester FC in its first season after reforming, secured the Evo Stik Division One North Title and promotion to Step 7 of the English football leagues. The next two seasons saw two more league titles, the Evo Stik Premier and the Conference North, meaning in that in just three years Chester FC had returned to the Football Conference (Step 5).
Today, Chester FC is in Step 6 in the English Football pyramid, and is competing in a sustainable manner in an incredibly competitive league.
The success has continued off the pitch with the formation of the hugely successful Chester FC Community Trust which is taking the club’s good name to our community.
Our Youth Team has begun to develop players who are competing in the National League and above. A new Scholarship scheme was announced in 2017 which has further improved the standard of the players produced by the club. The development of our own players is something which we take huge pride in and the club is committed to ensuring that we have a vibrant academy producing first team talent.
City Fans United is also taking advantage of every opportunity to influence the direction in which the professional game moves. We continue to work in co-operation with Supporters Direct to lobby key stakeholders in the game to ensure supporters views, and supporter ownership, is represented.
CFU Ownership offers individuals over the age of 16, the opportunity to become owners of Chester Football Club, for the annual fee of £12.
Whilst most owners are committed fans of Chester FC, we also encourage anyone who believes in our ethos and the history of our club, to become an owner of Chester FC. By putting supporters and community at the heart of our club, we’re showing that fans can have a powerful say in the way football should be run. That’s why we need you to join the CFU Ownership today, as the more owners we have, the louder our collective voice will be.