FC United boss in horror smash

Source: Manchester Evening News
Stuart Brennan
29/ 3/2007

THE manager of breakaway football team FC United has escaped a terrifying motorway smash.

Karl Marginson was working in his day job as a fruit and veg delivery man when a wheel came off his company van on the M60 at 6.30 am yesterday.

The vehicle swerved violently across two lanes of the motorway before coming to rest on the hard shoulder close to the junction with the M56 near Wythenshawe.

Shaken but unhurt, Karl helped to transfer his load of milk, bread, fruit and vegetables to another van and continue with his round.

Karl, 36, will also be able to resume his footballing duties when he leads his team out for a league match in Keighley, West Yorkshire, tonight.

"If it had been just half an hour later I am pretty sure I would have ended up in hospital, because the traffic was fairly light at the time it happened," he said.

"I heard a crunching noise from the wheel and the next thing I knew it had sheared off and I was shooting across two lanes. It was very frightening."

The father-of-two was appointed manager of FC United when the club was set up in 2005 by disgruntled fans of Manchester United who could not accept the takeover by American tycoon Malcolm Glazer.

He steered the club to promotion in their first season in the North West Counties Football League Division Two and they will go 11 points clear at the top in Division One if they win tonight.

Full load

Karl was heading to Parrs Wood Technology College in Didsbury for his first call of the day when the accident happened.

He was doing about 60mph and said his van had a full load.

"It all happened very quickly, it's only afterwards you think about what could've happened," he said.

"The weight of the van went straight on to the brake on the side where the wheel had been so if that had come off and the axle had dug in it might have tipped the van over.

"I was standing there waiting for a mechanic and within half an hour the motorway had filled up.

"So if it had happened a bit later the crash could have been a lot worse."

Last year the rebel club's manager was named Manchester's Sports Personality of the Month.

Leading the praise then was his boss, FC general manager Andy Walsh, who said: "No-one foresaw just how big the club was going to get. Lesser men might have buckled."