 GM Monkeys is a amateur football team based in the Greater Manchester region of England. The group of players is loose gathering of people who have met via the British Born Chinese website, but has broadened to include people who are not members of the discussion board. The team was formerly known as BBC Manchester. Usually GM Monkeys practice at the JJB Soccerdome in Trafford, Manchester for 5/6-a-side football. Matches with other amateur teams who also meet via British Born Chinese have also been organised.
Players range from various backgrounds and skill levels. Anybody is welcome to join whatever their ethnicity.
Profile from SquatMagazine (23 October 2006)
At the very beginning, there was a bunch of everyday lads who enjoyed a kick-about in Manchester. More and more men joined the group, after hearing about it from existing friends who had already joined or reading about it on internet discussion boards.
Soon, a few of the men stepped up to the mark and decided it was time to form a team and start playing competitively. However, some of the group, including founding members, who were just there for fun, opposed such a drastic move. The friction over which direction to take the group etched irreconcilable differences between the two camps. Eventually, after a tapping-up scandal, those men who wanted to play competitively broke away to Chester and joined Nemesis.
The men who stayed carried on as they had done since the beginning—they met up weekly for a kick-about in Manchester.
Then a man called Chris Tan arrived.
Tan had fallen out of the womb hugging a football. He had been on the Chinese Society Football Team when at Sheffield University. Like when Arsene Wenger arrived at Arsenal, Tan arrived in Manchester and the air changed. Things were never going to be the same again.
Tan decided a change was due. With the help of founding member Andrew Cheng, the group was overhauled. A team football strip was introduced. The group was entered into its first ever tournament. A team name was agreed on.
The GM Monkeys were founded in September 2005.
The first tournament the GM Monkeys competed in was a 5-a-side competition at the JJB SoccerDome, October 2005. The team faced an uphill battle from the outset. They were drawn in the same group as the tournament reigning champions, Fortuna. Despite not progressing from the group stages, the GM Monkeys left with heads held high, after holding the formidable Fortuna.
The GM Monkeys then decided it was time to start playing 11-a-side.
The team's first 11-a-side match was a friendly against Wirral FC, February 2006. The team lost.
After the match, the team decided that it had to implement a more structured training schedule with a heavy emphasis on fitness.
The GM Monkeys have come a long way since a group of everyday lads arranged to meet up for a weekly kick-about.
The work continues...
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