The message is unmissable from the moment you walk out on to the pitch at FC United of Manchester.

‘Making friends, not millionaires,’ proclaims the banner which faces the main stand at the club, established 16 years ago in protest at everything the Glazers represented at Old Trafford.

The artworks draped across the terrace crash barriers spell it out a little more graphically. ‘Hate Glazer’ and ‘Gegen Glazer’ (against Glazer) feature and this is not merely a local sentiment.

The Dorset, Warsaw, Bristol and Belgium branches are all represented. This is a place for the disenchanted souls of Manchester United the world over.

Sir Alex Ferguson never gave the club the remotest prayer. He once described them as ‘sad’ and when the subject cropped up in one of his press conferences he marched out. ‘Not interested, not interested,’ he said.

Perhaps he should have been. FC staff were on Friday dealing with a surge in season-ticket applications which has followed the Glazers revealing their hand by hoisting United aboard the European Super League.

There is also a greater clamour than usual to be a member of the club next season, which for a mere £15 brings a say on its key decisions and direction.

‘It’s inevitable that we’ve felt a sense of vindication about all of this,’ says Sam Mullock, a director of the not-for-profit club who has been a part of it from the start. ‘There’s no pleasure in the Glazers showing their true colours. There’s no, “I told you so”. But we are, and always have been, a viable, sustainable alternative to everything they represent.’

Had the club’s Northern Premier League season not been suspended, it would have been revealing to see whether the current sentiment brought a reprise of the extraordinary scenes of FC’s early years.

Back then, they would typically take 3,000 supporters to obscure opposition grounds like Leigh and Leek, chanting: ‘Won’t pay Glazer, work for Sky, Still sing “City’s gonna die”, Two Uniteds but the soul is one, As the Busby Babes carry on.’

Jonathan Mitten dropped seven leagues from Altrincham to sign for them in their first season and suddenly heard his name being chanted from the terraces.

‘We were semi-famous, instantly,’ reflects Mitten, whose great-uncle was United legend Charlie Mitten. ‘It was like we were real footballers! Surreal. It will certainly always stay with me.’

Back then, it was both a protest movement and a football club, though that was hard to sustain. The protests had no leverage with owners sitting so far away, especially as Ferguson’s extraordinary management kept the ailing institution going.

The club went through a state of civil war, having worked relentlessly to get their Broadhurst Park stadium built, at a cost of £7million to date.

A particularly bitter dispute over the decision to raise the price of the match programme by 50p, for the special edition marking a friendly against Benfica, illustrated the extraordinary difficulty of combining the guiding principles with a desire to advance and grow.

Mullock views that as a time of ‘growing pains’ and many feel the club that emerged is freer of egos and more professionally stewarded. They bring in about £1.5million a year, £650,000 of it on match days, with just seven full-time staff. ‘The sponsorship deals are not just about who’ll pay most but what people want to bring to partnering with us,’ says operations manager Paul Smith.

Under discussion on Friday was the mural that new kit provider New Balance want to create at Broadhurst Park. The taxi firm who advertise at the stadium, Cresta, arranged cars to distribute food that the club have laid on in the past year to the vulnerable in the district — one of Manchester’s most impoverished.

On July 3, FC will extend a hand to another club seeking to forge a path, with a pre-season friendly against the phoenix Bury AFC. That game is already sold out.

But making football affordable has meant the club getting nowhere near the Football League while Salford City, owned by United heroes, have sailed past them from obscurity to League One. It was when FC got to the National League North that they found themselves unable to compete on player wages.

They dropped to the tier-seven Northern Premier where, despite attendances of around 2,000, they are running on a significantly lower playing budget than most other teams.

Some feel it is less partisan than in those cavalier early days.

‘There’s no sense of bitterness at all about Salford City,’ says Mullock. ‘Gary Neville came here before developing Salford and saw how we did things. He took some things away about banners and developing a fan culture and we wish them well.

‘There was a debate about the balance between cost to fans and our success. Some people said, “If it means better football, I would pay more”, but we want to stay true to affordable football.’

The chilliness towards the club from United is still felt. A recent adidas photoshoot at FC’s stadium — a useful source of income for the club — was pulled at the last minute because United did not want one of their players to be at the rebel club.

FC do not want enmity with Old Trafford. ‘We want to stay relevant to United fans,’ says Mullock. ‘We think about United. I ask myself, are we running the club the way we would like United to be run? ’

Were the Glazers to sell up, FC’s defining purpose would be achieved, though the notion of a fan-owned United seems remote in the extreme.

‘Perhaps in 100 years we’d be done!’ says Mullock. ‘Even if there is a change, it’s unlikely that Manchester United are going to jump from venture capital to fan ownership. There will always be a place for us now.’