text: The eighth wonder of the world is nearing completion in the seventh tier of English football. In a park in the middle of a working-class suburb east of the city centre, builders are putting the finishing touches to FC United of Manchester's Broadhurst Park . There are no pyramids, hanging gardens or light houses but there is a sweeping terrace, a series of football pitches and floodlight pylons. FC United of Manchester's new 5,000-capacity stadium Broadhurst Park is nearing completion . General manager Andy Walsh outside the new ground, which cost the democratic club a whopping £6.5m . This a symbol that there is another way. Another way a million miles away from billion-pound TV deals, fat-cat owners, sanitised stadia and all that many will tell you is wrong with modern football. Set to host Benfica for the official opening on May 29, the 5,000-capacity stadium will finally end a nomadic decade on the road for the breakaway outfit set up in May 2005 by Manchester United fans sick of being exploited by the club they loved, for whom the arrival of the Glazer family was a step too far. Broadhurst (some mischievous souls voted for FCUM Hall in the naming poll), dismissed by many as an impossible dream, cost around £6.5m. Of that colossal sum around half came from the pockets of the democratic club's 4,000 members. The rest came from grants with around £500,000 loaned by the council. It is a ground for the fans, paid for by the fans. The function room at the new ground is part of a stadium that will also serve the local community . Broadhurst Park is a far cry from the glamour and glitz of Old Trafford, seven miles away across the city . But is it two fingers up at the debt-burdening Americans still in charge seven miles across the city? 'That's a daft question,' says general manager Andy Walsh. 'Establishing this football ground is a statement of what football supporters can achieve if they are given the opportunity,' he adds. They are strong words from a man who believes in standing up for what he believes in. Far from marching proudly into a new stadium, 25 years ago Andy, now 52, was nervously stepping into a prison cell for non-payment of poll tax. It was those principles that saw him leave behind a steady job as a driving instructor (with a wife and two kids to support) to take his current role leading the rebels with a cause in 2006 and, with a heavy heart, vow never to set foot inside his beloved Old Trafford again until the Glazers were gone. Broadhurst, with its view of the bright lights of Oldham across the valley, is a far cry from today's Old Trafford. It is also not your identikit, breeze-blocked modern stadium. Behind one goal is a 2,500-capacity terrace, salvaged from Northwich Victoria. The changing rooms at the new ground are simple, but Walsh says the club are ambitious for progress . On matchdays one of the stands will house a food market, with local businesses from Indian takeaways to vegan cafes offering fans their fayre. In the clubhouse supporters will not drink Budweiser, or Aperol Spritz but cask ale from Manchester brewers Joseph Holt. The local brew of the day's opposition will also be imported for each match while the club is planning to install a microbrewery. Dozens of volunteers have helped to build it. One fan donated a lift. Fruit trees will make it the first pollinator-friendly football ground in the country. Discussions, however, are ongoing over the pies. 'We have to get that one right,' says Andy, but the provider will be a local firm in line with the club's policy. The physio room will turn into a medical suite for the community on non-match days and there is a classroom for the club's academy and for the use of those from the surrounding area. On the back of the main stand there is wooden cladding – a nod to the wooden sleepers of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company which spawned the first incarnation of Manchester United just down the road in Newton Heath 136 years ago. Walsh explains the plans for the stadium to Sportsmail's Mike Keegan (right) at the new ground . 'We're a mile away from Northampton Road (Newton Heath's first ground),' says Andy. 'We wanted to be within the M60 ring road. That we are so close to where it began is a happy coincidence.' Andy, born and raised a stone's throw from the Stretford End, is expecting a 20 per cent rise on the club's already impressive average attendances of 2,000 as they seek to end four years of play-off heartbreak and gain promotion to the Conference North. It sounds conservative, but he does admit to having one eye on the future and what feels like an inevitable progression to the Football League. 'We've got an opportunity to use the revenue we generate to invest in our club,' he says. 'This is not just a ground that has been built for the level we are at. We want promotion this year and we will continue to press our way up the leagues as resources allow.' So will Andy, whose side need a maximum of five points from their remaining three matches to secure the title, be sat in the director's box when the dream is finally realised and the teams run out? 'No,' he says. 'I will be stood on the 18-yard line of the end we are attacking. That's my preferred spot.' The club's badge features a ship, to showcase the city's canal-building past, explains Walsh . The club was formed when Manchester United were bought by the American Malcolm Glazer in 2005 . He, like the club, does things differently. FC fans call it Punk Football. For Andy, however, it is an extension of a longstanding Mancunian tradition. 'There's a spirit in Manchester of radicalism and creative thinking,' he says. 'Of challenging the norm and looking at different ways of doing things. Everything from electoral reform – the establishment of the suffragette movement to innovation in industry. 'The first ever computer, the first ever public library and the first ever public park. Our crest itself speaks of that. The ship is because we built the canal. We brought the sea into the centre of Manchester. That's symbolic. It's on our city crest, it's on our club crest.' Unfortunately, Andy has to leave to try and push the project over the line. The FC United of Manchester team in 2005, when they played as a nomadic club without a ground . The club's fans turned their back on the commercialism of Old Trafford and started a democratic club . Time for one last question. Sir Alex Ferguson famously had little time for FC United and having the audacity to mention them at a press conference destroyed the relationship one local reporter enjoyed with the Scot. The latest incumbent, however, is a son of Amsterdam, where they know all about challenging authority and doing things a little differently. So will Louis van Gaal find a ticket to a match at Broadhurst Park on his doormat? 'That's a good question,' Andy says. 'We have no plans to invite anybody form Manchester United to a game.' After a long pause he adds: 'We would, however, have no objections if they wanted to attend.' If they do they will have to join the queue.
target: Broadhurst Park will host Benfica for opening on May 29 .
  New stadium will serve community on non-match days .
  The £6.5m ground was financed largely by fans of the democratic club .
  General manager Andy Walsh describes new stadium as a 'statement of what football supporters can achieve'