FFUK stands for Football Forum UK and was created on May 27th 2001 on the Ezboard network by Gee and Football Grounds (Graeme Mantle and Craig Patton - See Below). Over the years it's fortunes have fluctuated and has even come close to closing down on a few occasions but is still going strong today.

Owners have come and gone and quality and quantity of posts have varied depending on memberbase and internal (and external) wranglings between both current and ex-members.

 

Gee and Craig - The Founders of
Gee's Football Chat

There have been 3 owners since it's launch, Gee/Craig (joint ownership), Let Em Come and current owner THX II38.

 
Let em Come (LEC) also briefly ran FFUK.
and current owner THX (right)

Very few people from Summer 2001 still remain at FFUK but Indigo Lion, Hooli & Supremo Controller are still members.

As well as Aff and Karlos
(who appeared on Soccer AM in 2005)
who joined later in 2001.

FFUKers from the early days who still use the board today.




From Left To Right: Karlos, Aff, Hooli, Sup, Toon, Indigo, Sandy & Orks


More FFUKers from the early days that still take part today...

From Left To Right: Mick, Toffee, CAFC Tom, NNH, WAB,
Saffrey, SDP & Dysart, not forgetting Elmo and Godfather ;)

In addition to a few people running the Forums there have also been a few changes of hands over the FFUK Website, Supremo Controller, Cytoon. Aff & Currently Stmooks have all had a go (below is a screen grab from when Toon and Aff was running it).

FFUK Website

(click link to see cached page)


Click Image To Open Large


Click above to hear SDP interviewing Playstation32 in March 2003.




THX doing an audio advert for FFUK on the theme of the famous 1966 coverage of They Think It's All Over.

Top 50 Posters League from 5th October 2002

A brief timeline from
27th May 2001 to
present Day...



2001 - May 27th -

Graeme Mantle (Gee)
a Norwich City Fan and Craig Patton (Football Grounds - At the time a Grimsby fan who controversially later declared himself as a Scarborough fan!) launched Gee's Football Chat forums on the Ezboard network.

2001 - November 10th -

Owners Gee and Craig decided to rebrand the forums in attempt to attract more foreign users and renamed the board Worldwide Football Forums.

2002 - May 23rd -

Having decided that not many foreign users or teams were being discussed the forums changed names once more, this time becoming FFUK which stands for Football Forums United Kingdom which has finally given the board some permanent identity and stability ever since.

Click to see
cached version from 2003

Gee left FFUK to controversially start a rival board in Sweet FA on July 21st 2003 which was also on the Ezboard network and Let Em Come (widely known as LEC) took over FFUK for a while with Sandy Cheevie's help.

In 2004 THX became the new owner of the board, 584,587 posts were made between May 27th 2001 and January 28th 2005, a statistic that enabled the board to join the elite
www.big-boards.com who only allow boards with 500,000 posts or more to be listed.

How The Forum Looked On September 22nd 2001

Click Image To Open Large

Click Image To Open Large

November 10th Saw Gee's Football Chat become Worldwide Football Forums

Click Image To Open Large

May 23rd 2001 Saw Worldwide Football Forums become FFUK.

Click Image To Open Large

FFUK's The Heskeylator Appeared in Nuts Magazine

In 2004 an idea that Aff had came up with and Indigo Lion created in Photoshop appeared in Nuts Magazine several years after it was first created.

Alex Lester - Radio 2

October 2005 saw FFUK mentioned on BBC Radio 2
Click Here to download the MP3 of the broadcast.

---

Orkman appears in audience on BBC's Kilroy!


Karlos appears on Sky Sports Soccer AM!


Cytoon appears on Sky Sports!

Dysart - Appeared on BBC's Eggheads in March 2008

Indigo - Appeared on BBC and WorldSnooker.com
front page in crowd in February 2009

Pedro (AKA Elmo) not having much success
in a charity penalty shootout on Non League TV in March 2009


Email me your pic of it and it will appear here!

The FFUK Newsgroup from December 2002

( Indigo Lion once mistakingly sent a message intended for his wife and daughter to the newsgroup by mistake from his workplace - click on embarassed smiley to see it)

2005 - January 29th -

After countless problems with the Ezboard network THX made the brave decision to move the board to the Invision network.



Also in October 2005 Indigo Lion launched the FFUK affiliate site where online retailers pay commission to FFUKers purchases through the affiliated links.

2006 - January 1st -

A look back at 2005 discovers that a total 127,791 posts were made between the boards launch on Invision and the closing day of 2005.

2006 - December 5th

After 5 and a half years of being a sole board, FFUK merged on this date with Nutmegged.co.uk which was established in October 2004 - Hopefully this will be the start of a new era for both boards.

Football Fans Zone was announced as the new name for the merged forum - The domain www.footballfanszone.com was purchased.

2007 - September 9th

After receiving a 3 digit offer for Football Forum UK it made us realise it was a much stronger brand name so it was decided to bring it back on this date and the board is once again Football Forum UK, to stay this time, until the next time that is!

Later in 2007, Gee made a surprise return and has been a valued member since.

2008 sees the launch of the first annual raffle which takes place in December, this will give members a chance to earn free raffle tickets in return for doing their online shopping through our affiliate links.

The first raffle was won by Elmo who scooped the top prize of £30, 2nd place was Toffee who won £20 and in 3rd place was Sandy who won £15, the 4 runners up prizes of £5 were won by Bazza, Orks, Grog and Kev with consolation prizes to GF, Mark & JMO of tickets for the 2009 draw.

The good news is here we are all here again for our 8th year, we earnt plenty enough to keep the board running for at least another year and also increase the raffle fund to £90 for this years draw which will take place on 30th December 2009 at 8pm - The prizes will be the same as 2008 but with an extra £5 runners up prize for grabs.