North Ferriby United

Macclesfield to Wembley 450 mile Charity Bike Ride

 At the weekend North Ferriby Utd provided the perfect finish to Martin Beaumont’s emotional  journey, recreating Macclesfield Town’s historic FA Trophy win 45 years ago. 
Martin & his Family were guests of the club to have their photo taken with the FA Trophy won by his late Father Frank Beaumont who was the player manager of Macclesfield Town. 



45 years ago in May Macclesfield Town made football history by becoming the first ever winners of the FA Trophy when they beat Telford 2-0 at Wembley Stadium. 
Frank Beaumont was a professional footballer with Barnsley, Bury, Stockport County and finally ended his career as the player manager of Macclesfield Town.

Sadly,  Frank wasnot with his family to celebrate the 45th anniversary after losing his brave battle with cancer just over 3 years ago. 
His Son Martin  decided to mark the anniversary by visiting all the team’s grounds that Macc beat on their way to winning the Trophy back in 1970 on a bike along with his brother-in-law Stephen Bland. The trip was 450 miles and completed in 5 days. 

They started at Moss Rose, Macclesfield’s home ground, on Thursday 2nd of April and then travelled to Burscough, next stop Gainsborough Trinity, and then it was off to Bangor City, Burton Albion and onto Stoke City which was the semi-final venue. 
They
then travelled down to Brighton to start from the Grand Hotel (where the team stayed prior to the Wembley final) where they were joined by Frank’s two grandsons Callum & George before cycling up to Wembley Staium via Craven Cottage Fulham (the venue of an historic 3rd round FA Cup tie back in 1968). 


Three years ago Martin and all their family lost a hugely influential figure in all their lives, Martin lost his best friend and role model in life, so this challenge was one final swansong for the family to celebrate the life of a wonderful man and recognise the superb achievements of the team that he successfully managed. 

Martin’s aims were not only to keep his  Dad’s memory alive but obviously raise some money for the charities that touched his family during his Dad's illness; they managed to raise over £1,000 which was split between Barnsley Hospice & Cancer Research UK.

North Ferriby’s Press Officer Philip Withers commented,

”The club was delighted to welcome Martin and his family to the Eon Visual media Stadium on Saturday to have their photographs taken with the FAT Trophy. It was actually a special momemt for me as well. I was a Macclesfield season ticket holder in 1970 and I was at Wembley  to see Frank lift the Trophy. I had the pleasure of meeting Frank on anumber of occasions. Suffice to say, he was a wonderful person and a fine footballer.”

The photograph shows George Bland, Callum Beaumont (Frank's Grandsons) Steve Bland (Martin’s brother in law) & Martin