Ben Futcher

Football player infobox
playername = Ben Futcher


fullname = Benjamin Paul Futcher
nickname = Big Ben, Futch, The Freek
height = height|ft=6|in=7
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1981|6|4|df=y
cityofbirth = Bradford
countryofbirth = England
currentclub = Bury
clubnumber = 5
position = Centre back
years = 1999–2002 2001 2002 2002 2002–2005 2005–2006 2006 2006–2007
2007–
clubs = Oldham Athletic → Stalybridge Celtic (loan) Stalybridge Celtic Doncaster Rovers Lincoln City Boston United Grimsby Town Peterborough United
Bury | caps(goals) = 010 0(0) 018 0(0) 010 0(1) 002 0(0) 121 (13) 014 0(0) 019 0(2) 025 0(3)
040 0(0)
nationalyears =
nationalteam =
nationalcaps(goals) =
pcupdate = 09:09, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
ntupdate =

Ben Futcher (born 4 June 1981 in Bradford, West Yorkshire) is an English professional footballer currently playing for League Two club Bury F.C.. He is more famous for playing for Lincoln City between 2002 and 2005, and is the son of former Grimsby Town defender Paul Futcher.

Club career

Futcher started off playing for Oldham Athletic, signing professional terms in July 1999. Futcher struggled to grasp first team opportunities at Boundary Park and soon joined Conference club Stalybridge Celtic on loan for the first three months of the 2001/2002 campaign.

And it was too be, Stalybridge, who Ben would sign for permanently in the January transfer window of 2002. Futcher went on to play in ten games for the Celtic, and then in the next transfer window he shocked the club by leaving to join fellow Conference side Doncaster Rovers, two months prior to joining Stalybridge.

After playing in only two games for Rovers, manager Dave Penney released Futcher two months later at the end of the season. And thus enabled him to join his next club Lincoln City. He would become the nucleus of a new team at Sincil Bank being put together by new manager Keith Alexander . Alexander had trimmed the squad down of the dead-wood players used under the reign of former manager Alan Buckley and with this , Futcher would be remembered mostly whilst in this time.

With The Imps struggling in the previous season, it was to be a different string of events in the new seasom, despite a rocky start, Lincoln climbed the league, and with the help of Futcher, for his goals more than anything, The Imps qualified for the play offs. As well as this, Ben finished the season as the clubs top goal scorer, scoring over 10 goals, the majority of them being close range headers, from set pieces. In honor of this he was voted "Player Of The Season" by the Lincoln supporters. A Simon Yeo inspired Lincoln, dumped Scunthorpe United out of the Play Off semi final, and thus arranging them with the task of overcoming Bournemouth in the final at the Millennium Stadium. In a close, game Lincoln lost the match 5-2, with Ben amongst the City scorers.

For the next two years, Futcher was at the heart of the Lincoln defence, and nastily faced two more Play Off defeats, losing out in the semi finals to Huddersfield Town in 2003/2004, and going down 2-0 after extra time against Southend United the following season in yet another final at the Millennium Stadium.

In a shock move in the summer of 2005, Futcher announced he would be leaving Lincoln, to sign for county rivals Boston United . The Imps supporters questioned his ambition in moving to a some what smaller club, who was regarded as having a less chance of success than themselves.Fact|date=August 2008 Futcher called the move a "footballing decision" but it was clear to somewho that money may have been a clear factor in his decision.Fact|date=August 2008

With United boasting such ex-Premiership stars as Julian Joachim and Noel Whelan in the squad, the club looked pretty good on paper,Fact|date=August 2008 but the club struggled to live up to its expectancies, and performances saw them hover around the relegation zone. On the 12th January 2006, Futcher called time on his Boston career, and moved onto yet another Lincolnshire club, this time with promotion challenging Grimsby Town , who bolstered there squad as well with the signing of Curtis Woodhouse for the final promotion push.

Futhcer found it rather hard to break into the Grimsby side and often had to play second fiddle to Justin Whittle and Rob Jones. The Mariners, missed out on automatic promotion on the last day of the season, and this set them up with a Play Off semi final tie against Ben's former team, Lincoln City, who were now in the play off's for the forth season running. After a 1-0 Grimsby victory at Sincil Bank , Futcher scored in a 2-1 win in the leg at Blundell Park to send Grimsby into the final at Cardiff.

The Mariners however failed to earn promotion, losing to Cheltenham Town in the final, thus meaning Futcher had now been on the losing team in a Coca Cola League Two Play Off Final, 3 times in the past 4 seasons. Futcher however continued with Grimsby, but put in a transfer request after manager Russell Slade left the club to join Yeovil Town. His replacement, the former Grimsby assistant manager Graham Rodger could not convince Futcher to stay, and after 5 appearances in the new season he was reported to have gone AWOL and signed a contract with Peterborough United despite officially being contracted to Grimsby still.

Futcher linked up with Keith Alexander, once again but United achieved nothing that season, and with the installation of Darren Ferguson as manager , following Alexander's departure, Futcher was allowed to leave the club and sign for Bury where Alexander had just been appointed as the clubs Director Of Football.

In Ben's first season, he helped the club to a mid table finish, and scored the equalising goal in Bury's 2-1 win over Leeds United in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy

The Football Family

Ben is the son of ex-Manchester City, Oldham Athletic and Grimsby Town defender Paul Futcher. Other footballing members of Ben's family include his uncles Ron Futcher and Graham Futcher (both ex-Chester), cousins Danny Murphy (England international) and Stephen Futcher (ex-Wrexham).

Career Statistics

References and notes

External links

* [http://www.football.co.uk/grimsby/players/ben_futcher_38008.shtml Grimsby Town player profile]
*soccerbase|id=17863|name=Ben Futcher
* [http://www.uptheposh.com/people/2747/ Profile] at [http://www.uptheposh.com/ UpThePosh! The Peterborough United Database]