Eventually, following much speculation and criticism, United ended a 13-year absence from senior women’s football and re-entered a team into the second-tier Championship for the 2018-19 season, which they finished as champions.
Goalkeeper Siobhan Chamberlain was one of the 21 players United signed for that debut season. Despite being a 50-cap England international with years of WSL experience, she remembers the early days as a unique and surreal experience.
“I turned up on the first day with Amy Turner and Martha Harris who I had been with at Liverpool, and we had no idea who else would be in the team,” she tells BBC Sport. “That never happens in football, starting from fresh like that. Everyone was the new kid at school all at once.
“It was nice – there was no original hierarchy, but a big onus on building the team, which Casey [Stoney, the manager] did brilliantly.
“We were given a tour of Old Trafford, the museum – I’ve never felt so ingratiated in the history of a club after joining. We were given a feeling of how big United is as a club. You never truly get that feeling until you are in it.”
The club has gone from strength to strength on the pitch since, and is now in contention for a domestic double.
On Saturday they host Brighton in the Women’s FA Cup semi-final. Victory would seal a place at Wembley Stadium on 14 May, and a first final since their formation.
It is a sharp contrast to when midfielder Christiansen was starting her footballing journey at United. She told BBC Sport that the club’s lack of a senior team back then left a “gaping hole” in English women’s football.
With no senior path available at United, Christiansen was forced to move to Everton as a youth player to pursue her ambitions, on her way to becoming a WSL and FA Cup champion with Manchester City, a Champions League winner with Lyon and earning 31 caps for England.
Now back with Everton, she says of her time at United: “It took a very long time to re-establish a women’s team, and there were a lot of questions asked when the WSL was formed, for the first four or five years. Where is Manchester United Women, why is it not here?
“Eventually they formed a team, and a very good one. They worked upwards from the Championship and I think that start gave them a chance to grow. There may still be space to grow too, in terms of levelling up resources.”