Hello
I have been reading a few threads and have seen that a lot of people on here are having clutch problems.

If you are having problems getting into gear and you hear crunching or grating, you cannot get into gear quickly without forcing the gear lever and the clutch bites when your foot is barely even off the floor.

The problem is not with your clutch it is with your clutch cable adjustment.
A lot of front wheel drive fords have a ratchet setup on the top end of the clutch pedal, this is what is causing the problem.

You can either re set the clutch adjuster which is a bitch of a job since you have to adjust it in situ.

Or do it the easy way and fit a spacer between the clutch cable and the gearbox, you can easily access this as its right ontop of the gearbox in front of you.

Get some large washers and fit them in two or three at a time, check if the clutch is any better by putting the car in 1st gear and slowly letting the ctutch out.
The clutch shoud be starting to bite when the bottom of the pedal is about 1" to 1.5" off where it usually touches the floor.
If the clutch is starting to bite when the pedal is too close to the floor then you need to fit more washers, test the clutch again and repeat the process until the clutch pedal is 1" to 1.5" off the floor when it bites.

When you have it correct measure the combined thickness of all the washers and make a solid spacer out of a piece of steel the same thickness, now you can replace all the washers with the spacer you made and your done.
As a guide you will probably need a spacer around 1/2" thick.

The reason it was so hard to get it into gear before was because the clutch cable adjustment was way off and the clutch wasn't diss engaging fully, this wears out the baulk rings (synchro's) in your gearbox and then your gearbox needs a rebuild.
Save yourself the hassle! It only takes 20 mins to fix.

Regards
Jason.