I grew up as a Manchester United fan. In my teens I was pretty obsessed and spent hours reading and learning about the team, going to games when I could afford to and plastering my bedroom walls with Man Utd posters. I even spoke about the history of the team for the oral part of my O Level English exam.
Then I moved away and wasn’t able to keep up-to-date. By the time I eventually returned to Manchester the team I’d loved (and the game in general) had changed so much it was as though my team didn’t exist anymore.
The manager and players had changed which was to be expected after more than a decade away, but it wasn’t just that. The whole ethos of the club had changed as had the game itself. There was a Premier League for starters. What was that all about? What was wrong with first division? Games were now televised by companies like Sky who offered the clubs so much money they complied with the TV companies’ demands – like having games starting at random times and even on Sundays. Football used to be something you could set your clock by. Kick off was 3pm on a Saturday. Always. But not anymore. And because these TV companies weren’t terrestrial companies even if I’d had a TV I wouldn’t have been able to watch a game without buying a satellite dish and buying into one of their packages.
As for going to a game? Forget it. There was no more turning up just before kick off and paying your two quid at the turnstiles. Now it was all about being a member and lotteries for tickets. And the price had rocketed. My team was no longer a team for locals to get together to support, instead it was a business aimed at making as much money as possible from rich overseas fans and elite businessmen who could splash out on packages to impress the people they wanted to do deals with.
I’ve just checked out current prices and tickets range from £36 to £58. There’s still a lottery system and you still have to be a member. Membership prices for this year range from £20 to £35 depending on the type and how you pay for it.
So I stopped following football.
I still enjoy watching the odd game on telly if I’m in a pub and there’s a game on, but that’s about the extent of it. If you asked me about the current team I really couldn’t tell you much at all. But football has been likened to religion for a reason. Once it’s in your blood and you have allegiance to a particular team it’s there for life. You may stop believing but you never rid yourself of that feeling that you’re doing something wrong (and that there’s someone looking over your shoulder who knows you’re doing something wrong) if you show even a hint of interest in another team.
So I guess I’m a United fan in the way people say they are Christian on census forms even though they never go to church, don’t follow the doctrine and don’t even really believe in it all.
Where is all this leading … well I had to set for the scene for why what I did on Saturday was such a big deal.
But first, a bit more preamble.
In the spring of 2002 I moved back to Manchester. As it happened Manchester was hosting the Commonwealth Games that summer and the stadium was in the process of being built. The area where the construction was happening was one in desperate need of regeneration and the building of the Commonwealth Games stadium was the start of this. The whole area was being turned into a Sportcity (the name it actually goes by now) and along with the stadium a National Cycling Velodrome was built. More recently a National Squash Centre and a large athletics centre have been added.
It had been agreed that following the Commonwealth Games Manchester City (my team’s rivals) would move into the stadium, relocating from their South Manchester home at Maine Road which was well past its sell-by date.
The new stadium is about halfway between my house and the city centre and I go past it on the tram every time I go into Manchester.
Last year, a very good friend who just happens to be a massive Manchester City fan got a job as a tour guide at the stadium. Ever since she got the job I’ve been saying I should go along and do one of her tours. Partly because she’s a friend and I’m interested in what my friends do, but also because I’m interested to see what’s become of the Commonwealth Games stadium and what the inside of this stadium I go past all the time looks like. Just to be really clear and in case you were wondering, let me say it’s NOT because I want to visit the home of Manchester City.
A few days ago, Helen contacted me to ask if I wanted to go to a rather special and historic game with her. It was the first Manchester derby between the women’s teams (a derby is when the rival teams from the same city play each other). The game was being played at the Etihad (City’s stadium is named after its sponsor). Not the usual women’s ground across the road from the main stadium, but in the actual Etihad Stadium itself.
This was a big deal.
And get this? Tickets were only seven quid!
Of course I said yes. Then I got to thinking. As I was going to a game in the afternoon (kick off was at the proper time of 3pm) then maybe beforehand I should do a stadium tour? A few text messages went back and forth and it was sorted.
I was going to City.
Albeit to see the Commonwealth Games stadium and to watch my team play in a derby, but I was still going to City.
On Saturday morning I was careful to dress in neutral colours and hopped on a tram for the ten minute journey. It was all very quiet when I got off the tram and I wasn’t sure where I was going. I’d been told tours start from upstairs in the shop and to make my way there. But where was the shop?
I began circumnavigating the stadium careful to not make eye contact with any of the few people I passed. I was in neutral colours but maybe my very neutrality would give me away. I’ve survived living in and travelling top to bottom in Zaire; I’ve lived on the Israeli-Lebanese border and had Katyusha rockets fired at me; I’ve climbed up the side of an erupting volcano. I survived all those things, I could survive this. I kept reminding myself of this and repeating ‘be nonchalant’ under my breath. I guess it worked because I arrived at the shop unscathed.
First person I met was Ian who was checking names for the tour off a list. I explained that I didn’t have a ticket or a printout but my name should have been added to the tour list by Helen.
‘Ah yes, you’re the one she said she was working on’.
‘Yes, she’s been trying for years, but it’s never going to work’.
Should I have said that out loud?
It was okay though and Ian let me in so I could have a look round the exhibition until it was time for the tour to begin. The exhibition is just a single room, but does have quite a lot of interesting information about the early days of the club. There was also a display cabinet showcasing the trophies won by the women.
When the tour began, Ian gave us a bit of a talk about the dos and don’ts – as it was a match day security was much higher than usual and there were bits we wouldn’t get to see such as the changing rooms. Then he led us into a circular room where we saw a 7 minute film about the history of the club. The 360° screen wrapped round the entire wall and we were instructed to stand in the middle. The film began with showing the crowds at a present day game and standing in the middle of the room gave the perspective of standing in the middle of the pitch. Ian then took us outside to meet our tour guides.
It was the last tour of the day as they have to finish quite early on match days. There were only six of us but as it was match day we still had to have two guides with us. Helen and her colleague Martin were our guides.
Helen pointed out the different buildings around Sportcity and explained what they were all for. Then we went back inside to explore the behind the scenes parts of the stadium as well as going down to pitch level. Of course we weren’t allowed to actually go on the pitch but we did get right beside it. The BBC were filming and doing interviews just along from where we were so we had to be careful to not disturb them.
Helen and Martin took us to the Tunnel Club entrance which has a blue carpet leading up to the doors. This is the equivalent of a red carpet and is where the teams arrive and leave from. As Helen explained, Martin took photos of us on the blue carpet. I got the impression this doesn’t usually happen but was part of the conversion package they’d decided I needed to be submitted to. (Actually they were very nice and there was only a little bit of banter – and it would have seemed strange if there wasn’t.)
Entering the Tunnel Club, the first place we came to was a dining area for Tunnel Club members. Here they are served 11 course tapas meals before the game and it’s free. Well, apart from the seven and a half grand membership fee it’s free that is. The place looked very glamorous with the tables beautifully laid. Ah, how the other 0.1% live!
As if this wasn’t posh enough, we went downstairs to an even posher bit. Actually as this bit wasn’t being used that day, the tables weren’t laid and it didn’t look very posh at all. But we were assured that on the men’s match days it’s all very different. I didn’t catch the price for this one but I reckon I’d probably have to sell my house to afford a year’s membership. Five course à la carte meals are included here along with some special views.
This level of the tunnel club has the actual tunnel the players walk through to get to the pitch running alongside the tables and chairs. The walls between the tunnel and the club room are one-way glass so if you are sitting here you can watch the players walk down the tunnel, but they can’t see you. We were told how when this was first installed players, particularly from away clubs, didn’t always realise they had a whole lot of people watching their every move on the other side of the glass. They would do things like peer into what to them was reflective glass to check out their hair. That must have looked pretty amusing to the people watching. I’d probably have spat my soup out.
Also at this level are the interview studios. These are small rooms where the managers can be interviewed after the match. Again these have one-way glass so club members can watch the interviews. The studios have blinds that can be drawn if the manager doesn’t want to be gawked at, but only three managers have ever requested this. And yes, we were told who they were, but if you want to know you’ll have to go and do the tour yourself.
After the Tunnel Club we saw the wall where players stand to be interviewed with its backdrop of sponsor logos. Today the logos were different to the usual ones as they’d had to be switched to those of the women’s team sponsors.
We went into the press room and sat in the chairs used by the press. We also got to sit up at the front where the manager sits along with the man of the match to do a press conference.
Despite it being a match day and not being able to go into the changing rooms, we still managed to see a lot. We were told that where the male players have their names above their pegs in the changing rooms, these had been removed for this game so the women could have their names there instead. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see this as it was the first time it’s happened. (I also wondered if the urinals had been removed to make the bathrooms more ladylike, but forgot to ask.)
The tour ended and as it was the last tour of the day Helen was free. We had a couple of hours to wait before kick off so after a coffee she took me on a bit of an extra tour. We walked mainly round the outside and took in all the activities that were going on.
I remember the outside of football grounds just being somewhere to pass through on your way to the turnstiles. There would have been a caravan selling pies and a few guys set up with stalls selling scarves and flags, but that would have been it.
This couldn’t have been more different.
Everywhere we looked there were different activities set up for children to take part in. As it was getting closer to kick off time the area was filling up and everyone was in a good mood. We saw people wearing scarves and shirts in both teams’ colours mingling and watching the activities. I assume this was because women’s football attracts a different calibre of fan to the men’s games. As I remember it fans of the opposing teams were always kept separate by the massive police presence. Here, not only were the fans mingling, but there seemed to be no police presence. I do hope it was because the police knew the fans would behave and not because they thought no-one would turn up because it was a women’s game!
If they had believed attendance would be too low to cause any worry, they couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only was the area full of fans there was a huge queue waiting to get in at one of the gates. As we cut though to get to our gate a man asked if we knew of anyone with a spare ticket.
‘There are still tickets left for sale’, Helen told him and pointed to where the ticket office is.
‘Yeah, I know’, said the man. ‘This is the queue for it.’
What?
WHAT?!
Yep, the queue we thought was for the nearby gate actually snaked right past the gate and round the stadium to the distant ticket office. The queue was several people deep and when I realised I couldn’t see the end of it I went to find out exactly how long it was.
It was long. Very long. There must easily have been several thousand people waiting to buy tickets and they only had about 20 minutes till kick off. Obviously the club had vastly underestimated the amount of interest in this game. It’s quite understandable I suppose, as the largest attendance ever recorded for a women’s game was 5,265 at a match between Arsenal and Brighton. Today there must have been nearly that many still in the ticket queue.
We made our way in and found our seats. Right behind the goal and high enough to get a good view of the whole pitch, we couldn’t have had better.
Just before 3 o’clock the teams came out of the tunnel where I’d been standing just a few hours earlier. The only difference really was that they were allowed on the pitch (okay, there may be other differences too).
Right on time – the proper time (can I keep reiterating that 3pm is the only time a Saturday football match should start please?) – the whistle blew, City got the ball and the beautiful game began.
City played really well. They seemed sleek and almost choreographed. They knew exactly what to do and where their teammates would be at any given time. United played hard and got lots of good chances, but they just didn’t seem to have it together in the same way. When they got the ball and needed to pass it it often seemed as though they were looking around thinking ‘what do I do now?‘ Whereas City’s players seemed to know exactly where to be, United’s seemed to never be in quite the right place.
City have invested in their women’s team for quite a few years now and other clubs, including United, are only just starting to play catch up. The reason this is the very first women’s derby is because it’s United’s first season in the Women’s Super League and is only their second year playing. Taking this into account they did play really well, but it was easy to see the difference between them and the far more established and experienced City.
Both sides had some good shots on goal and there were some good saves, but in the end City won 1-0.
The atmosphere throughout the game was fantastic. The United fans were predominantly at the far end of the stadium, but I wasn’t the only one at my end and there were lots of shouts for United coming from behind me.
The stadium wasn’t completely full as there were a few sections of the stands that hadn’t been opened up, but the crowd was still huge. Way more than the 7,000 that would fit into the women’s usual ground across the road from the main stadium.
Just before the end of the game the attendance was announced. Remember what I said earlier was the largest recorded attendance?
5,265
What do you think the attendance for this game was?
Drum roll …
31,213
No, that’s not a typo. The previous record was smashed, crushed and obliterated.
31,213
More than six times the previous record.
It shows what interest is out there for women’s football and how quickly the support is building. It’s helped of course by the cheap prices and more family-friendly atmosphere. Not only were tickets just £7 for this match but adults could take up to three children with them free of charge.
I don’t think these cheap prices should be seen as a gimmick. This is how football should be. It should be a game that brings communities together and that anyone can go watch and take all their kids along to without having to first sell a kidney. I really hope that as the women’s game becomes more popular it doesn’t sell out like the men’s game has done. I left the stadium that day feeling like I’d got my game back.
It had been announced that the City players would be meeting fans and signing autographs after the match. Although neither myself nor Helen were bothered about collecting autographs we thought we’d go along to see what it was like.
Once again, the crowd surprised us. This wasn’t just a few fans hanging around a doorway, this was a real crowd. We had to wait quite a long time but that didn’t put anyone off and everyone waited patiently though with a frisson of excitement every time it looked like someone was about to come out.
When the team did appear names were shouted, programmes and pens were thrust and phones were waved. The women seemed to have as much energy as they’d had on the pitch and they had the same choreography too as they darted round the crowd scribbling autographs and posing for selfies. There was no impatience or trying to get away. Everyone who wanted an autograph got one and everyone who wanted a selfie got one.
I loved how the women, who must have been pretty exhausted, though maybe their win and the record-breaking crowd had given them a second wind, had time for the fans. I also loved how so many young girls were really looking up to them. What great role models showing girls what women can achieve, not just in man’s world, but in one of the last bastions of real male dominion.
Eventually the players got on their bus and I headed back to the tram stop. A small group of girls were walking ahead of me.
‘There’s Ellen White!’, one of them shouted.
Sure enough, player, Ellen White was also walking towards the tram.
The girls surrounded her and got more autographs and selfies.
A few minutes later on the platform I heard one of the girls on her phone excitedly telling someone, ‘… and we’ve just seen Ellen White! She was just walking to the tram! And she stopped and talked to us!’
This really is what football should be about. This accessibility to the fans and the normality of getting the tram. Women who young girls can look up to and idolise for their talents and skills and not because of their unattainable millionaire lifestyle.
As I sat on the tram heading home I was buzzing with my day. My team might not have won, but then they’re not really my team anyway. Maybe it’s time I got interested in football again. And if I do there’s a really good team just down the road from me. And the tickets are only seven quid …
Have you ever been to a rival team’s ground? Have you been on a stadium tour? And have you watched women’s football? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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Hi , I found your post really amazing i have dream come to Manchester City with my son as in indonesia foot ball its favorite sport.
robert recently posted…Semeru Bromo Ijen Trekking Tour 5D4N
I hope you can make it one day 🙂