Manchester United home game today. I arrived at London Euston station to hear announcements that there is limited service due to track works. I expect that for local trains but not for intercity. I didn't have a reserved seat for the first leg of the journey, which was an hour to Milton Keynes, and there was no indication if there were any carriages for unreserved seating. So I jumped on the end of one of the carriages and figured I'd just stand - it was very crowded so I wouldn't have had much choice anyway.
After about 20 minutes we came to a stop near Wembley, still within the suburbs of London. And then we waited. After a half hour we were informed there was only a single line for trains going in both directions, and we'd have to wait. Half an hour later we were told the train coming in the opposite direction was going slowly because it was going in reverse. By this time we could have made it all the way to Milton Keynes already. After being delayed for nearly 2 hours we got going again. We were told they were trying to make alternative arrangements since everyone wanting to go to Manchester would have missed their connecting train - at least they kept us informed about that.
They actually ended up holding the train at Milton Keynes and everyone just jumped on, with no regard for reserved seating. We got to Manchester less than a hour late but it meant I didn't really have an opportunity to look around the city at all, just had to jump on a tram for the stadium. The city didn't look too exciting as I passed it by, also it was very cold and windy - not a good idea to go to Manchester in shorts and a t-shirt. After we got off it was time for the walk through the streets, that is part of the experience of going to any football game in England I think. The stations are never right next to the stadium, so you have 50,000 football fans walking down the middle of the streets. There was a bunch of take away stores along the way selling hot food. Some very strange choices - they had hot chips of course, but some had these sloppy green peas on top, others with mashed potato, some with both and also with pieces of fried fish. Did not look healthy.
Manchester had a slightly different approach to the team store, they'd leave the doors open for everyone to charge in, then when it got too full they'd close the doors until it emptied out. However they still let way too many people in at a time so you can hardly move around, and just as the crowd is thinning out, more people come in! They also didn't have enough stock, as some of the best clothes I came across had already sold out of the *normal* sizes (excludes small and extra extra large). So I left empty handed and went into the stadium.
 |
| Old Trafford. |
I was surprised the stadium wasn't more modern. The entrance ways and turnstiles, as well as the outer stadium areas like stairs, toilets, food stalls etc. all seemed pretty outdated, and the chairs were a pretty cheap crappy plastic. No electronic scoreboard either. It was like managing a division two team in one of those old Premier Manager PC games. What they did do well was having a monster 75,000 seat stadium and some very high banks of stands, as well as a perfect pitch.
 |
| Manchester United warmup. |
 |
| Arsenal warmup. |
 |
| Game time. |
 |
| One of eight goals for the day. |
 |
| It's a penalty! |
The only downside of a fantastic 8-2 victory over Arsenal was that it was freezing cold, I actually remained sick for a few days afterwards, but it was still worth it. I think every free kick I recorded was a miss and the few I decided to skip all ended up in goals :( Otherwise a good day out, despite the cost of the ticket.
No comments:
Post a Comment