Glory Glory Man United

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The city of Manchester missed the memo that Brits are supposed to be prim and proper. So unapologetically brash is this town, that even its pretentious older sibling, London, denies any association with this armpit of England. From the painfully harsh northern accent to its arid industrial landscape, Manchester is a spitting image of Pittsburgh and all its bad stereotypes; only difference is that it replaced "boys" with "lads" and "man" with "mate." But despite every preconception working against it, this town has managed to crawl up the list to become the "U.K.'s Second City," an unofficial title that Birmingham gladly forfeited just to avoid a brouhaha with its obnoxious cousin. Manchester has since established itself as the country's 2nd biggest urban area, has the U.K.'s 2nd biggest economy, and is the nation's 3rd most visited city after London and Edinburgh--for God knows what reason. For Kristina and me, it was solely to check-off my lifelong dream of seeing a Manchester United game at the hallowed grounds of Old Trafford.

We arrived from Paris at the Manchester Airport--rated best in the U.K.--purchased a Rail Ranger Card for 24-hour unlimited rail use (£5.20), and whisked off to Salford, the liberal northern part of town. Here, we met up with our host, Jenny, a loud and vulgar ex-military man-turned-woman who told wondrous tales of her days as a Man United hooligan and as a bar-owner in the Philippines. After a little time to catch our breath from Jenny's epic stories, we made our way to Deansgate rail station to take the tram to Old Trafford; despite claims that the train runs to the stadium, the quickest and cheapest way to get there is actually by Metrolink (£3.70 round-trip).

The tram dropped us off close to the grounds, so we made the short walk south, along which we picked up a gameday scarf for £5. Kristina and I finally arrived after 10 minutes at the venue, where we met up behind the Trinity Statue with Alex, a season-ticket holder who had sold his pair to us on Craigslist for £120. We spent the next couple of hours exploring the premises, reading about the legends who have played here, icons like David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo who even non-soccer fans are familiar with. We waited a solid 30 minutes by the gate for the players to arrive, but without any luck from our vantage point, Kristina and I entered the pitch early to get settled.

Our seats in the northeast corner by the singing section made for a rowdier experience. We were also pleasantly surprised by the reasonably priced concessions: 2 drinks, 2 bags of chips, a hotdog and meat pie for only £12. We snuck in a bottle of Singha (Thailand's most popular beer) despite the stadium policy forbidding us from drinking in the seats, but by the looks of many fans' slurred speech and heavy eyelids, so did they.

The game started with a ceremony for Wayne Rooney, my sports idol since the first day I played soccer. It was his 500th appearance for the Reds, which felt befitting that I was able to attend this game to witness this moment. His performance during the match, however, was nothing to write home about. In fact, the entire team looked fatigued, uninspired, and sloppy, maybe due to their previous week's Champions League exit when they failed to advance from the group stages. Norwich, a bottom-feeder in the Premiership fighting to avoid relegation, scored in the 38th and 54th minute from beautifully precise passes with killer finishes. It seemed as if United, the 3rd most valuable soccer club on Earth (after Real Madrid and Barcelona) and 5th in all sports (after Real Madrid, Dallas Cowboys, NY Yankees, and Barcelona), was David while their opponents were Goliath. However, a goal in the 66th minute on a cross to Anthony Martial--who United recently bought for a record-breaking £36 million transfer fee from AS Monaco, the highest sum ever paid for a teenage player--injected some life into the Reds. Martial was also awarded earlier that day the Golden Boy, the title of Europe's best under-21 player, somewhat justifying his ridiculous pricetag; with previous winners like Wayne Rooney ('04), Lionel Messi ('05), and Cesc Fabregas ('06), this award is no joking matter. Speaking of Rooney who, despite all the accolades and high praise early in his career, has undergone a decline as of late. He even saw a decent chance in the 88th minute for a header to tie the game, but failed, thus icing the 2-1 loss for United.

Kristina and I left dejected, but the opportunity to step into Old Trafford, one of the most fabled stadiums in the "football" world, was rewarding enough. The Reds fell from 4th in the standings to 7th in subsequent weeks, but all we cared about at that moment was making our way back into the city center. We managed to get to Albert Square in one piece, site of Europe's best Christmas market as voted by travelers on Christmasmarkets.com. Based on rankings from Buzzfeed's "33 Towns that Kill It on Christmas," and our travels to (#1)Manchester, (#3)London, (#5)Paris, (#27)Vienna, (#29)Dublin, and (#32)Prague, we'd agree that Manchester hosted the best markets along with Vienna, although London, Paris, Dublin, and our hometown, (#24)Richmond's inclusion on the list were quite perplexing. Regardless, we strolled around the stands looking for currywurst sauce for Jenny, but lost in translation was the Brits' use of the word "ketchup" to indicate all sauces, not just the tomato kind. Hence, we ended the night empty-handed and frustrated by the hordes of people rubbing shoulders for some mulled wine and hot cocoa.

We started the next morning, once again, in search of the elusive currywurst. We stopped along the way at Bowler's Cafe (2 Mount Street) for a traditional English breakfast of bacon, sausage, baked beans, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, toast and some brown sauce, the English's version of steak sauce. It was the most hearty meal we'd had during our week-long excursion through Europe, and after days of tired legs and sore feet, it was nice to sit and enjoy a homey breakfast. The food was so good we cancelled a big chunk of our day's itinerary that included the National Football Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Northern Quarter.

After taking our sweet time with the meal, we headed towards the John Rylands Library (150 Deansgate), voted by BBC as one of the Top 10 Libraries in the World. This building holds the earliest extant of the New Testament text and its Reading Room is straight out of Hogwarts. We admired the architecture, which was modeled after the Oxford Library, before going to the grocery store to pick up alcohol, our parting gift for Jenny. Either the booze in England or the cost of goods in Manchester is really cheap, but in either case, we happily wrapped our whiskey to go.

We returned home to gather our belongings and bid farewell to Jenny, who offered up her place if we ever revisited Manchester. We reluctantly accepted, knowing that we'd rather burn in Hell than come back to this God-forsaken city. It may be the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and the world's first industrialized town, but we'd prefer to experience it from the history books. And with that, we headed back to the Manchester Airport for the first and undoubtedly, last time to catch our flight to Dublin.

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Photos

Old Trafford
Gameday scarf for our first match at "The Theatre of Dreams"

East End
The view near our seats in the East End of Old Trafford close to the "Singing Section"

John Rylands Library
Voted by the BBC as one of the Top 10 Libraries in the World, this historic landmark houses the earliest extant of the New Testament

Albert Square Christmas Market
Voted by travelers as Europe's best Christmas market, Albert Square is host to many holiday festivities

English Breakfast
Hearty meal consisting of bacon, sausage, mushrooms, eggs, tomatoes, toast and brown sauce

Singha Beer
Thailand's most popular beer and the preferred alcohol served at Old Trafford