After all the poorer grounds we have to visit and kick and rush football on show, sometimes you just need a change and treat yourself once in a while so on a chilly sunday morning, I headed up north to see what the City of Manchester stadium had to offer as the new look Man City (complete with Brazilian flair) took on the Stoke City side that refused to role over at the end of last season and take the three points we needed to stay up. No prizes for guessing where my alligences lay in this one! The journey was meant to be really simple. Train from Leicester to Sheffield, and then another train to Manchester arriving at 12:30 leaving us 2 and half hours to look around the city and stadium. Sounds easy.... was anything but!
Arrived in Sheffield bang on time only to find out that every train to Manchester was cancelled due to a landslide on the rails. After running round the station like a man possessed, I was informed by the information desk to get a train to Leeds and change there for Manchester.... without thinking I ran and jumped onto the train only to soon realise it was the same train that I'd caught to Huddersfield only a few weeks before meaning it was slower than walking!! It was completely rammed and at least 20 Man City fans were on it, all on phones trying to find out how we were going to get to the stadium.
I got chatting to a couple of fans who were from Loughborough and after many phone calls to people around the country, we made the decision to get off at Huddersfield and get the train to Manchester from there.... except for some reason, this train didn't stop there and went around instead of through! Nightmare!!
We slowly trundled along with the clock ticking and poor Helen waiting patiently in Manchester for us. The next plan was to get off in Leeds and try and find the quickest train to Picadilly station.... simple. Erm.... no! The only train to Manchester was to the Victoria station as according to the guard on the platform, no trains were going to Picadilly today... utter bollocks as Helen had got there easily enough!! So after running round Leeds like idiots, me and these two City fans and their kids all jumped on the train to Victoria and rang Helen to get her to meet us there. This train wasn't due in till 20 minutes before kick off so it came to the realisation that kick off was a no go for us. This day was turning into a disaster!!
The journey itself was absolute quality as we exchanged stories and jokes all the way there. I haven't laughed as hard and much as I did on that trip. It had gone so badly wrong that all we could do was joke about it and try and work out how the hell to get home. Small matters.
When we finally got into Victoria station (10 minutes early thank God), we rang Helen as we rushed through the station to get us a taxi so we could just dive straight in and away we went to the stadium.
And have you ever seen a more beautiful sight after all that? It was such a relief to be at the ground, and with 10 minutes to spare as well! We quickly said our goodbyes to the people I'd travelled up with and me and Helen headed off to find our turnstile and make our way up to our seats in the Gods.

At the station, the trains were still off to Sheffield so had to get a replacement bus service all the way back... which Im convinced took the wrong turning somewhere as it took over two hours to do the 50 miles or so. Absolute crazy and meant I missed my last train to Leicester so could only make it as far as Nottingham and had to have the old man come and bail me out by picking me up from there.
What a day it was. Absolutely exhausted by the end of it but fully worth doing. Man City play with such style and grace that they're a joy to see in action and for one day only, "There's only two City's!" Sadly it's the crash back to reality next as we go from luxury to the dive that is Brighton away. Joy!
No comments:
Post a Comment