Mancheste United vs. Lille... wednesday, march 7, 2007

Wednesday morning was warm and sunny, reflecting the atmosphere on campus because it was election time! The lengths the candidates and their friends go to to garner votes is crazy. There was "Big D" who had a bus plastered with pink paper going round and him whistling, "Action Man" Has ("a" has "ah" sound) has a bunch of girls drove around in an opened space wagon singing "Vote Has, vote Has!" to Stallone's Rocky's theme song and there were other less nutty antics.

After voting, we left for Manchester. Being an industrial city, it was not as pretty as small, sleepy Loughborough but there was a more sophisticated transport system with trams and more importantly, it's home to Manchester United. I am not a fan and know next to zilch about football but it was all rather exciting really, to go to a Championships game with Manchester United against Lille.

First off, the stadium, Old Trafford, was gargantuan with seating capacity of more than 70 000. I was awed. Our seats were just before these rooms with heater (Manchester was VERY chilly), sumptuous dinner and television for replays. I was stunned. All this while, the guys were gazing at the players warming up with admiration in their eyes. I looked too and sadly, could not identify their brilliant touches or whatchmacallit.

According to the guys, the game was a letdown, with Lille (in yellow) playing badly in the first half and Manchester (in red and white) playing too defensively. This all goes to show that ignorance is bliss, I found it all tremendously exciting. The crowd acted like a single entity except for a group of Lille's supporters from France but their number was small compared to those of Man U's. (I had looked with some trepidation at the police guarding Lille's supporters as a precaution against riotsor mishaps) Anyway, the crowd sang (the roaring was undecipherable to me), booed (quite intimidatingly), groaned and stood up exactly at the same time. Everyone stands up when there is a potential goal in sight and sighed back to their seats except once. The once was the goal by Larsson in the 75th minute. After that, loads of people left as there was little chance of further goals... and it got colder.

More pics (not of the match though)

http://picasaweb.google.com/yannyranran/Manchester

Oh well, despite the cold, it was a brilliant experience, for me anyway. Bet all many football fanatics back home are growing green in envy... mwahaha!