Thank you to Charles Clowes who submitted this review of his tour of Old Trafford. For anyone thinking of going, this is well worth a read as it goes into a lot more detail than all the promotional stuff about the experience.
Driving about the outskirts of Manchester, you suddenly see the unmistakably massive silhouette of Old Trafford. Truly, the stadium is simply monstrous in its size and the sensation of driving ever closer to the home of Manchester United is spine tingling.
Once I drove up and parked, I found myself in a group of 20 fans who had made the pilgrimage from all across the country, as well as with a few from all over Europe. While most people paid on the day, I’d got a gift experience voucher that let me in for free!
Once through the turnstiles, we met our tour guide for the day who was an old boy dressed in a big winter coat with a Man U scarf wrapped round his neck and speaking in a thick Mancunian accent, I suppose you really couldn’t ask for a more stereotypical chap to lead a tour like this.
His knowledge about the club, the sport and all the players was incredible and while he talked endlessly throughout the tour, with the odd joke and anecdote here and there, you couldn’t hear a pin drop. I can’t remember much of it, but it was all riveting stuff!
As for the tour itself, it would have been a bit bland were it not for our tour guide and the sheer magic and majesty of Old Trafford and Man U bringing it all to life.
The tour began with a seat in the stands, with many of us grabbing a hot drink, as it was cold out. Here we were told about the history of Old Trafford, how many seats it has, how it was built and the experience of seeing Man U play in a fully packed stadium was described to us too. Although this seemed to be a painful reminder of how difficult it is for more people to actually get tickets to see them play. As we all know, you can’t seem to get them for love nor money of late. Well, an awful of a lot of money perhaps…
Then we had a tour of the very swanky players’ lounge (from which the manager is banned unless invited by the players) and after a quick drink from the bar we took a tour of the changing rooms where more history and anecdotes followed to keep everyone smiling, while a few lockers of the top players were pointed out.
Then we all made the long walk down the tunnel to the pitchside dugout. Walking down the tunnel, you could imagine walking out into a roaring crowd of thousands upon thousands of people. The sheer size of the stadium was dizzying, even when empty, cold and wet out. We all seemed to share a moment taking it all in.
After thanking us for taking the tour and wishing us all well, our guide left us to wander the MU-seum and browse the long history of Man U FC, including the 12 league titles, five FA Cup titles, two UEFA Champions’ League trophies and a long long list of all the players down the decades.
There was also a screen where you could watch the best goals and even a holographic cat with Sir Alex Ferguson, which was a bit bizarre. But by this time, the tour had been going for a fair few hours, so I simply saw myself out through the gift shop, buying a Man U scarf on the way.
But while the tour sounds rather simplistic from what I’ve written here, it was absolutely brilliant! This is mainly thanks to our incredible tour guide, whose name escapes me. But he made it an experience to be remembered with all his stories and the way he told them, even if I can’t remember most of it a week later.
So I highly recommend this sort of experience, whether you fancy learning a bit more about Man U or you’ve got a mate who’s mad about Man U and you need to buy them something for a birthday, Christmas or whatever.
Just be sure to wrap up warm if the weather’s overcast, because it gets quite cold and blustery in that big stadium.