My Visit to Theater of Dreams

As the I finally decided to get Man Utd membership as I couldn’t resist the awesome Man Utd Vs Man city fixture. So on Wednesday September 17^th 2009 morning took the membership and booked a nice seat for the Man Utd derby which was on the Man Utd end of old Trafford. I was not sure if I could make it to the game because there was a postal strike and there was just 2 days for the match. But on Friday morning when I was about to leave for the match, I saw the postman had left the a post in the letter box. I immediately tore open the envelope and saw that it was the match ticket J and started to dream about my trip to Old Trafford.

On the day of match I took train to Manchester from London. As expected the Virgin train was packed with all Man Utd supporters. It was an awesome sight to see entire train filled with Man Utd supporters. I reached Manchester by 12 15 PM, to my surprise there was no one in the streets only few police officers, it was like a curfew. Then I took a bus to Old Trafford from railway station and there was no difference in other places as well, you could hardly see people in the streets. When I got near the ground everything changed, there were thousands of them walking towards the ground. When I got down and saw the Man Utd stadium I felt very excited, I had always watched it in television, but now I was standing in front of the very same stadium. Phew, it was one amazing sight, there was lot of hype surrounding the match as Man City had spent nearly $200 million by acquiring new high profile players and most notable among them was Carlos Tavez who was a former Man Utd player now. I entered the stadium even though there was still another one and a half hour for the match to start. I was just captivated by the looks of the stadium, gazed around for nearly 10 minutes. Then I got to know why its called the “Theater of Dreams”, then I saw the famous board which says the number of years since Man City have not won a cup and thought it will be few more years since the City will be able to win any sort of cup ;).The stadium was huge and had a capacity of nearly 80,000.Then nearly 1 hour before kick off the away team came out for warm up and as usual they were booed by Man Utd supporters, but the sad part was that Tavez was booed even more. I thought that was bad, he was a player who gave his 100% in each and every match he played for United J, but none the less for Man Utd player to go to Man city is like Figo leaving to Real Madrid from Barcelona, he had received the harshest welcome any player could receive even though he had played so well for Barcelona. Then the Man Utd players for warm up, even though there were few supporters they made huge roar to greet the home players. It was nice to see all the players live; the most interesting thing I observed was Rooney was not as fat as he looks in the television. I got to see my favourite Man Utd player “Ryan Giggs”, you may tell that Ronaldo is the greatest player but Ryan Giggs has been at Man Utd through out his football career, not lured into other clubs by money, even now he is not the highest paid footballer in Man Utd, but he is the most decorated player in Premier League . Both the teams did hard pre match practice and went to their dressing rooms to get ready for the showdown.

Then the teams came out of the tunnel for the match, the crowd roared when each player’s name in the starting 11 was called out. Surprise was Valencia got preference over Nani, but I didn’t care as long as Rooney and Giggs were playing with Owen in the bench. Soon the match started and Man Utd as usual were on the offensive immediately. After just 3 minutes Rooney burst into the Man City penalty area and slotted in the first goal, there was a huge roar and celebrations all around the ground except in the City side all were just shocked by the early goal conceded by their team. The voice was deafening and was 100 times more than what you hear in the television. After the early goal united had a decent spell of procession but a grave mistake by Foster gave Tavez a chance and he passed it to Barry who slotted in a goal effortlessly. Then the entire crowd was silent After the goal Utd tried to break the City defense but were not that lucky soon it was half time and players headed back to the dressing room with either side having and edge over the other.

The second half started the same way as the second half with united trying to break the City defense. In the 48^th Giggs found Fletcher with pin point accuracy who slotted in a goal again to give united a lead which they deserved. Not even 5 minutes after Utd were in the lead; Bellamy attacked from the left flank and cut into the penalty area and hit a thunderous short into the top corner Foster this time was just a spectator. Then in the 80^th minute Giggs took a free kick and again found Fletcher who slotted in his second goal and the entire crowd went bonkers as we thought with 10 minutes to go the 1 goal advantage will be enough. Soon it was 90^th minute and the officials announced 3 minutes of extra time. I thought Man Utd will win easily, but Ferdinand gave away the ball cheaply to Bellamy who took advantage of that and slotted in the goal for City in the injury time. After that goal a Man Utd fan ran into the pitch and tried to disrupt play but was stopped by the stewards. I don’t know what happened to Bellamy, without provocation he went to the fan and slapped him which caused a tussle between Rio Ferdinand and Vidic with Bellamy with his unwanted stupid actions. After they started play,I thought we gave away 2 points very cheaply and just watched the remaining few minutes in despair. Man City made substitutions at the end to kill off points as they were happy to salvage a point from the pulsating game. But in the final few minutes of the game Owen got the ball and poked a goal into the net in the final few seconds of the game, I had not seen such a match after Man Utd’s win over Aston Villa in the previous season. The entire crowd was ecstatic and blew the roof top because of the sound. Finally the referee blew the whistle to signal end of play and we were all happy that we won the match. I was feeling joyous after watching such a match.

It was my first visit to Old Trafford and what a match it was. I felt it was worth every penny I spent on the match. Finally I left the stadium and went took a bus back to the station, all the Man Utd fans were singing Man Utd’s song loudly even the driver who was listening to the match on the radio started singing with usJ. Then I left Manchester after living my dream of watching a Man Utd match in Old Trafford. I was still rewinding all the major incidents in the train and just couldn’t think of anything else. Well my experience was over and was looking forward to visit it again but had to leave London as my work there got over, my dream of watching Liverpool and Chelsea getting trashed at Old Trafford is still undone. Hope I can make it to those matches in the near future , for now I am still relishing that awesome match.