This is a sort-of guest post by Stephen. The photos of the stadium are all his, as is the commentary. Stephen bought a season ticket to Manchester United this past season and has been going up nearly every second weekend for games. The photos are all from before the match as he was had better things to do during the match than take photos!
Stephen looking super excited before the game
Yesterday was the FA Cup Semi-Final between Manchester United and Manchester City at Wembley. As a United fan and season ticket holder, I had the chance to apply for tickets to the match and was lucky to get one.
The first half was dominated by Manchester United and they should have scored two goals but Dimitar Berbatov missed both. He was thwarted once by a good save from Man City goal keeper Joe Hart and the second one was just a bad miss as he put it over the bar from point blank range.
Great seats!
City weren't even in the game in the first half but during the break Roberto Mancini must have had something inspirational to his side for the first time ever because City came out the hungrier of the two teams in the second half. City dominated the first fifteen minutes which culminated in Michael Carrick making a fatal error and losing the ball just outside the box.
The stadium before the match
Yaya Touré finished clinically as he sent the ball past Edwin van der Sar.Then a harsh challenge by Paul Scoles got him a straight red card which effectively sealed the game for Man City.
I stood for the entire ninety minutes because United fans are known for standing which is quite irritating. Speaking as a United fan, I believe fans are arrogant and require to be brought down a couple of notches. One of the songs we sing is "We are Man United, We'll do what we want. We'll do what we want because we are Man United".
It was pretty shocking that they allowed the City and United fans to congregate after the match as it got quite tense and there were obviously skirmishes because a couple of guys walked by with bandages and blood on their heads.
The teams warming up and the opening ceremony
How exciting to have such an important match be a local derby! Love the photos of the stadium, it's GIGANTIC! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletehe certainly put the goal away well!!
ReplyDeleteBumped into quite a few unahppy looking drunken Man U fans on the tube after the game. It seemed to be such a source of great pain for them to have been beaten by City, but I guess for the City fans it was quite the opposite.
ReplyDeleteCommiserations. I'm still consoling my other half, or rather, listening to all the reasons why...
ReplyDeleteStephen got there early to see that disaster... :-(
ReplyDelete@ Kathy: Yeah, Wembley is massive!! I've been there three times for concerts but never for sport.
ReplyDelete@ Revivor: I couldn;t possibly comment, being an Everton supporter.
@ William: Maybe they're just bad losers??
@ Sheila: Ha ha! (See above comment about bad losers!!)
@ Trotter: I take it you're a fan??