Denis Gathanju visits Old Trafford
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND
I have always dreamt of making the pilgrimage north. For those who know me, I am not overtly religious and when I talk of pilgrimage, it is not a religious one. For me, it was a different kind of pilgrimage that most people I know would dream of making.
As I packed my bags in Nairobi, I could hear my heart pound in my chest at the sheer thought of it. Boy, I was excited, but being the one I am, I always try to be cool and not show my excitement. From here, things started happening; for me, they happened so quickly, I did not have enough time to sit down and absorb everything. Within hours of flying out of Nairobi on Thursday night, I arrived in Amsterdam on Friday morning.
From Amsterdam, I fly into the English countryside city of Norwich and we drive south into the town of Colchester. Even though I had spent more than 10 hours on a plane from Nairobi to Norwich, I was alert and I could not get some sleep until after mid-night.
What lingered in my mind was the pilgrimage further north from Colchester. Saturday morning, I was up early. We agreed to skip our breakfast and drive north instead as we could have our breakfast on the road.
Get a life
While my host, who happens to be my boss, is not passionate about it, he was more than willing to accompany me on this pilgrimage. For him, he would not comprehend the passion and emotion that comes laden with not only the pilgrimage north, but with the entire game.
“One must be really out of his mind to be doing this every weekend. I just don’t understand why someone in their right mind would be doing this every other weekend. They need to get a life,” he said dismissively as a bus load of passionate pilgrims whizzed past us.
While he was impatient with everyone else, I was impatient with the long journey that seemed to last forever. Even though the M6 motorway we used was in prime condition, the journey seemed to last for a lifetime. There were no major traffic snarl-ups and believe me, the traffic situation here gets worse than that in Nairobi whereby a major incident can have sections of the six-lane motorway closed to traffic. The resultant traffic jams caused by this can snake down a 30 kilometer stretch and cause massive delays.
Since we wanted to get to our destination early, we left Colchester at 7 am and we arranged to have a breakfast stop at one of the many service stops along the busy motorway. Our intention was to get ahead of any traffic incidents and be in our destination in time for lunch and ready for our pilgrimage – my pilgrimage.
As we clocked the road miles closer to our destination, we ran into all sorts of people on the road. Flags were waved and scarves were displayed on the back windows of the cars and buses headed north. There was not a doubt that these were devoted pilgrims headed to the holy grounds where many have visited and many have fallen to the artistry of the home warriors cheered on by rapturous roars of the thousands of faithful who religiously troop to the grounds every other weekend to watch the slaughter.
The Theatre of Dreams
“Exit the motorway and enter the roundabout. Take the second exit and turn right to Trafford Wharf Road to your destination,” the GPS navigation system in the car announces. We drive into the parking lot after exchanging a few niceties with the parking attendants.
“Boy, we are in for a treat,” my boss announces and breaks into a smile for the first time since morning as we walk 200 yards across the main street into the hallowed grounds. The security staff at the entrance ask for our passes and after they study them, they ask us to proceed to the North Stand and enter the grounds via the executive section.
We walk into The Manchester Suite where we are warmly welcomed and ushered into the executive restaurant for drinks and lunch. The restaurant is a busy section, especially at this hour.
“Ladies and gentlemen… Welcome to The Theatre of Dreams!” a male voice roars over the intercom as if to acknowledge our arrival. A loud roar from an excited crowd follows in response. The smile on my face grows even bigger as I stand and watch the sea of humanity at the grounds. Even with the loud cheers and the bee-like activities around the grounds, I stand still and listen to my heart pound deep in the bowels of my chest. This is what I have dreamt of for a long time.
“So, this is where it all happens. I think to myself. This is home. It feels good to be home,” I think to myself. After spending 10 hours on a plane from Nairobi to Norwich via Amsterdam and spending another five hours on a car from Colchester to Manchester on the busy M6, I was finally home, thousands of miles away from home. This was the greatest day of my life and nothing could stop me from savouring and absorbing each and every moment of it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is The Theatre of Dreams – the home of the greatest football club on earth, Manchester United!” the male voice roared over the intercom to a thunderous cheer from the more than 75,000 fans packed into the massive Old Trafford Stadium in Manchester.
April is the business-end of the English Premier League. This is the period when every game counts and the championship is decided. The Red Devils, as they are rightly known are sitting at the top of the table, seven points clear of their nearest and bitter rivals – perennial under-achievers, Arsenal.
Today’s match against London side Fulham is critical in every respect since Manchester United have a chance of widening the gap at the top of the table to 10 points and move closer to lifting the English title for a record 19th time and move one better than joint title holders Liverpool.
Everyone in the massive stadium stand to their feet as the teams walk out of the tunnel from the Stretford End onto the sun-bathed pitch. The sun is out and the weather couldn’t be even more beautiful to witness a mid-afternoon slaughter.
Glory, glory Man United
We are seated in the executive section on the North Stand with two season tickets. These are the second-most expensive tickets to Manchester United games after corporate box tickets. They retail at a mind-blowing £3,000 or Kenya Shillings (Kes.) 405,000. Owning the tickets guarantees you the best seats in the stadium at the half-way line in a sheltered section of the stadium. Ticket holders also have access to The Manchester Suite, a high-end restaurant in the stadium where you can have meals before matches and have drinks at half-time.
The referee blows the whistle at kick-off; the roar, the screams and whistles of the capacity crowd is deafening. The atmosphere in the stadium is charged up and the fans are soon calling and shouting for goals.
“Glory, glory Man United! Glory, glory Man United! Glory, glory Man United!” the fans sing from all corners of the stadium. The roars act as an added boost to the home players and greatly intimidate visiting teams.
For many years, I have watched Manchester United rout other teams from hundreds of miles away. I have watched the passion and the enthusiasm of the fans and the players in the stadium, but experiencing all this first-hand, the feeling is inexplicable. I was on a high, on cloud nine, so to speak and the atmosphere continued to climb as the game progressed.
Within seconds of kick-off, the Cottagers from London were on the attack and were looking for an early goal when Gael Kakuta, who is on loan to Fulham from Chelsea sent a screaming shot wide to the left of the United goalie Tomasz Kuszczak. But United quickly got into the game and opened the score sheet when the sensational Nani dribbled the ball into the area before spreading the ball wide to the left and into the path of an advancing Dimitar Berbatov who buried the ball into the bottom corner of the goal.
The thunderous cheers that erupted from around the stadium threatened to bring down the roof of Old Trafford. In unison, the entire crowd in the stadium jumped onto their feet shouting their throats hoarse. I had to help the old man seated next to me to get onto his feet to clap and add to his voice to the roaring cheers that threatened to drown the entire city.
From then on, United were on the driving seat as they toyed with a deflated and an uninspired Fulham with Nani and Antonio Valencia constantly terrorizing the Fulham defence from the flanks as Anderson, Paul Scholes and company ran circles around the Fulham mid-field. The back four of the United squad were in excellent shape. Nemanja Vidic or Vida, as he is fondly called by the United faithful, easily kept the Fulham attackers at bay.
The entire stadium rose to its feet in heavy expectation as a neat cross by Dimitar Berbatov came into the area from the right flank to be collected by a waiting Anderson who shot wide from 18 yards with his left boot.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah,” the entire stadium crowd mourned at the missed opportunity.
Sensing that this would be routing, the fans clapped and sung, demanding for more goals. The cheers and whistles reached a crescendo when Nani chased the ball to the edge of the area on the left flank. The crowd rose to their feet in expectation as he rounded an advancing Schwarzer, the Fulham goalie. By this time, the entire crowd was on its feet, crying and begging for a goal. Nani positioned himself superbly as he raced with the ball into the penalty box and bulleted a shot towards the goal mouth.
A Fulham defender who had raced to the goal mouth to save the day for his team managed to deflect the goal-bound ball, but his luck ran out as the ball flew into the path of Antonio Valencia who was calmly positioned at the far post to spear the ball into a yawning net with his head.
“Gooooooooooooooal!” the crowd cheered as friends and total strangers in the crowd, all cheering and supporting Manchester United hugged and clapped in excitement.
Though the Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson had a touchline ban for the match and some of the big players like Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney were rested in anticipation for the Champions League clash with Chelsea at the same grounds, the match lived up to its billing and Manchester United did what they do best, beat visiting clubs at Old Trafford in their march to be crowned English champions.
As I walked outside the fortress that is home to my favourite football club, I now know and understand fully the passion and the enthusiasm that is behind every game played at these grounds.
For me, my dreams came true at The Theatre of Dreams.
Hail Manchester United!