NO REAL ALE AT THE ETIHAD. AGAIN

August 2025. Manchester.

A guided tour of Manchester art from Matthew, who has had more changes of hairstyle than Manchester City have alternative strips.

A lot of Mancunian art has is commercial,

though often you’ll struggle to see what they’re advertsing (and that’s the point !.

August brings a return to the Etihad, in the middle of a giant expansion plan that will add seats and, more importantly, the biggest hotel in Manchester. You’ll probably get a goodie bag with a can of Boddingtons in your £200 room.

You won’t get proper beer inside the Etihad, despite my annual request in the supporter survey for a Holt handpump in the East stand. Asahi and Guinness, with Shindigger your Locale.

This is the view from my £330 season ticket (£17 a game)in the East Stand,

a seat relabelled without alphabetic characters because tourists who buy seats for £330 (a game) don’t understand letters (or our kick-off times) and therefore can’t take their place before City go a goal down to Spurs, ruining our season before it’s started.

I’d determined I was having a dry day after Atherstone, but losing to Tottenham is so depressing I end up in Beer House S6 while I’m waiting for my Sang Lung takeaway,

drinking one of Manchester’s finest pints.

And by the time I’m back home, swinging that back of crispy beef and Singapore rice, football is forgotten.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

14 thoughts on “NO REAL ALE AT THE ETIHAD. AGAIN”

  1. Not understanding the world in front of you is the sign of being very young or getting old. I think we miss most of what’s going on around us at some point. Like Matt’s new look. Is that hipster?

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  2. “from Matthew, who has had more changes of hairstyle than Manchester City have alternative strips.”

    Ah, to be young again… NOT! 🙂

    “though often you’ll struggle to see what they’re advertsing:

    Struggle is definitely the word!
    (oh, and ‘advertsing’ isn’t – mayhap an ‘i’ inserted between the ts?)

    “despite my annual request in the supporter survey for a Hokt handpump in the East stand”

    Ooh! I have a brilliant idea. Find a why to surreptitiously install some casks/lines/pumps etc. underneath the East Stand. Then, through some amazing breakthrough on pumping at the the cask, into a line rather than at the end (or, devise some sort of fiendish mini pump attached to the end of the line… right under your seat! Then you could enjoy proper beer, in style!

    “This is the view from my £330 season ticket (£17 a game)in the East Stand,”

    It’s a bit blurry. Or did you take the photo without wearing your glasses? 😉

    “a seat relabelled without alphabetic characters because tourists”

    Stop right there. Bloody tourists. The same the world over.

    “I’d determined I was having a dry day after Atherstone”

    I’m prefer a bit of hair of the dog on a day after.

    “drinking one of Manchester’s finest pints.”

    Judging from the pic above, that’s another one of those adverts that struggles to inform the customer of what exactly they are selling. 😉

    “And I by the time I’m back home swinging”

    Perhaps either drop the’I’ or throw in a few commas?

    Cheers

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  3. Good seat!

    Hey, you can almost see the pitch from there.

    Now, if you could just get the guy in the next seat to stop shoving his programme in front of you just as Spurs are about to…

    Too late.

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