STILL NO REAL ALE AT THE ETIHAD

August 2026. Manchester.

Your traditional contractually obligated “first game at the Etihad” post you’ve no interest in.

AFC Bournemouth at a traditional time, too, 2pm on a Sunday. The August fixture traditionally finds me scrabbling around for “new and shiny” pubs, having long ago completed the Greater Manchester section of the GBG.

And there are a few newbies under the arches and on Dale Street, which my youngest son has just left for the greater delights of Stockport.

I decided to get a dry day in to impress Mrs RM, and had early lunch of Chicken Katsu Ramen (CKRNSS 4) at Shoryu in Piccadilly Gardens,

a place where the wonderful Anastasia Coope declared the food so bad her soul left her body during her gig at the Rat & Pigeon last year. But then, Americans are fussy eaters.

Manchester is very cosmopolitan these days; I’m sure I saw an Irish pub in Stevenson Square. I got talking to a couple of football tourists from Majorca who’d spent more on their match ticket and shirt than I paid for my whole season ticket.

“We want to go to the famous pub near the ground“. They mean Mary D’s.

Don’t ask me why it’s called Mary D’s Beamish Bar when they sell Guinness.

I think I persuaded them there were better examples of the Mancunian pub in the centre, so they’ll probably have ended up in the Piccadilly Spoons.

And so to the Etihad, about to open a wondrous looking hotel that will be just outside my budget, where sadly the Holt Bitter pump is yet to be installed despite my asking for it in the annual survey, and a chance to see my £330 a season single seat in the East Stand.

Have Pep Guardiola and Enzo Maresca ever been seen together in the same room ?

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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.

13 thoughts on “STILL NO REAL ALE AT THE ETIHAD”

      2. It definitely is that, better than not doing it, but not like the real thing.

        Same with cricket, although Mrs RM did tell me to ‘just say no’ to the keg pints of Shipyard at £7.45 I think, at Headingley recently….

        In scary ex Ghandi chap Don out of Sexy Best fame, i’m afraid I said YES YES YES YES…..

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      4. “watching football on TV is like drinking beer at home rather than in pubs” and isn’t watching football at a proper ground a poor substitute for actually playing it ?

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      6. Paul, maybe we can arrange a little match as part of your next pub crawl. We could burn off a few pints.

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      8. Yes Paul, but don’t make a habit of it after you’re retired and have more time for getting to and from pubs !

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  2. FC United has cask Holt’s bitter on the bar at their ground in north Manchester, but then they’re owned by their fans rather than the dodgy characters who now infest the boardrooms at Old Trafford and the Etihad.

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  3. wait you only pay £330 for you season ticket !?! mines nearly double that, and we were in league 1 only 4 years ago. Does football need real ale though…the only grounds Ive been to, so Ive not been to Leyton Orient fwiw,but who did it well were Brighton and Sheffield Wednesday, the rest, its about lager because you cant sell enough real ale based on how most football clubs actually are really bad at the selling the most beer they can part, and its 1 game every 2 weeks at most. In fact our league schedule is such we will have only played 3 home games by October, how do you sell enough cask ale for that to work ?

    and I havent drunk anything at our ground for the past 3 seasons, because its like £1 more than the local pubs, which arent exactly cheap to begin with, and the quality isnt great, and its a hassle to get.

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