September 2026. Manchester.
Oh, Manchester, but it’s Goldthorpe with so much to answer for, as my post-pint dash through another South Yorkshire mining town ends with a pulled muscle (or something, I’m no medic) at the back of my leg. I really shouldn’t have taken the mick out of Mrs RM’s sporting injury.
So Friday and Saturday were spent in agony, pinking in the new Good Beer Guide but missing out on Leicester CAMRA’s pub crawl.
I’d have skipped Sunday’s City v Sunderland game as well, but frankly there’s no point moping around, and both lads weren’t able to use my season ticket.
Luckily, there’s a bus from our front door to Sheffield station, and then at Piccadilly you can have a tour of Manchester on the FREE Number 1 bus,
but rather than wait for Sinclairs to open I opted to take a (very) early tram to the Etihad.
I got chatting to a New Yorker, over for his first City game as part of a £1,500 hospitality package, which doesn’t even include a pint of Holt.
My whole season only costs £330, and the mobile ticket gives me 10% off the self-serve pint of Asahi Dry (£5.72) I head for as pain relief after an excruciating climb up to Level 3.
which I bring you purely in the interest of scholarly research. You’ll be delighted to know I had to ask a human how the machine worked.
Asahi is the official beer partner for Manchester City, presumably replacing Greenall’s, and is possibly your best option at the Etihad, if not quite a Hobson’s Choice, now that cans of London Pride have been replaced by Hooch.
My “value” season ticket sticks me in a different seat each season, and this year I’m next to a lovely guy called Simon, who shares my love/hate relationship with a 5-3 win against Sunderland best described as “a rollercoaster”.
But I bet that New Yorker thought it was £1,500 well spent.
