Theatre of Lifelong Dreams in Action

Sunday 27th March 2022: WSL: Old Trafford: Manchester United vs Everton

It was Mother’s day for this match and so I thought it only to head to Manchester to witness history being made in Women’s football as Manchester United’s Women’s team played in front of fans at Old Trafford for the first time ever. They had played at ‘the theatre of dreams’ back in 2021 but that match against West Ham United was played behind closed doors due to the worldwide situation.

Well now, you didn’t seriously think I’d go to a Men’s match at Old Trafford did you, I’ve been a Liverpool fan since the age of 5 after all so supporting the enemy in their home stadium is one thing I’ll never do. I have no such deep-rooted allegiances in the Women’s game though so this match was the perfect opportunity for me to visit the stadium and experience what it feels like to watch a match here, without making the childhood version of me disgusted by the Man I’ve become.

I was if anything way too overprepared for this match as the hosts sent out an email 48 hours before kick-off. In this email is everything you need to know for a trip to the stadium, plus loads you don’t. It tells you what the pre-match entertainment is going to be and how to get to the stadium, neither of which I payed the slightest bit of attention too. Lets you know that the stadium itself is run on a cashless basis and when the club shop is open; how much the matchday programme will be and that it is only available from kiosks inside the stadium.

For those driving to the stadium for the match there was a link on the email to book a parking space, as well as a link to download your e-ticket to your phone as they had done away with paper tickets for this one. The most important message for me of this long and winding email was the revelation that Old Trafford is a bag free stadium, but they do provide bag drops for those you bring with you on the journey. I have never had an email this detailed before a match before so, much as I hate to say it, cheers Man U.

With the kick-off at 12:30pm I still had to be up at 8:30, despite how prepared I now was, to get to the stadium on time to ensure I got in before the match started. The crowds expected at the match meant that I was being extra careful to build wriggle room into my schedule. This turned out to be a great call on my part as on arrival at Manchester Piccadilly station a quick look at google maps told me that my original plan to simply hop on a tram to the Old Trafford stop would not work. That stop is for the cricket ground and not the football stadium, which is a 15 minute walk from it. The closest stop to the stadium is Wharfside, but for that one you have to change at either Pomona or Cornbrook stop.

I changed at Pomona and when I arrived at Wharfside I was glad I had chosen to choose that stop. Wharfside is set beautifully beside the Manchester Ship canal as it fans out into the distance. You can see the stadium as you disembark the tram and to get to it all you need to do is walk out the stop in the direction of travel, then turn left onto Sir Alex Ferguson Way and the stadium looms large in-front of you. Missing that is on you.

The last step before you reach the stadium is to cross the busy road in-front of you, which is easily done when you wait for the lights. When I reached the stadium the stewards directed me to the bag drop where I left my bag for the bargain price of £5. Handbags seemed to fit within the A4 size limit that the hosts have set for bags they will allow inside.

Despite turning up to the ground early I knew I would miss the arrival of the player’s coaches, so I spent a little extra time enjoying a lap of the stadium and enjoying all the things on offer as I lapped it. The bag drop was in the car park opposite the Sir Matt Busby stand and between the two was a large paved area that hosted many media teams following the historic event of the day, as well as a life-size version of the throne that 6 of the team we were all about to see in action were leaning against in a gigantic banner on the side of the stand under which a bronze stature of Mr. Busby hovered.

This gigantic banner was complimented by smaller A3 banners on the rails of the car park wall opposite, with each player given her own banner along the length of the wall. Children were having their pictures taken on the throne as their parents admired the triple statue next to it. The statue in question was dedicated to the so called ‘United trilogy’ of Denis Law, George Best and Bobby Charlton from the first glory period in the club’s history.

I turned my back on them and headed inside the shop or ‘megastore’ to explore what it had to offer, once I had passed the airport security guarding the entrance. That was only a small taste of how over-the-top the shop was. They had hair curlers and straighteners for sale as well as their own branded coffee blend!!

I confined myself to just my traditional keyring, which has been shoved in a desk draw and will never see the light of day again, and got out of there. I popped across to the individual banners to take a picture of Lucy Staniforth’s one as she is my favourite player in the host’s squad. It turned out that she was not actually included in the matchday squad when the teams were read out later on, but I like the way she plays nonetheless.

This accomplished I decided to take the long way round to the away turnstile in the Bobby Charlton Stand. The first stand you come to when heading in this anti-clockwise direction around the stadium is the Sir Alex Ferguson (SAF) stand, in-front of which there were rows of food vans and I took this chance to buy lunch. Whilst in the queue I turned round to take a view of the stand and spotted a hovering statue of the stand’s namesake hovering above me, just as Busby’s had on his stand.

As I continued my walk around this stand I came across artificial pitches to my right that were being used by youngsters to practice their penalty technique. Escaping the hive of activity on this side of the stadium I emerged on the Stretford End of the ground and into a sea of eerie silence, that was only punctuated by the beep of mobile tickets being scanned on distant turnstiles.

I then moved past the coach park and took a stroll down the ‘Munich Tunnel’. I call it this because you head into a covered area and to your left there are a set of frames outlining the Munich Train Crash Disaster of February 6th 1958, when the Busby Babes’ plane crashed on take-off at it attempted to take off from Munich in bad weather. I do not pretend to be an expert on the disaster and I wholeheartedly recommend you doing your own research into it to understand it better.

My walk down this tunnel started in the rebuilding stage after the disaster and moved through the disaster itself to the build up and context of the disaster and ends at a memorial flame to those who lost their lives on that day. It was the first time in my life that I have ever felt bad for Man United and it definitively helps you connect with the human stories around the disaster that you may never have heard before.

Today promised to be a much happier day for the home fans though as they came into the match fully expecting to win. They were 3rd in the WSL table on goal difference before kick-off, with 32 points from their 17 games so far this season, 2 wins in their last 3 games and an chance to boost their already impressive goal difference of 19 against a team struggling to score let alone win. That team is Everton and the have lost their last 3 games without scoring. The first of those losses was detailed in my last blog, but since then they have managed back-to-back 4-0 losses against Man City at the Academy stadium and I was fully expecting them to continue their losing streak today. They had at least managed to maintain the same manager from the last time I saw them in action though, so that might work in their favour.

I scanned my ticket and headed inside, up the single set of stairs to my left, picked up a drink from the single food kiosk and then up the stairs behind me and into the stand. The away stand is the only part of the stadium that is single tier and the part of it that my ticket was in was the area in which they are holding a safe standing trial. It worked fine for me throughout the match, but there were many empty seats in the area so how it will work at full capacity I don’t know. The whole of the top tiers on the other 3 stands were completely empty as the hosts had focused on filling out the lower tiers and in this they had done an excellent job. It’s an impressive stadium, but no Anfield or Wembley in my book.

The away fans had the benefit of the shaded side of the stadium, whilst the home fans opposite were bathed in sunlight. This was made even better when the teams emerged from the far left corner on my side of the ground and the visitors came all the way down to my end to warm-up. I had to head back down to the concourse at one point of the warm-up as I had forgotten to buy a programme for the match and when I returned with it the visiting players were dragging each other around for 6-8 yard each. They were sprinting at full power with a teammate hanging like lead to a resistance band lopped round their waists. What the point of this exercise is I have no idea, but at this point anything that might help them perform better is welcome.

Just as this weird warm-up was coming to an end the tannoy sparked into life and rushed through the starting 11’s at such breakneck speed that I missed the names of 2 of the visiting team. He didn’t even bother with the substitutes and I only found these out when they were displayed on the miniature screens squashed into the banner between the tiers behind each goal. These were the only screens in the whole stadium and they also had to show the score and the match clock which, unlike every other match clock across the country, counts down how long is left in the half instead of how much of it has elapsed. It meant that I had to do maths on the fly to work out which minute things happened in throughout the match and this was extremely unhelpful when I’m making sure I don’t miss anything.

I picked up the final 2 Everton starters when the teams emerged for kick-off and the tannoy re-announced the teams at the same ridiculous speed. I was listening extra intently this time though and managed to pick up both Megan Finnigan and Poppy Pattinson’s names from the team sheet and ensure I had both full teams noted down just in time for kick-off.

This was a very lucky turn of events for me as the match kicked-off at 100mph and within 4 minutes the deadlock had already been broken. Though, in a shock to everyone inside the stadium it was not the hosts who had taken the lead. Everton whipped the ball down the right to Clare Emslie, who advanced into the wide open spaces in-front of her. She cut into the box and bore down on goal, with only Mary Earps to beat between the sticks she rifled the ball across Earps’ body and off the left post before watching it settle in the back of the net.

I was grinning from ear-to-ear when I saw Emslie slot this chance away to put Everton 1-0 up against their illustrious hopes but it had the opposite effect on the rest of the stadium, which fell into a shocked silence. The home team players may have dreamt of playing in-front of a packed Old Trafford, but I doubt they imagined their dreams going so badly early-on. To be losing to an Everton team that had been struggling to score in recent matches was not what any of them would’ve wanted from this day as their dream was beginning to transform into a nightmare.

Going behind so early on in the match seemed to jerk the home team awake and it spurred Alessia Russo into trying to turn the match around all by herself. She first tried to bamboozle Megan Finnigan whilst attempting to create space for a shot from the right. Then when that didn’t work she pounced on a mistake by George in the Everton defence to pick up the ball and shoot goalward. Unfortunately she was caught so by surprise by the mistake that she was unable to compose herself and snatched at the shot to such an extent that it rolled through to Sandy MacIver in the Everton Goal.

Russo had the bit between her teeth now and was causing problems all over the pitch now as she tried her hardest to drag her team back into the match. The rest of her team was not being over helpful to her in achieving that target though as Maria Thorisdottir picked up the first yellow card of the match by needlessly blocking off Emslie as she attempts to connect with a searching ball over the top. The resulting free-kick was easily collected by Earps just beyond the back post until she hurt herself that is and required treatment from the physios. The host’s substitute keeper went straight into her warm-up, as the rest of the team took the chance to take on some hydration, only to have to cut it short when it became clear that Earps would be able to continue.

In the 19th minute Emslie tried again for the visitors as she let rip from 20yards out, forcing Earps to spring down to her right to pouch the ball that looked like it was dribbling wide anyway. Then Russo took her turn at propelling her team forward as a corner from the right landed at her feet 10yards from goal. Her first shot from this distance hit Nathalie Bjorn who then smashed her clearance into the back of George from which the ball rebounded to Russo once again. This time her shot was pushed away by MacIver who got down smartly to her right to keep it out.

Everton were hanging onto their lead by their fingernails at this point as Leah Galton came rushing through the centre before laying the ball off to the left. The teasing cross through the corridor of uncertainty evaded everyone in the middle though and George was able to tap it behind for a corner. The corner in the 25th minute was punted out of the 6yard mixer before being deliciously chipped back into the path of Martha Thomas, but she was only able to toe-poke her shot into the stomach of MacIver and the ball bounced harmlessly away.

Seeing her teammates fail in their attempts to bring the hosts level in the match Russo once again went about creating a chance again herself as the game tipped over the half-hour mark. She broke into the box with George and Christiansen on her heels and it was their synchronised slides that blocked Russo’s first shot, before she tried to tap the ball past them and then clambered all over Christiansen in an attempt to reach the ball. Russo called for a penalty, but the ref was never going to give the decision that way and instead it was Everton who came away with a freekick.

United had been on top in the midfield battle since conceding so early on and having created so many chances so far they finally got the equaliser that their play deserved in the 35th minute. Ona Batlle was released in acres of space down the right for the first time all match and she placed the ball on a sixpence 6yards out where Russo was waiting to steer it home with a brilliant header over the head of MacIver, who had been too late in rushing off the line to punch clear. Having hung onto their lead for more than half an hour they had finally conceded and now they just had to survive to half-time.

They almost shot themselves in the foot 2 minutes later as Bjorn barged into Hannah Blundell deep into her own half attacking on the right. The free kick was curled into the box and it took all her skill for MacIver to punch it clear with Russo lurking behind her waiting for to complete her brace of headers. The score remained equal for now though as Duggan dithered away the momentum of the break allowing the hosts to reorganise and snuff out the threat.

In the 42nd minute both teams created their final chances of the half. First Ona Batlle waltzed past Poppy Pattinson on the right, but her cross was hoofed clear and some excellent interplay by the visitors saw the ball reach Kenza Dali on the edge of the box. She aimed her shop for top bins and only missed by millimetres. This bought an excellent half of women’s football to an end still all square.

The visitors played the best half of football I have seen from them in all season (four visits) and the credit for getting them playing like a proper team has to go to their current interim manager Chris Roberts, who has stamped his claim for the full-time job. The defence had been excellent all half, with Danielle Turner, Nathalie Bjorn, Gabi George and Poppy Pattinson all deserving praise for their brilliant work this half. Izzy Christiansen and Claire Emslie were causing trouble for the host’s defence when they broke out of the dogged defence they were having to put up all half.

Manchester United’s U21 Women’s team paraded their academy cup trophy on the pitch at half time, but as they had forgotten to turn up the captain’s microphone for the interview I decided to go and get a drink instead. Roberts took the chance to make the first half-time substitution that I have seen at a football match for a while. He obviously had not been as impressed with his team’s performance as I had been in the first half as he replaced Nathalie Bjorn with Lucy Graham for the second half.

United were shooting towards the Stretford end in the second half and it took them less than a minute to create their first chance in front of those fans. Galton advanced easily through midfield before slotting a ball down the channel to Russo but her inviting cross was punched clear by MacIver in the centre. Everton seemed to be attempting to dig-in and settle for the draw for the whole of the second half, which felt risky in the extreme though and was essentially a way of asking to be beaten.

The hosts broke down the right in the 50th and whipped a cross into the centre for Russo to turn home and finally clinch her brace. It didn’t work out that way though as she managed to scoop it over the bar from 8yards out whilst completely unmarked. Where her marker was I have no idea, but of all the players to leave unsupervised in your own box Russo was the worse one for Everton to choose. The incredible Russo proved this point once more 2 minutes later when she was set free onto a ball down the left channel, but this time Turner was on the ball enough to scramble across and she timed her tackle perfectly to block the ball behind for a corner.

That corner was wasted by the hosts but they were back on the attack in the next minute and this time Batlle was able to skin Pattinson on the right. She cut inside before laying off the ball to Thomas in support who turned and was caught by Graham, who was the first Everton player all match to mis-time a defensive tackle. It took seconds for the ref to give the penalty and Graham was lucky to escape without a card to her name. Katie Zelem’s penalty was hit without any power at all and if she hadn’t managed to send MacIver the wrong way it would have been one of the simplest saves of the match. As it was though she slotted it to the keeper’s right as MacIver dived the wrong way and the Red Devil’s took the lead in-front of fans at Old Trafford for the first time in their history, in the 55th minute of the match.

Graham attempted to make amends for this gratuitous mistake 3 minutes later when she nabbed the ball on the edge of the box and fed Duggan outside her. Instead of shooting though she tapped it inside to George who could only hack it miles over the bar. Why the team’s main striker decided to give the final shot to a centre back I’m not sure but, as anyone could have predicted, it did not work.

In the 61st minute Russo once again came close to her brace as a curved ball in from the right fell to her 8 yards from the target. She shaped to shoot and just at the crucial moment Turner nipped in to steal the ball off her toes and behind for a corner. United had the ball in the net from the resultant corner, but Ella Toone was adjudged to have drifted offside as she followed up the rebound from Galton’s stinging effort that MacIver had palmed into her path.

Everton were unable to take advantage of this humongous let off though as United were now determined to add to their margin of victory and were attacking with pace at every opportunity they had. They were looking likely to score every time they ventured forward now. This torture for the visitors was only broken up when Duggan went down needing treatment before being able to carry on after a few minutes.

A few minutes later though she was unable to continue and had to be replaced by Simone Magill for the final 22 minutes of the match. Then Everton made another change 2 minutes later with Kenza Dali being replaced by Hannah Bennison. United responded in the 72nd minute as Kirsty Hanson replaced Martha Thomas to finish off the match.

Bennison slipped a 30 yard ball upto Emslie on the left who then wiggled inside Blundell before sending her curved shot just wide of the far post. This set the last 15 minutes of the match into action and it was the high point of Everton’s attacking play until the match poured out into injury time. First though they would try and throw away the game twice with simple errors in the next 2 minutes. Magill sold Pattinson down the river with a weak back pass that allowed United to break on them and they were only able to prevent the hosts scoring a third goal thanks to a mis-control by Toone that allowed Turner to nip the ball off her toes. Then another weak back pass, this time from Bennison, allowed Russo to nip in but her shot was straight down MacIver’s throat and she barely had to move a muscle to make the save.

Earps went down holding her right foot with 10minutes of the match to go and, whilst her teammates once again used this opportunity to re-hydrate themselves, MacIver took the chance to lay on her back in the goal-mouth and do some stretching during this break in play. Before play got underway again the hosts made a substitution with Jackie Groenen trudging off the pitch, at the speed of a snail moving through golden syrup, to be replaced by Jade Moore.

Russo would finally secure the second goal she had deserved for almost 50minutes of play now when she headed home a corner from point blank range, after it was whipped into the 6 yard box. The corner had been conceded by Everton as Pattinson timed an excellent tackle to block a cross from the United left, but the corner was awfully defending with Russo once again able to find space for a free header and this time she made them pay.

The excellent all-round display from Alessia Russo would be justly rewarded with the Player of the Match award when she was withdrawn from the action 2 minutes from time by her manager, Marc Skinner. This late substitution prevented her from completing her hat-trick, but allowed her to soak in a richly deserved standing ovation from all corners of the stadium. She was the difference between the teams today and will be a key figure in Man U’s push to finish in the top 3 and secure a Champion’s League spot for next season.

Back to matters on the pitch and Kirsty Hanson had burst into the box in the 87th minute searching for a fourth goal for the host. Her efforts were cut short by some excellent combined defensive work by George and Pattinson to wrestle the ball away from her. Hanson went down looking for a penalty but to the ref’s credit she wasted no time in waving away these protests. It was a great piece of defensive work from the Ladies in blue and further illustrated just how far they had come in the short break since their midweek 4-0 loss to the blue side of Manchester.

There were only 2 notable chances in the 5 minutes of injury time that were tacked on to the end of the regulation 90 in this one. First the visitors were sent free on the right by Pattinson, but her flicked cut-back to the penalty spot could only be chest passed into Earp’s waiting arms by Aurora Galli, who looked as though she was not expecting the ball to come to her. Then, with the added minutes slipping away, Galton went for the sensation in front of her home fans as she attempted to chip MacIver from 40yards out. The keeper was off her line when the shot began it’s journey towards goal, but was able to recover well enough to get finger-tips too it and help it over the bar.

This was the last chance of an incredible match that ended 3-1 to Man U in-front of their delighted home fans. As an away fan I left the match full of hope for the rest of the season after witnessing a much more cohesive team performance from Everton than I had seen from them so far this season. Though they will not be finishing high up the WSL table when the season ends in a few short weeks time; They showed the green roots of recovery here that will stand them in great stead for next season when they will be fighting for citywide dominance against the red half of Merseyside, how are strutting to promotion from the Women’s Championship.

I will look to get to one of those matches next season if I am still based in the city, but for my next blog I return once more to the nation’s capital city. London is my destination now I am completely caught up on my blog backlog. I am returning to the city of my birth to take in 2 matches in 2 days, as I first visit Stamford Bridge to see how Brentford fair in that derby match. Then I headed to the far south of the city to pop-into Kingsmeadow and see how the Women’s team play on their home turf against Reading. See you for those blogs soon.