Up early, and yet again well fed, I ventured out on my own and caught the tram to Old Trafford leaving Leigh to his own devices for the morning.

Off the tram at Old Trafford, walking past Old Trafford (the cricket ground), crossed the road at The Trafford (the pub), finally arriving at Old Trafford – the home ground for Manchester United Football Club.

First the museum tour and what a case of success breeding success, or money making money depending on how you look at it. This lot don’t have their silverware in a trophy cabinet, they have an entire trophy room. And it looked pretty full even without the championship cup they won last weekend which they haven’t been presented with yet. The rest of the museum covers all the facets of the club including players, managers, fans, kits etc. Very impressive and well presented, though it would have been more enlightening if more names had meant something to me.

The tour of the ground was very interesting. I wonder if our AFL grounds do the same sort of things – especially in regard to security. For example, the police ‘station’ has 3 cells, one each for men, women and children. There is a security control room which has cameras trained on all areas of the ground so that any trouble can be attended to immediately. There is segregation of supporters, they are separated by rows of empty seats, and they have different bar and kiosk areas. Do our grounds need the same sort of facilities?

Everything is red. The floor coverings in the kiosk areas are red, most of the seats are red. I wonder how much it cost Nike to have some red seats replaced with white ones to form the Nike ‘swish’. You can’t see it if there are bums on seats and this ground is always at capacity. Puts new meaning on the concept of naming rights. The ground holds about 68,000 and season tickets never go on sale. An audit a few years ago revealed that 1500 season ticket holders were dead and the tickets had been passed on to someone else.

Walked down the old player’s tunnel and got to stand in Sir Alex Ferguson’s managers box (equivalent to our coaches box) which is much closer to the action but doesn’t have the technology we associate with the AFL. We were unable to get to the new players tunnel (used since 1992).

Visited the press conference room which isn’t attended by Sir Alex unless forced – one of the competitions does demand that the manager give a press conference after each match but the other competitions don’t have the same requirement.

Got to see the players’ lounge and the players’ dressing room. These are only used for an hour or so pre-match as all other activities and training take place away from the Old Trafford ground at their new facilities. Got to sit where Beckham sits (yes there is a pic but it is on the –real– camera along with all the other shots of the museum and ground)!

They treat Eric Cantona (a captain of this club) as a hero, albeit a strange personality. Remembered for his drinking of very sweet tea and not talking to anyone. It’s funny how the only time we heard about him was when he assaulted a spectator and was banned for a squillion years!

The MegaStore is just that – huge! As expensive as you would expect and every conceivable kind of merchandise with some form of branding on it. Callum will be able to eat his first solids out of his new “Little Red Bowl”. Compared to what I could have bought I was surprisingly restrained. Something to do with this lack of packing space thing.