Today is Rugby League World Cup Finals day, for both women and men, at Old Trafford. A day for celebration, a day of joy, a day of battling the transport infrastructure to attend (and get back). Welcome to northern England, 2022.
With my car off the road (awaiting change of ownership…how long will THAT take, DVLA?) I had to take the decision a week ago to buy train tickets to get to Old Trafford. Durham to Manchester. How does that work? Well, first up, there apparently IS a direct service, but no, there’s no tickets. Thus my partner and I are going to change at Huddersfield. We get to Durham station. Oh no we’re not – service cancelled. Trans-Pennine instead direct us to York, to change. Although getting us in 20 minutes or so later than advertised (thus cutting it fine if we want to see the women’s final kick off), it has the bonus of at least getting us seats….while several folk couldn’t even get on the train at Huddersfield. ‘Don’t worry, there’s another service in 20 minutes.’ With a rugby league World Cup final to get to, from the heartlands of rugby league (the M62 corridor) what chance this next service also being full, coming from Leeds?
Armed with our lunch (Greggs’ festive bakes, the very best thing about Xmas) we’d got off at Oxford Road and decided to walk along the Bridgewater Canal. It was a beautiful sunny day, a second consecutive weekend, surely a Mancunian record. It was lovely, up and down the cobbles, seeing various barges and towards Old Trafford itself, seeing the tram bisect the Bridgewater and Manchester Ship Canals. A far cry from my only previous visits to Old Trafford, both 97/98, where my abiding memories were of a Bladerunner-esque urban hell of darkness, empty car parks, disused factories, with oil drum fires only adding to the sense of forboding. These days, it’s all plush architecture, no more exemplified than by ‘Hotel Football’ adjacent to Old Trafford.
My partner, a little more open to the idea of watching ‘sport’ (as opposed to football) than me, was eagerly looking forward to her first Old Trafford experience. So that lasted the 5 minutes we nosed around outside before making our way in, keen to see the opening women’s game. No, we can’t come in with our bags. Hers, an average ladies’ handbag, mine, a satchel around A4 size. ‘Can I bring a plastic bag in?’ I inquired. (My satchel could easily fold up and be put in a plastic bag.) ‘Errr…..no.’ However, it seems ok to enter with a plastic bag if it’s from the Old Trafford Superstore, teeming with merchandise ill-spent. (We’d looked in from outside; it is the size of Sports Direct.) My partner enquired where we’d been told these regulations, where they were written, etc. I think she blamed me….till meeting other like-minded individuals (females) horrified to discover that daring to travel from Ireland and being up at 5 was no excuse for bringing a handbag to Old Trafford. All concerned had no choice but to find a portacabin 5 minutes away to queue up, pay a fiver and hope to luck that your bag was still there afterwards as their legal blurb said anything was ‘left at the owner’s risk’. Still, it’s donated to charity, so the Manchester United foundation, or whatever it’s called, gets to be seen as the good guys. I wonder how much is donated via this manner, as a percentage of what they make through sponsorship deals, et al? Of course, I put my partner’s bag inside mine.
Jumping to full-time, we left the game a few minutes early to avoid what would be outrageous queues to claim our possessions. Also, we hoped to be on an early train back to the city centre and be on the first train back, beat the rush. We headed towards Piccadilly, where the train started. Good job. One of the first there, we were two of the lucky few hundred who squeezed onto a service headed for York. 3 carriages. THREE. On a day when many thousands would be seeking to head back to Yorkshire from the rugby, or Christmas shopping, or all-day drinking (there seemed to be quite a bit of that). Apparently, it should have been 6 carriages, an exasperated driver having seen it all before, railing (forgive the pun) against his bosses who’d made the dubious decision to take them off. ‘Apologies for the disaster that is this service’. I got a seat at Leeds, lucky me.
Onto York, where the train was over half an hour late. But at least it arrived – the service to Liverpool Lime Street was cancelled and the next one, nearly 2 hours later, was being cut short at Manchester Airport. This in a weekend where there ISN’T a rail strike. (That’s next Saturday.) Train arrives, onwards to Darlington, then Durham…but hold on. It’s announced the train will be going to Newcastle ONLY. The display board confirms it. Hang on, you can’t simply MISS OUT a destination previously advertised. If we’d known, we could have got a different train from York. As it is, we’ll be landing in Newcastle after the last train fro Durham has departed. A bus leaves after midnight, which might be an option, given the cost of a taxi 20-odd miles from Newcastle. As it is, our stress and anger is wasted, as the train DOES stop at Durham. After the day we’ve had, I treat us to a taxi. £27 for 7 miles. I’d have needed to re-mortgage to get a taxi from Newcastle.
The match(es)? We walked the several staircases up the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand to our seats. Decent view of the pitch. We were high, but you could still make out individual players. But the rest of the stadium? We could just about see the lower tiers of the other stands, as the front of the monstrous roof was lower than our seats. (We moved seats at half-time, front of the upper tier, a wise move given there was NO-ONE in the central block. Why sit 3 rows from the back, with more of a view of the ROOF than the main event? Others joined us as the men’s game kicked off.) Yes, I’m not impressed with Old Trafford. Either I’ve a view of the roof (upper tier) or I’m in an away end with seats that I found cramped as a CHILD. ‘Theatre of Dreams’ my bottom.
The match was a hammering, as the ‘Jillaroos’ (terrible nickname) of Australia beat New Zealand 54-4. The loudest cheer was for the Kiwi try. Throughout this tournament there’s been a lot of love for the underdog, as fans recognise the development of the game in non-traditional far-flung countries. I’d have hoped for a closer game, but the Aussie game was too fast and powerful for a weak defence. Full-time, the players celebrated, a podium was built and trophy awarded to a backdrop of tickertape and flamethrowers. Then it was the men’s turn.
The Toa Samoa (men’s national team) were making their first ever appearance in a world cup final and like the New Zealanders and Papua New Guineans (?) we’d seen earlier in the competition, they had their own war dance, the Siva Tau. They were right in the Aussies’ faces and got the crowd going. Despite beating England with a golden point drop goal last week (27-26), the crowd were firmly in their favour. Well, it IS Australia. Cue pantomime booing of the Kangaroos at any opportune moment.
However, it wasn’t to be. After a couple of minutes defending, Australia scored with their first attack and rarely looked back. 14-0 at the interval, Samoan hope was extinguished when Australia ran in a try despite having a man sin-binned, 6 minutes into the second half. 20-0 down, Samoa showed some fight and managed a couple of tries in a 30-10 defeat. But we’d gone by then. We had a handbag to pick up.
The Damage:
£42 travel
£50 ent
£8 programme
£5 red wine (175ml) x 2 (The only ‘beer’ was Carling and Worthingtons. No thanks.)
= £110
The Tunes:
BBC 6Music (Radcliffe and Maconie)
The Downward Spiral (Nine Inch Nails)
ps, it was lovely to share a tram back into town with those cheeky chappy Leeds fans. ‘We are Leeds, we are vile, Mason Greenwood’s a paedophile*.’ Almost as charming as ‘Jimmy Savile, he’s one of our own’ which we also had to ‘enjoy’. Yes, it’s really great they’re back in the Premiership, as the media keeps telling us.
*actually, that’s not what he’s been charged with, so get it right.
