Manchester City and Manchester United are popular Premier League football clubs in Greater Manchester. United's ground is in Old Trafford; Manchester City's home ground is the City of Manchester Stadium in east Manchester. Fixtures between the clubs are referred to as the Manchester Derby. Manchester United are historically the second most successful football club in England with 67 elite honours won (including three European Cups) and was the first team in England to achieve the Continental treble. Manchester United's revenue was the fifth highest of a football club in the world in the 2022–23 season at €745.8 million.[1][2] In 2023, Forbes estimated the club was the second most valuable in the world at $6 billion.[3]
Both City and United, as of 2001, had a highly localised fanbase with the majority of season ticket holding fans in the outer postal areas (BL, OL, SK, and WA) of Greater Manchester and within other counties of the North-west[8][9] Only a fraction of both clubs' respective season ticket subscribers came from within the central areas of the City of Manchester. The Manchester postal area includes the (strongly United supporting) City of Salford but also Prestwich and Whitefield in Bury (with one of the largest City supporters clubs). This research was conducted before City moved to the larger (48,000 capacity) City of Manchester Stadium, and before the expansion of United's Old Trafford stadium which now accommodates 76,000 meaning that the situation will have changed in the period since it was written.
Further research, published in 2008, has identified that the Manchester region is split with City's support predominantly coming in the south and east of Greater Manchester and the surrounding area and United's in the west.[10] United's nationwide and international support far exceeds that of City. Polls done in the local media suggest that the support of both clubs is split nearly 50/50 within the city and United edging out City with a small majority in all of Greater Manchester.
Aside from their two Premier League clubs, Manchester's earliest known association football club was Hulme Athenaeum, established in November 1863 with its first secretary being Jonathan Nall.[11][12] Manchester hosted the first meeting of representatives from the home nations football associations in 1886, and the International Football Association Board, which makes the rules for the game, was formed following this meeting. FIFA adopted the rules and regulations of football laid out by the IFAB when the organisation formed in 1904.[13] Manchester has remained a regular summit location for IFAB meetings since their formation.[14]
The city hosted the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and athletics events took place at the City of Manchester Stadium, which is now home to Manchester City and sometimes referred to as Eastlands. Next to Eastlands lies the Manchester Regional Arena, which has been used for British athletics trials and the annual Paralympic World Cup which has been held in Manchester since 2005.
The city also hosts the annual Great Manchester Run which has been hosted since 2003 and has become one of the most popular 10 km runs in the UK. In addition, the city also hosts the annual Great City Games, featuring a 110m sprint track on Deansgate in Manchester city centre. The world's top athletes are invited and in 2009 Usain Bolt took part.
Manchester is a city that is steeped in Rugby League tradition, although the brough hadn't been home a professional Rugby League club based since the Belle Vue Rangers disbanded as a club after the 1954–55 season. The club started out as Broughton Rangers in 1877.
Old Trafford is home to the Super League Grand Final and has hosted it every years since its inception (except for 2020 due to COVID-19), and also hosted its predecessor tournament, the Rugby League Premiership final, every year since 1987. The stadium had hosted three world cup finals in 2000, 2013, and 2021, with other stadiums in the county also hosting several world cup matches throughout history.
Canadian side Toronto Wolfpack used to complete in the British rugby league system. Their United Kingdom base was the Manchester Metropolitan University. In 2018 the Wolfpack and MMU jointly established a player development pathway in which the Wolfpack coach the MMU's university team, operate youth programs in both Manchester and Toronto, and encourage top young rugby talent from Toronto to pursue the sport in Manchester.[15]
The city also has several amateur clubs including Manchester Rangers and Mancunians RL.
Broughton Park Rugby Union F.C. is one of the oldest rugby union clubs in England and was established in 1882, just one year after the Lancashire County Rugby Union was founded and eleven years after the formation of the national Rugby Football Union.
The club has had a number of different grounds in its time, mainly in the Salford/Prestwich area, but also in the south of Manchester. Since 2004, it has played at Hough End in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.[18]
Old Bedians Rugby (Union) Club was founded in 1954 as an Old Boys club for St Bedes College. Originally based in Chorlton, Old Bedians became one of two Didsbury rugby clubs in 1965. The club is on Millgate Lane in Didsbury Village.[19]
Didsbury Toc-H Rugby (Union) Club was founded in 1924 as "Toc H Manchester" in Victoria Park. After moving to various sites, the club arrived in Didsbury and in 1986 the name was changed to "Didsbury Toc-H" to identify with the clubhouse at Ford Lane in the Didsbury Village. "Toc-H" comes from a soldiers' club at Poperinghe in Flanders in the First World War. Soldiers and officers could get a respite from the battlefields. This place was named Talbot House in honour of a young lieutenant who was killed in action the year before. Signallers pronounced the letters 'T' as 'Toc' and 'H' as 'House'. When the rugby club was founded, Manchester soldiers called the new club as "Toc-H Manchester".[20]
Burnage Rugby Club play in National 3 and are based near Parrs Wood Entertainment Complex.
Manchester has an Olympic-standard swimming pool in the Manchester Aquatics Centre, built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, which is now part of the University of Manchester. The university runs the University of Manchester Swimming Club at the aquatics centre which was formed in 1885.[23]
Manchester has a number of swimming clubs. The City of Manchester Aquatic Swim Team based at the Aquatic Centre and they run academy sessions throughout Manchester.
A test match venue since 1884,[24] the 155-year-old ground is one of the most famous in world cricket, only The Oval in London can claim to have hosted an England test match earlier and the ground has hosted three World Cup semi-finals. The ground has seen many Ashes moments, including the 1902 Ashes test where Australia won by 3 runs (the closest test match winning margin and one which stood for nearly a century until 1993[25]), "Jim Laker Test" in July 1956 where the England spinner took 19 wickets,[26]Shane Warne's "Ball of the Century" against Mike Gatting and more recently the tense 2005 Ashes Test at Old Trafford when more than 20,000 fans had to be turned away due to tickets being sold out.[27]
Redevelopment plans have existed since the early 2000s (decade) as the cricket ground was in need of renovation, and even a move away to Sportcity nearby Manchester City F.C.'s City of Manchester Stadium was touted as a serious possibility.[28] Nearly £25m is expected to be invested in the redevelopments at Old Trafford.[24] Similar to its counterpart, one end of the Old Trafford cricket ground is called the Stretford End, the other end of the ground is called the Brian Statham end.
Lancashire hold the record for the most tournament wins in the Pro40 tournament (5 times) which ran from 1969 to 2009 and the Friends Provident Trophy (7 times) which ran from 1963 to 2009. Despite this strong one-day success, Lancashire have not won the top tier of the County Championship since 1934. In total they have won the County Championship on eight occasions in 1881, 1897, 1904, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1930 and 1934. However, they still remain one of the top county cricket clubs in the country and Lancashire maintains a healthy rivalry with Yorkshire, which is sometimes referred to as the Battle of the Roses (a pun on the actual War of the Roses which involved Lancashire and Yorkshire on opposing sides).
The Velodrome has become one of the fastest velodrome tracks in the world and its board tracks consist of 80 kilometres of 40mm Siberian pine on 380 trusses around the velodrome track. The Velodrome is covered by a 122-metre arched roof enabling unrestricted viewing for the spectators.[31] The Velodrome has hosted the UCI World Championships which is the set of world championship events for the various disciplines and distances in track cycling and are regulated by the Union Cycliste Internationale 3 times in 1996, 2000 and 2008 - no other venue has hosted more.
Motorcycle speedway racing has been staged at five venues in Manchester. The first events were staged at the greyhound stadium in Kirkmanshume Lane in 1928 and was known as Belle Vue Speedway. Speedway activities continued under the Belle Vue name at the purpose-built stadium in Hyde Road from 1929 to 1987, without any breaks even during the war years of 1939 - 1945, when the stadium was sold and redeveloped. Speedway racing returned to the greyhound stadium in Kirkmanshume Lane in 1988 and continued there until 2015. In 2016 the new £10m National Speedway Stadium with a 6,000 capacity was opened next door to the old greyhound stadium on Kirkmanshulme Lane. The speedway team are known as the Belle Vue Aces.
Peter Craven, Ove Fundin, Ivan Mauger, Peter Collins and Jason Crump are amongst the riders who have won World Championships when riding for the Aces.
The White City stadium was used in the pioneer days from 1928 to 1930 and a training track at Newton Heath operated in the early post war period.[33]
Basketball
Manchester has a strong history and modern day presence with basketball. The Manchester Giants compete in the nationwide, franchise based British Basketball League, and have done so since their rebirth in 2012. They play their home games at the Trafford Powerleague Arena and are coached by Manchester basketball legend Yorick Williams, who is in his second year in charge of the club.
The Manchester Magic were originally formed as the reserve side of the former Manchester Giants. Since the formal separation soon after, the Magic have flourished, and are current champions of the second tier English Basketball League Division 1, and play their home games at the Amaechi Basketball Centre, built with the support of former NBA player John Amaechi. Both clubs have strong youth development programs across Greater Manchester.
The Manchester Titans are an American Football club whose first team played in the BAFA National Leagues. They are the largest American Football club in Great Britain, having Adult Contact, Adult Flag, Women's Contact, Women's Flag, U19 Contact, two U17 contact, U17 flag and U12 flag teams. All teams compete in the highest available divisions, in 2017 the Adult Contact team won the Division 1 National Title, the Adult Flag team winning the MEC North Division, the U19 team finishing runners-up in the Britbowl Trophy and the U17 South team finishing as undefeated North Division Champions. The Titans play at the National Speedway Stadium at Belle Vue.
In 2010, Manchester Metropolitan University introduced an American Football team known as the MMU Eagles.
Manchester also has two ice hockey teams - Manchester Storm and Altrincham Aces both playing out of the Altrincham Ice Dome in Altrincham. In addition, Manchester previously hosted the Manchester Phoenix based in Deeside, North Wales. The city was also home to a previous incarnation of the Manchester Storm ice hockey club who, in 1997, played in front of the largest audience ever to watch an ice hockey game in UK when 17,245 people saw the Storm defeat the Sheffield Steelers 6–2 at the MEN Arena. In 2015 Manchester Storm[34] returned to represent the City of Manchester in the 10-team Elite Ice Hockey League.
Manchester also has two roller hockey teams, which have combined and reached the cup final against Bury St. Edmunds (at U13 level only).[36]
Manchester has a UKDBA Dodgeball team, the Manchester Bees Dodgeball Club. The club was formed in 2013 and in their first season won the Division 1 North UK Dodgeball League.[37]
In 1998, Joanna Thomas she moved to Manchester to being train at Betta Bodies, one of England's top hardcore gyms. She got help from Kerry Kayes, a bodybuilder, owner of Betta Bodies and one of the United Kingdom's top bodybuilding gurus, and Diane Royle, a former Olympic javelin thrower and bodybuilder. At 1998 EFBB Northeast Qualifier, she would again win the middleweight category and quality for the British Championships. Within 6 months of her leaving her education pursuit, at the 1998 EFBB British Championships, Joanna won the lightweight category and overall title and became the youngest British female bodybuilder to ever to win an IFBB pro card at the age of 21 years old. Her record that remains unbroke to this day. She spent the next 2 years in Manchester honing her physique, packing on more size, improving her shape and increasing her muscle maturity. In the spring of 2001 she began preparing for her professional debut at the 2001 Jan Tana Classic. In 2001, she left Manchester for Lynchburg, Virginia in order to compete at the 2001 Jan Tana Classic.
Ludosport (International Light Saber Combat Academy)
Ludosport, is an International Lightsaber Combat Academy,[40] teaching light saber combat (inspired by the iconic
weapon from the Star Wars movies) as an international competitive sport.
Classes started in Manchester[41] in January 2018 and pupils train on a weekly basis, with local instructors who have trained with the parent organisation in Italy "Ludosport International".[42]
They regularly hold introductory "Discovery" Sessions where people can come along to try the sport.[41]
The local classes are part of the UK network of Ludosport UK.[43]
During the COVID-19 lockdown, all classes and competitions were suspended, but it is expected that lessons with good social distancing practices will be resumed (local conditions permitting) during the Autumn of 2021.
Old Trafford Cricket Ground: since 1882 (with the exception of the 2009 which was played in Cardiff, however Ashes cricket returned to Old Trafford in 2013[44])
^The other counties are Lancashire, Cheshire, Merseyside and Cumbria. Also studied were the Stadium Neighbourhoods, i.e. M14 postal district for City and M16 for United. The M postal area is much more extensive than the City of Manchester.
^Brown, Adam (2002). "Do You Come from Manchester?": a postcode analysis of the location of Manchester United and Manchester City season ticket holders, 2001. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester Institute for Popular Culture. hdl:2173/12506.
^James, Gary (2008). Manchester - A Football History. Halifax: James Ward.
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