GCE PE Study Trip to UK- Day 8 @ Old Trafford Stadium

So it's our last day in the UK and we're about to leave for Singapore tommorrow. What's a better way to end the trip than for us to take a trip down to Old Trafford- the one and only home of MAN UTD! They were just presented with the Premiership Cup yesterday, so it'll be an interesting trip. This was such an interesting trip that I decided to dedicate an entire post just to it.

They had just given away the Player of the Year Awards so there was still a lively buzz around the place (even though they had a dismal performance against West Ham yesterday)
Although, I didn't get a chance to see any of the players, I did manage to get my picture taken with Alex Fergurson.

Ok fine, maybe I didn't get a chance to take a picture with the 'REAL' Alex Ferguson. But I did get a chance to take a photo of Alex Ferguson's car- now that's real!

Check out the view from outside the stadium:

Once inside the stadium, we went on to tour the Man Utd History Museum:

You know why football teams always travel in 2 planes now? Cos in 1958, in Munich, a plane crash took the lives of many promising players from Man Utd, including Duncan Edwards- it's for this reason that teams travel in halves nowadays.

When we managed to enter the stadium and go on the tour, a little kick-about was going on between some of the sponsors and we managed to catch the tail end of it:


Wouldn't it be nice to be able to catch an actual match here? Cool rite? Well, wait till you listen to our guide, Alan, give you a price list for season tickets (1 British Pound is about $3 Sing- you do the maths):

From our guide Alex, we learnt that Old Trafford has just gone through some renovations to increase the seating capacity to 76000.

We got to move down closer to the pitch and stood where the West Ham supporters were during Saturday's match :) Alan gave us some interesting facts about how the pitch is maintained and kept in tip-top condition.

We also got a chance to move down into the VIP seats: where the important big-shots and directors of Man Utd sit:

With so much people coming in and going, the place was surprisingly neat and we were suprised when we were told that there are no dustbins in the stadium for security reasons(i.e. bomb threats)- everyone's encouraged to throw all their rubbish on the ground and an army of cleaners comes in 3 times during match days to clean it all up. They even got designated chewing gum disposal areas :P

Also check out the Ground Rules for the stadium:

Got standard, right?

As we proceeded with the tour, Mr Sng was over come with emotion as he thought about how much he missed his good friend, Discipline Master-Mr Thirumaran, an ardent Man Utd supporter, back in Singapore. So Mr Sng decided to send him a heart-felt greeting just for him from the UK.

(Sorry Maran, I just the camera man lah...)

We had a chance to also go into the press room at Old Trafford, where they meet the reporters and members of the media:

We also saw the changing room where the players do their pre-match briefing and preparations:

To round up the trip, we actually made the walk down the players' tunnel leading to the pitch itself. We found out why that there is new tunnel construction and why the old tunnel from the changing roon is no longer used:

Alan, our tour guide, got all the children to walk down to the pitch with the arms in the air and with crowd noises in the background, cheering them on. Quite a treat for these young football fans:

All in all, it was a great tour and a good way to round off our time in the UK. We're flying off to Singapore the next day and will be back at VS on Thu, ready to go!

Let me leave you with some final words from Chelsea to Man Utd-