EPL: West Ham at Manchester City

After booking my hotels, I decided I needed some exercise plus I wanted to check ticket status for the Manchester City game I was planning to attend Monday night. I was in Manchester in February 2007 and remembered that the walk from the Manchester train station to the City of Manchester Stadium is 1.5 miles. I decided to run to the box office.

Obtaining Tickets to Manchester City
I arrived at the City of Manchester Stadium’s ticketing center and tickets were available for the night’s game. Also, since I was planning to travel to Birmingham for when Aston Villa hosted Manchester City I asked if they had an away ticket available for that match. I bought a ticket for both matches.

Manchester City requires you to have a ticket card regardless of whether you are a season ticket holder. I received a ticket card which would allow me entrance to the stadium and my “ticket stub” gave me an assigned seat. I am not sure how the secondary ticket market works for Manchester City. Either one does not exist or you need to buy an extra ticket from somebody who already has a card.

Lunch
On my run I noticed there were not many restaurants in the area around Manchester City’s stadium. Thus, I decided to eat at The Overstuffed Pizzeria – the pizza place in the Britannia Hotel. All pizzas were half price.

The Game
After taking a nap, I walked back to the City of Manchester Stadium in time for the game. It was my first Monday Night Football game – English style. Carlos Tevez scored two goals as he led Manchester City to a 3-1 win over West Ham. It was Tevez’s first goal against his former team. The win was Manchester City’s fifth win in six games and is their best start since 1961.

Post Game Dining
With pubs closing because of early closing hours in England, I grabbed a sandwich at Subway and went back my hotel to relax. I had just attended nine games in seven days in England and Scotland and was planning to attend one game per day for the next week in Scotland, England and Finland.