Lovebitesandeveryfing
Well-Known Member
I'm well aware that there is currently a thread discussing the housing development on the old site, but this has a somewhat different orientation. Mods, feel free to merge if appropriate.
Since it is now a century this year since we left, it seems worth marking it in some way (if only on here: I don't expect the suits in charge of communications at the Etihad to give much of a toss, frankly).
Firstly, I located it exactly this morning. To my shame, I didn't know exactly where it was, other than that it was, obviously, along the Hyde Road. I see with interest that although our old Maine Road ground and the current one have almost exactly the same orientation — north to south, if you're going by the placing of the goals — the old Hyde Road stadium, as far as I can make out, had a west to east orientation. For reasons that I can't explain, that seems just wrong to me! As I say, no logic to my reaction…
The closest I came to frequenting that area when I lived in Manchester was going to several fine concerts at Belle Vue — Deep Purple and the Stones come to mind. Otherwise never had any real reason to be around there. Never got to see the grease in the hair of the speedway operator, I'm afraid…!
Got a couple of questions. I take it that there is nothing whatsoever, not even so much as a plaque, marking the fact that there was a football stadium there, and for many years at that? I'm always a bit shocked about how places as vital as football stadia — not just important in this local instance to me as a City fan, but important in terms of the actual social history of the country in the late Victorian and Edwardian period, and specifically the industrial working class with its new found leisure on Saturday afternoons — can get not just demolished but then downright airbrushed out of history. When you think of standing on those terraces and how for many of us it was where you used to dream (sometimes when there weren't too many other places to dream in your life), well, it seems like a piece of cultural vandalism to me.
Anyway, other questions. Anyone on here got any memories via either their dad or, more likely, their granddad about Hyde Road?
The other thing I was wondering. I see that there's a CofE primary school very close by — Armitage — if not actually on the site of the old stadium. Anyone on here go to that primary school, by any chance? Or just grow up in the area of Ardwick, West Gorton? I take it that the area must have always been fairly solidly blue, although perhaps less so in the dark years of United's dominance?
Since it is now a century this year since we left, it seems worth marking it in some way (if only on here: I don't expect the suits in charge of communications at the Etihad to give much of a toss, frankly).
Firstly, I located it exactly this morning. To my shame, I didn't know exactly where it was, other than that it was, obviously, along the Hyde Road. I see with interest that although our old Maine Road ground and the current one have almost exactly the same orientation — north to south, if you're going by the placing of the goals — the old Hyde Road stadium, as far as I can make out, had a west to east orientation. For reasons that I can't explain, that seems just wrong to me! As I say, no logic to my reaction…
The closest I came to frequenting that area when I lived in Manchester was going to several fine concerts at Belle Vue — Deep Purple and the Stones come to mind. Otherwise never had any real reason to be around there. Never got to see the grease in the hair of the speedway operator, I'm afraid…!
Got a couple of questions. I take it that there is nothing whatsoever, not even so much as a plaque, marking the fact that there was a football stadium there, and for many years at that? I'm always a bit shocked about how places as vital as football stadia — not just important in this local instance to me as a City fan, but important in terms of the actual social history of the country in the late Victorian and Edwardian period, and specifically the industrial working class with its new found leisure on Saturday afternoons — can get not just demolished but then downright airbrushed out of history. When you think of standing on those terraces and how for many of us it was where you used to dream (sometimes when there weren't too many other places to dream in your life), well, it seems like a piece of cultural vandalism to me.
Anyway, other questions. Anyone on here got any memories via either their dad or, more likely, their granddad about Hyde Road?
The other thing I was wondering. I see that there's a CofE primary school very close by — Armitage — if not actually on the site of the old stadium. Anyone on here go to that primary school, by any chance? Or just grow up in the area of Ardwick, West Gorton? I take it that the area must have always been fairly solidly blue, although perhaps less so in the dark years of United's dominance?
