Manchester North or South

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Kiddo's from Collyurst

Yeah, Kiddo just creeps in to the 'celeste illuminati'.

 

[KS55]

Leve, Burnage, Didsbury, City.

Didsbury was a sad case. When I was young, living in Northenden, Didsbury was solid blue. During our long demise, the rags got a foothold there with red appearing in some pubs. I expect some are still there.

 

[EL APACHE TEVEZ]

Always remember Nobby Stlies saying Collyhurst was a big blue area when he was growing up,the plane crash had a lot to do with united getting huge support over the years.

 

[Jazzyblue]

I don’t see how you can class either of those areas as blue or red. Considering most of the people who live there are students or from immigrant backgrounds (last 15 years/ lack of interest in football/ hard to know)

Fallowfield and Longsight are not totally transient. There are solid Mancs of all colours in settled communities, semis and big houses there. It might be a bit more evenly split now that City has left the area but when I was kid, the diverse neighbourhoods off the 41, 42, 43 bus routes were very Blue - you felt a powerful local connection to the club whether or not you got to games.

It was Alex Williams who came into schools, it was City who laid things on for local kids and crucially it was Maine Rd, Platt Lane and City fans that you could see. And there was pride that City played out of Moss Side representing streets like Claremont Rd, Great Western Street, Lloyd Street where the kids grew up watching cars and enjoying the matchday buzz.

Though I’m going to be controversial now and say that I’ve always thought the ground straddled Fallowfield, Rusholme and Moss Side rather than sitting in Moss Side proper.

‘Manchester’ in matchgoing terms is a sphere of influence of at least 50 miles of where we play, and the matchgoing support is a lucky snapshot of it, perhaps a bit older than it might have been because you need more disposable income these days.

And obviously Stockport and Tameside are massively Blue. But the streets nearest grounds - whether its Maine Rd, the Etihad, even Old Trafford - are part of the soul of a club imo. They are the mixed working class communities who see and feel the local and community side of clubs day in day out and hear the roar of the ground from their homes - and they produce players.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

In my experience, South and East Greater Manchester is more blue than red and North and West Greater Manchester is more red than blue.

There are big blue concentrated areas like:
Gorton
Miles Platting
Didsbury
Wythenshawe
Timperley
Sale Moor
Stockport
Failsworth
Levensnhulme
Burnage

And big red concentrated areas like:
Sale
Stretford
Salford
Newton Heath
Moston
Hale (don’t think I’ve ever met a City fan from Hale all my mates who do jobs like gardening and joinery always say when they do jobs in Hale, they’re always reds)
Beswick
Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Crumpsall
Collyhurst
Monsall

There was a MEN map done a while ago that shows is just about spot-on for me:

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Match days, City playing at home, pubs are full of blues going to the game.
When utd are at home, you get the odd rag in utd shirt wondering where to watch on telly.
That’s in Middleton, don’t know about other areas

A lot of United fans head to the city centre when they play.

There are loads of Rag pubs in Town. I can think of at least six or seven that have United shit all over the walls. There’s only really Mother Macs that is a City pub.

 

[KS55]

This map shows Bury as being United territory.
And yet the biggest City supporters club is Prestwich and Whitefield.
Make of that what you want.

Prestwich and Whitefield has a strong Jewish population which was traditionally blue. Maybe still? PB would know.
That lump in the south on the map, south of the Mersey, including Northenden and Wythenshawe used to be in Cheshire but was incorporated into Manchester in 1931 (?) under local authority legislation.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Denton, Dukinfield, Ashton and Stalybridge all strongly blue areas as is most of East side of Manchester.

These are areas I don’t know well, but would fit in with that map above^

 

[Deleted member 77198]

In my experience, talking about the whole conurbation, I think there are more people who say they’re United fans than City fans. Maybe 60:40 red:blue, maybe even 65:35. However, I’d bet there are very even numbers of both who attend games regularly.

Shit loads of people started supporting United when they used Maine Road after Old Trafford was bombed during the war and City had been relegated and Busby started building a decent side at United. Many who’d been supporting City previously stuck with Busby’s United side when they moved back to OT and won the league. When 15 years earlier City were getting regular 60-80,000 gates and United were getting regular 10-15,000 gates.

Then more became reds after the Munich Air Disaster as well.

Lots of immigrants to the city are United and Liverpool fans. A lot of the Polish immigrants are/become City fans though (Polish side of my family are pretty much all Blues).

 

[Corky]

Is there another city in the UK where the actual city centre is on the edge of the boundary?
I mean apart from those on the coast or estuary?

Salford
Newcastle
Preston.

Any where the river is a boundary really.