Boxing Day in Manchester

Today was the big, big day! We took the car four hours north to Manchester where we passed nothing on the highway but fields of sheep and the occasional castle in the distance. Just sheep and castles. Wild! We were headed to the highly anticipated match between Man U and Aston Villa. Keagan’s dream to see a game at Old Trafford came true today! I was fearful he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the game, but he woke up feeling great after he was down for 12 hours with a stomach bug. 

The streets were lined with kiosks selling game day food, and we were starved after our remaining three eggs were split among four people for breakfast. We stopped for fish and chips and ate on the street with the locals. This time we tried it with brown gravy, like Sunday roast gravy, and it was great!



We shopped for gear at another street kiosk and made our way into the official team store where Keagan bought a warm-up jacket. 

Then we made it to our seats for warmups. The atmosphere was so much better here than at London Stadium; the crowd was much more enthusiastic. 



After being down 0-2 at half, we came back with three goals for the win. The boys were ecstatic! We beat the #2 team in the league - something nobody really expected to see happen tonight. This game will probably be voted the match of the year, and we saw it!

We are headed back to London tonight to catch an early morning train to Amsterdam. We might get four hours of sleep tonight, but we hope to sleep on the train. 

Cheers to a great night of soccer!