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Rough Guide to Maine Road.
Manchester City F.C.
Maine Road,
Manchester,
M14 7WN.
Tel:- 0161 232 3000
Maine Road
Maine Road will be no stranger to regular football fans visiting Manchester as it is steeped in history unrivalled by no other team in the City, seeing as it is the only football team in Manchester!
The famous old ground, opened in 1924, still boasts the record of hosting the biggest crowd outside Hampden Park and Wembley for City’s Quarter-Final round FA Cup tie against Stoke in 1934 where 84,569 witnessed the game, City won 1-0.
Nowadays Maine Road has a capacity of 35,000 which a slight increase on last year thanks to a new temporary open stand to rival the infamous Gene Kelly stand, named so because the City faithful can occasionally be heard belting out a chorus of ‘Singing in the Rain’ should the unthinkable happen of a downpour in leafy, luxurious Moss Side.
The two temporary stands sit either side of the 3-tiered Kippax stand, famous in it’s heyday when it was a huge covered terrace running the length of the pitch. On the opposite side to the Kippax is the Main stand with the North and Platt Lane stands in between.
Nowadays Maine Road can look rather displeasing to the foreign eye as all the stands are of different height but it will always be ‘The true home’ to City fans who, come 2003 will be watching the Blues play in a new state of the art stadium over the other side of the City. Being built for Manchester’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games in 2002 the new home will initially hold 48,000.
Pre-Match Pubs
There are many pubs situated in close proximity to Maine Road such as The Sherwood, Lord Lyon, The Claremont and my two favourites The Parkside and Gardeners Arms. However these I would class as ‘Home’ pubs and although Away fans are generally welcome I would recommend frequenting the pubs situated along Wilmslow Road or stick to the City Centre. Alternatively Maine Road itself contains a host of bars and luscious chicken balti pies (my fave) where you can whet your whistle ready for cheering on your team.
A visit to Manchester cannot go without a trip down the famous Curry Mile just down the road in Rusholme, an area of wall-to-wall curry houses and a chance to plug the one and only Adbuls takeaway, Kebabs to die for!
Directions
By Car:-
Directions for Maine Road should also be noted by Man Utd (swear word) fans especially as most of them have never been north of Watford before, here goes:
Exit the M6 at junction 19 and take the A556 towards Stockport and Mcr Airport. From there join the M56 until that automatically joins the A5103 towards the City of Manchester, soon you’ll be on Princess Parkway and signposts for Maine Road will appear. People often compain that Maine Road is hard to find by car believe me it isn’t.
Rail
Piccadilly Station can be walked from to Maine Road, but for those intent on saving beer time the No.11 bus from Piccadilly gardens can be hopped on straight to the ground, alternatively a taxi will set you back around £4-5.
Parking
Providing you have the enough money to give Moss Side’s little darlings to ‘Mind yer car’ there’s always a space to be found in the streets around the ground. Should you not wish to depart with your hard earned dough or you really value your window wipers then there’s the ‘Official’ supervised car park about a mile away from the ground that you’ll pass along Princess Parkway which costs £2, or at least it did. Other supervised car parks can be found at local schools such as on Platt Lane and Claremont Road all within easy walking distance.
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9 May 08 
Liverpool Football Club