A large share of Manchester’s visitors come for football, and a large share of those arrive without a ticket and discover that getting one is much harder than the internet suggested.
Here is the honest position.
Buying a ticket legally
Reselling a football ticket for profit is a criminal offence in England. Section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 makes unauthorised resale of tickets for designated football matches illegal, and it applies to the buyer’s side of the transaction in practice as well.
This is not a technicality that clubs ignore. Tickets are registered to named individuals, turnstiles check them, and stewards do challenge people. If you buy from a tout or an unauthorised site, the realistic outcomes are that the ticket does not work, or that it works and you are removed when the seat’s registered holder is queried.
The only legitimate routes are:
- The club’s own website, on general sale.
- The club’s own official ticket exchange, where season-ticket holders resell at face value.
- A hospitality package bought directly from the club or an authorised agent. Expensive, but real.
- An official club tour operator, which exists for exactly this purpose.
For Manchester United and Manchester City alike, most home league fixtures never reach general sale — members and season-ticket holders absorb them. Cup ties, midweek games and less glamorous opponents are where a general sale actually happens, and they are also where hospitality is affordable.
Sign up for membership well ahead if you are serious. It costs a modest amount and it is the only thing that puts you in the queue at all.
Getting to the grounds
Old Trafford — Metrolink to Old Trafford or Wharfside, about fifteen minutes from the centre. There is also a matchday rail service to Manchester United Football Ground station from Deansgate. Walking from the centre takes about forty-five minutes along the canal and is genuinely pleasant.
The Etihad — Metrolink to Etihad Campus on the Blue line, about twelve minutes from Piccadilly. Walking from Piccadilly takes about thirty-five minutes.
After the whistle, trams in both directions are extremely full and you will queue. Walking twenty minutes back towards town and boarding at a quieter stop is consistently faster.
Give yourself an hour before kick-off to get there. The last twenty minutes before a big game is the worst possible time to be on a platform.
Stadium tours
Both clubs run museum-and-tour packages on non-matchdays, and they are the realistic option for most visitors.
Old Trafford — the museum, the dressing rooms, the tunnel and the pitchside. The Munich memorial and the Munich clock are handled seriously and are the part that stays with people. The ground is visibly aged and the club has confirmed plans for a new 100,000-seat stadium beside it, so this is a tour with a shelf life.
The Etihad — newer, slicker, and reflecting a club that won the treble in 2023. Options run from a standard tour up to expensive add-ons.
Both sell out at peak times. Book online.
The honest alternative
If what you want is to watch football rather than to watch a specific club, Greater Manchester has a great deal of it, and it is cheap, and you can walk up on the day.
Salford City at Moor Lane — owned by the Class of ’92, in the Football League, and a genuinely good day out.
Stockport County at Edgeley Park — promoted twice in recent years, a proper old ground, an atmosphere that is better than most Premier League fixtures.
Oldham Athletic, Rochdale, Bury AFC, FC United of Manchester — the last founded in 2005 by United supporters in protest at the Glazer takeover, fan-owned, playing at Broadhurst Park in Moston.
Manchester United Women and Manchester City Women play at Leigh Sports Village and the Joie Stadium respectively. Tickets are inexpensive, available, and the football is good.
Tickets for all of these cost a small fraction of a Premier League seat and are available on the day.
Watching in a pub
Premier League 3pm Saturday kick-offs are not broadcast in the UK — the blackout still exists — so a pub will not be showing the match you want unless it is an evening or lunchtime fixture.
For the games that are shown, most city-centre pubs will have them. Colours matter less in Manchester than visitors expect, but wearing a rival shirt into a pub full of the other side is still an avoidable mistake.
The museum option
The National Football Museum in Cathedral Gardens holds the FA and FIFA collections — the 1966 final ball, Maradona’s 1986 shirt, and a great deal of Victorian material from when the rules were still being written.
It charges non-residents, and if you are not a football person it will not convert you. If you are, it is two very good hours and it is in the centre.