Etihad Stadium
Manchester City v Swansea City
  Monday, August 15th 2011
Premier League 8pm
By Matthew Young
(Swansea City fan)

As a Swansea City supporter, it was a must to watch the first game in the Premier League and took my six year old son to Manchester. We got a taxi from Piccadilly Station (£6.00 per journey to and away from the stadium).

There were plenty of stalls within the grounds to purchase food, programmes (£3, plenty of material and a good read) and Man City merchandise. It's no good taking plastic drinks bottles into the stadium and your bag will be checked by the stewards before entering the turnstiles. Turnstiles were easy to operate and stewards were available to assist you, especially for my son to enter his ticket!

The club was offered two levels of seating (£40 for the upper level, £37 for the lower and £22 for my son), I purchased the upper tier and this proved a wise decision as most of the taunting between the fans happened on the lower tier and if you purchase the tickets early from your club, the more central you'll be amongst your supporters.

Food inside the stadium was expensive, £9.70 for a hot dog, pie and bottle of water, there were two stalls available for you to purchase the drinks and food with ease.

The view inside the stadium was amazing and a big screen, on either end, was available to entertain you before and showing highlights during half time and end of the game. Even though we lost 4-0, the stewards let us out at the end of the game, along with the Man City fans. However, the Police line up to prevent both sets of fans mixing and show directions towards the awaiting buses. There were five double decker buses available to the train station, they were overcrowded with home support and by walking five minutes down the road, taxis were available and clearly lit.

Overall, the visit to Man City was an experience with no trouble at all, even the Man City fans wished us good luck for the rest of the season (possibly a sympathy vote) and my son looks forward to return there next season (fingers crossed).

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