Manchester United 4 Dynamo Kiev 0

Match 28/07/645 - Wednesday, 6th November 2007 - Champions League

Manchester United (2) 4 Pique 31 Tevez 31 Rooney 76 Ronaldo 88
Dynamo Kiev (0) 0
Att. 75,013

Entrance: £40
Programme: £3
Mileage: 531/2,376

Match Report

Thirty-one years have passed since I walked through an Old Trafford turnstile to watch Manchester United play. Admittedly in that time we’ve seen England play at the Theatre of Dreams going on 20 times in the intervening time of old Wembley and new Wembley.

As a game of football, unfortunately it was no contest. Whilst Kiev had a couple of second half chances they largely confined their ambition to avoiding embarrassment and once United had opened the scoring through the unlikely figure of Gerald Pique then it became little more than a training exercise for the Reds.

This was probably the most disappointing aspect of the day. Old Trafford on England days had sometimes been a bit of a sterile experience. My memories of many years ago had been of a seething torrent of atmosphere that had been generated on the Stretford End and to re-live those days was what I was looking forward to. A one-sided game, very little support for the visitors (they did have a big flag though!) and for the most part a half-pace United resulted in an atmosphere not very different from those England games.

As usual Wayne Rooney, despite later admitting that he had been bored during the game, showed some enthusiasm and took his goal well. Ronaldo was frustrating, but managed to produce the night’s comedy moment when one of his tricks went hopelessly wrong and produced a “what the flipping (edited) hell was that” from his own supporters. But the star of the show was undoubtedly Carlos Tevez. His goal was the result of his direct running and the blossoming partnership with Rooney. A one-two had Tevez in on goal and he fired home with assurity.

So my return was enjoyable, on another day maybe the atmosphere will live up to the memories, but perhaps football crowds have just changed forever. With the demise of the standing areas crowd motion has disappeared and at times the Theatre of Dreams was like a theatre, with plenty of applause but very little noise. Could it be that Roy Keane’s prawn sandwich contingent and polite theatre-goers are today one and the same person.