By Kate Jackson
July 27 2013

As part of the new style of this site, I will bring you more personal "blog" type entries, and we start with a season where I had two season tickets. 2012/13 was a strange season in many ways for myself, with one of the main reasons being that I had season tickets at two clubs, Lincoln City and Manchester United.

I have always supported Manchester United and Lincoln, but little did I ever imagine that I would have a season ticket at both clubs. I had regularly attended Old Trafford whenever I got the chance, but my priority was always Lincoln City, and it was on the way to a pre-season friendly at Eastwood Town that I was given the rather unusual chance of having a season ticket at Manchester United as well. It was something that I was definitely interested and as I approach 30 I want to try and achieve a lot of things whilst I am still relatively young, so after a few days I went with it.

I knew already that I wouldn't be able to attend all of the home games for Manchester Unite, infact, it wasn't until the home game against Galatasary in the Champions League in September that I got the chance to go. I would have loved to have gone to more games and to put it in some sort sort of context, the day Manchester United were beating Fulham 3-2 at Old Trafford, I was watching Lincoln lose by the same scoreline at home to Macclesfield. Given that I had already gained an apathy for going to Lincoln games, I was really tempted at that point not to go to Lincoln games anymore.

More United wins followed at home, whilst Lincoln were busy throwing away a lead against Alfreton Town at home. Don't get me wrong, I love Lincoln but at the time I had fallen vastly out of love with the club and our poor early season form didn't help. Whilst seeing Lincoln lose at home was common, I was less used to United losing at home, but that's what happened during my second visit to Old Trafford of the season as Tottenham shocked United fans by recording their first ever win in the Premier League at the Theatre of Dreams, it was also the first time in nearly 150 visits that I had seen United lose.

Fortunately I had a decent view of the action, as you can tell from the picture on the right, however, my one issue with the upper tier of the Stretford is that everyone stood up, and whilst it was easy to see what was happening down at the other end, due to everyone standing and constantly moving my head, it became difficult to view the action properly at that end of the ground. I eventually moved the ticket to be on the left hand side of the bottom tier of the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand (near the R in Manchester to be more precise).

I had decided that those games that I couldn't personally go to would be games that I would sell the season ticket for for one game, albeit at a severely reduced rate. Initially I had agreed with friends before the season that any games I couldn't go to then they would buy it.....unfortunately they all let me down on every single occasion and I regularly either didn't sell it to anyone, or had to give the ticket for £20, about 1/3 of the actual cost of the match, to people who I didn't overly trust, and there was one occasion against Stoke that I couldn't go to, I gave it to a person who regulars the pub that I work at part time, I am still waiting for payment for that game to this day. I never leant it to him again.

On the occasions I did attend, United didn't play well. A home match against West Ham saw the only goal of the game come after just 30 or so seconds, whereas a weakened United side also lost at home to Cluj at home. The first convincing display I had seen was a 3-1 win over Sunderland, a game I was able to attend due to it being a date for the FA Trophy second round, and Lincoln tend not to get past the first rounds, so as soon as I knew I would be free that day, I went to see goals from Van Persie, Cleverely and Rooney convincingly beat the Mackams.

It wasn't long before I was left with a choice though. United had been drawn against Real Madrid in the Champions League, arguably the biggest fixture possible in European competition, and it was the first truly big game that I would attend....however, Lincoln's game against Macclesfield had been postponed and moved to be the same date. It meant a dilemma but I eventually chose to go to Lincoln's game and sold my ticket for the United vs Madrid game. In almost typical fashion, the game against Macclesfield was again moved, meaning that I could have attended both games.

By now I was enjoying going to Lincoln games again, especially as the form started improving, and whilst some would probably say that means I am a glory hunter, take note that I surpassed 400 straight Lincoln games during the 2012/13 season , and I started supporting United during their incredibly lean spell. Infact, I genuinely found that moving stands at Lincoln had helped, not having to put up with the same people every week was certainly helping me decide to keep going to the games as much as I possibly could.

Lincoln's season came to a decent end, wining many games late on and just two days after the Imps had confirmed survival from relegation to the Blue Square North, Manchester United officially won the title. United's form seriously dipped towards the latter bit of the season, only winning 3 of their last 8 matches, a poor record by their standard.

By now I had decided that I wouldn't renew my season ticket, mainly because I couldn't really afford it. As well as the money for the season ticket, United would take money out for every single time they were drawn at home during the season, and they were at home a lot in the cups last season. I did however get to see United lift the title, and I did one of my videos for that game, although not quite the usual standard as it was difficult to film clips without people looking at me overly strange.

Whilst I wouldn't recommend doing it long term, I would certainly recommend that if you get the chance to have a year of watching another club that you like. Whilst I did see a large amount of defeats compared to what you would expect, I got to achieve things that I wouldn't have done otherwise, such as watching the team I support lifting the Premier League title.....and I think I can safely assume that I won't see Lincoln City do that during my lifetime.

 VIDEO

UNCUT : UNITED LIFT THE TITLE 

Choosing between Lincoln City and Manchester United

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 27/07/2013 19:46

theimps.ka
27/07/2013 19:46

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