Saturday 15 August 2026, 9:15am.

Oldham away. First league game of the 2026/27 season.

I’m always hit by a huge wave of nostalgia when I come out of Piccadilly Station. There’s something about stepping back into the city where I spent five years of my life and didn’t get a degree that makes me feel incredibly happy.

The bit about the degree was entirely my own fault. I’ve never been very good at knuckling down. In truth, not much has changed. I get by at work doing the bare minimum expected of me. I’m inherently lazy, simple as that. Bone idle.  I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. Back then I was far more interested in music, beer and weed than I was in lectures, assignments and all the other things I was supposedly there for. I was stoned night and day, and it was absolutely magnificent.

And when I say weed, I really mean hash. Weed was a bit of a luxury in those days, at least in my experience. A nice block of red leb or slate or squidgy black was the order of the day, crumbled delicately into your papers, and rolled lovingly with a bit of Lambert & Butler. Sit back, relax, and get ready for another day of doing jack. Lovely. The other advantage was that you could usually have a crafty little smoke in public without drawing too much attention to yourself. The aroma was nowhere near as pungent as the weed that I smell everywhere these days. I mean it doesn’t bother me, I’m not having a pop, but how do people keep their usage discreet? You can smell it from 200 yards away.

Looking back though, maybe I wasn’t as lazy as I’ve always thought. I spent enough hours traipsing around Rusholme, Moss Side, Chorlton-cum-Hardy and Wythenshawe, putting in the hard yards on the promise of a nice little Henry. A quarter if finances allowed. And obviously those kind of unregulated business transactions could be fraught with danger. All sorts could happen. It was never ever a stroll in the park.

I considered myself very lucky. I didn’t get any mither from dealers. Once the accent was heard and the geography confirmed, the inevitable question would come. “Stoke or Vale?” Vale was always the right answer. People took to me purely because I wasn’t Stoke. In an instant my status would be elevated from “student” to “he’s football”. These things mattered. It was amazing the difference that could make. I knew plenty of students who’d handed over money and received nothing in return but a slap and a lesson in street economics. Students were easy targets. The trick was always to avoid looking or behaving like one.

And, of course, there was the music. The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, 808 State, World of Twist, Paris Angels, Northside, Intastella, New Fast Automatic Daffodils. The only right thing to do back then was immerse yourself completely. Madchester. A technicolour rush. Blurring the lines between indie guitars and dance beats, between the terraces and dancefloors. It was baggy jeans, bucket hats, smoky club nights, sweat running down the walls, and the feeling that Manchester was slap bang in the centre of the universe. It was a riot.

I love the walk from Piccadilly into the Northern Quarter. It’s always busy, always vibrant. Makes you feel alive. Oldham Street. Tib Street. Afflecks. The cafés, the record shops, the pubs. Then there’s Oxford Road, Great Bridgewater Street, Whitworth Street, and all the old haunts. Places that survive both Manchester’s endless reinvention and my advancing years.

It’s a little early for the pubs this morning, though. Well, for me anyway. The Peveril of the Peak will almost certainly feature at some point after the match, but for now I’m just passing through. Enjoying a decent breakfast. Manchester is a city of memories rather than a destination today. Oldham lies a few miles further on, Victoria to Mills Hill, and with it ninety minutes that suddenly feel rather more important than they probably should.

It’s the first game of the season. I need to get a grip. Nothing is won or lost today.

Saturday 15 August 2026, 3:45pm

Back in central Manchester. Find a pub. Find an ale. Find a corner. That second half was dreadful. Both their goals horrific. Non-league. I’m not sure what happened really, we had a reasonable first-half. I mean we never really looked like scoring, but we were reasonable.

The keeper is a worry. Humphreys is a big worry. I’m not expecting big, match-winning performances from either George Hall or Rhys Walters, I’ve given up on that, but maybe they could try and make something happen once in a while? Just to mix it up a bit? They shouldn’t be starting over Hernandez and Croasdale.

And where are the goals coming from? Where is Simpson? Not even on the bench. Is it a lack of match fitness?

I want to see Kyle John starting. I want to see the moon. And did Montsma throw a ‘Sam Hart’ late on? Maybe I’m being a tad harsh there, maybe he genuinely needed to come off, but he looked like he’d had enough. I hope I’m wrong, he was decent in the first-half

Hopefully today will prove to be a wake-up call for the players. Nothing is won or lost on the first day of the season. Maybe a few home truths delivered in the dressing room will do more good than harm. Maybe this is the sort of result that sharpens minds rather than shattering confidence.

I am concerned that it might be a wake-up call for me, though.

We all tell ourselves the same story at the start of a season. New signings, fresh optimism, old frustrations carefully packed away and hidden somewhere out of sight. Every August feels like the beginning of something. Every August invites hope to take a seat beside reason and convince us that this year might be different.

Then afternoons like this arrive, uninvited but entirely familiar.

Let’s not lose our heads over this. One bad afternoon does not define a season any more than one good afternoon guarantees one. But sat here, in The Pev, staring into my beautiful pint of pale ale and replaying that second half in my head, I can’t quite shake the suspicion that the players aren’t the only ones being reminded of a few uncomfortable truths.