Our first competitive game of this adventure was at Old Trafford on Easter Saturday, with Northern Ireland making the short trip to Manchester. Our trip was probably longer, and after a short game of hunt the Shipway, we headed north to do battle with the bank holiday traffic. This proved fairly straightforward, but having left Bristol in glorious weather and wearing just our England shirts, we were dismayed but not surpised to see the sky turn black as we reached Staffordshire. Manchester was typically cold and wet, and so we hurried as fast as possible from the retail park where we left our cars at the mercy of the locals. Time for a few quick photos before we collected our tickets and headed into the huge North Stand. There was the rather unique event of both teams sharing the same National Anthem, before the even more unique sight of seeing a Bristol City player lining up against England, in the shape of Tommy Doherty. The Irish fans were clearly in the mood for a party whatever the game was like, and at times managed to outsing the relatively quiet England fans. Despite lots of pressure England couldn't find a breakthrough before half-time, and the Irish celebrated the whistle like a victory. 3 goals in the first 10 minutes after the break quietened them down a bit, as the shout of "Easy Easy" echoed around, along with "Are you Scotland in disguise?". England remained in control and held on to a clean sheet quite comfortably. So we headed contentedly back down the motorway, looking forward to the trip even further north 4 days later.