Nice to be Nasty. Liverpool Vs. Manchester United, the grudge match.

Fortunately, there isn’t anyone around in the ground checking the psychological profiles of those present. As the teams come out on to the pitch, we stand up and we don’t sit down again. When the singing and chanting begins, it’s loud and unanimous. I am free to roar my head off for the club I love, to punch my fist into the air like someone at a political rally, to unleash the wilder, passionate side to my spirit. This is the football experience I’ve always hungered for. I’ve sat in other parts of Old Trafford and I’ve been to internationals at Lansdowne Road, and as favourable as those experiences have been, they’re not a patch on this. I’ve been given permission to go mad, to behave like the psycho I’ve always known myself to be.

The reason for K Stand having this unique atmosphere is that it is the spiritual successor to the Stretford End terrace which was demolished over a decade ago. After the Hillsborough disaster in April 1989, the Football Association phased out standing room at matches. (Someone should’ve phased out brain-dead, Neanderthal policemen, but more of that later.) The Stretford End was the heart and soul of Old Trafford, and when it went, many of its former occupants decamped to the seating area at the other end of the ground, the newly constructed East Stand or scoreboard end. People will continue to debate the possibility of recreating a terrace-type atmosphere in a seated area but the night I was there at the Liverpool game, the place was absolutely rocking.

Any reservations I had about the place are extinguished by the men around me. We chat to one another during the game, sing along to the same songs and when United score, we jump and fall around together and embrace one another in joy. It has turned out to be a more emotional experience than even I anticipated. For once in my life, I feel like I belong somewhere. And that’s what it’s about: belonging to a spiritual brotherhood. All of humanity is in K Stand: white people, black people, male and female, Asian guys looking very Islamic-observant. If you care about United, if you want to sing out that love and give the finger to the enemy, you’re in, you’re one of us. It’s that simple.

I leave Old Trafford exhilarated, screaming ‘United!’ into the night air, along with thousands of others. Outside, the cerebrally challenged officers of Greater Manchester Police do their best to engineer crowd problems, parking their horses across Matt Busby Way so that people end up crushing into one another on their way down to the tram stop. With people pushing me from behind, I’m doing well not to flatten the idiotic policewoman standing in the middle of the heaving mass. Fortunately, I get away into the night, buzzing with adrenalin, and proceed to get slaughtered with a Welsh Red back at the hotel bar. Football? You can’t beat it.