The main support in Dublin of English Premiership football teams seems to be for Manchester United and Liverpool, so when they play, large numbers of fans go across the Irish Sea to the venue to join in.

I have seen on my many crossings on the Irish Sea, Dublin Manchester United fans call Dublin Liverpool fans ‘Scousers’ even though they’re all from Dublin. I suppose if you’re going to join in with northwest England football banter you might as well go all the way.

This year the premiership in England reached its annual final stages towards the title champions on Sunday 23rd March with two key matches, the first at Old Trafford in Manchester with Liverpool starting at 1.30 pm and a London derby down south between Arsenal and Chelsea kicking off at 4 pm.

On the 6.30am flight from Dublin to Manchester on that Sunday morning the plane had a large contingent of Man. U. supporters, some had clearly been drinking already and went on to share some champagne on the flight.
I was travelling to the match with three friends and we arrived in the city centre at 8.45 am to find everything closed but for a J.D. Whetherspoon pub near Piccadilly station that opened at 9am on a Sunday. We went in there for breakfast and it soon filled up with football fans, all from Manchester and no Liverpool supporters anywhere to be seen. We got a tram out to the grounds.

There were only Manchester United stalls selling scarves, hats and posters on the way up to the stadium and a pub called the Trafford nearby which was very busy but again there was no Liverpool supporters evident.
The Police were plentiful around the ground and some were mounted on horses. The crowd was fairly well behaved as far as I could see and I didn’t notice any trouble, but segregation of supporters was obvious and nothing that way was left to chance.

A friend of mine in London sent me a text about BBC radio reports that there was a poisonous atmosphere and that someone had sprayed ‘96 not enough’ referring to the 96 Liverpool supporters who died at the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989.

Inside Old Trafford the hospitality suites were busy doing lunch and beer so everyone was fed and well oiled for the match. In the arena the Liverpool fans were confined to one corner of the stadium.

Liverpool got off to a good start on the field but Wayne Rooney had three near strikes at goal and Wes Brown scored the first of three goals for United after 34 minutes.

Liverpool’s Argentinean Javier Mascherano got booked in the tenth minute for a foul on Paul Scholes and near half-time he reacted badly to referee Steve Bennett giving another yellow card to teammate Fernando Torres and was then shown a second yellow card himself.

This left Liverpool down to ten players and I noticed that more stewards packed around the Liverpool fans as the decibels roared from the shouting and roaring of the fans. Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez came onto the pitch to cool his player down and get him off. Mascherano now faces an FA discipline hearing for dissent.
United dominated the game in the second half with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring his 34th goal of the season in the 79th minute and Nani scoring the 3rd in the 81st minute.

United fans were happy with their best performance of the season against arch football rivals Liverpool whose Capitan Steve Gerrard had played better games.

Crowd control was again in evidence after the match with the Liverpool fans being kept behind for detention to let the United fans leave the stadium first so that they didn’t meet any scousers, a cold day to have to hang around for an escort from the ground after losing badly.