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Perspectives: is an essay series and interviews dedicated to bring sociological, political, economical and cultural thoughts on the game by experts, local actors, thinkers, and researchers. These essays are designed to start conversations, understand the new issues and give policy-oriented takeaways.

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Auto-Ethnography Field Notes: Take Me Home, United Road
Hijab Shah — September 1 2025

Growing up in Pakistan in the 90s and early 00s meant that, upon the arrival of first satellite and then cable television, one was destined to declare sporting fealty—after the Pakistan national cricket team, of course—to one of two English football clubs: Manchester United or Arsenal. Yes, the odd Liverpool or Chelsea fan did exist, but the vast majority were either staunch Red Devils or die-hard Gooners without ever having set foot in Old Trafford or Highbury (rest in peace). I grew up among the ranks of the former, declaring Manchester my spiritual sporting home, and finding kinship with a generation of South Asian tomboys whose bedroom walls were adorned with posters of David Beckham, much like our collective patron saint Jess Bhamra of Bend It fame.

Pakistanis who have never been to Manchester will talk about how “we” missed an easy opportunity to score, or how “our” keeper needs more confidence. This feeling of ownership over such a distant team came primarily from the fact that United was one of the only teams that felt accessible to us, one of the earliest to break into the Asian market with the advent of the Premier League in its commercialised glory. I really should have grown up as an Aston Villa fan—born in Birmingham, with longtime family friends who pledge allegiance to the claret and blue—but if you grew up in Pakistan back then, your options were limited to the reds in Manchester or the reds in North London.

If the time zone stars aligned, one might get lucky and be able to catch a live match on Star Sports, played in the afternoon in the England when it was nighttime in Pakistan. Sometimes, we were allowed to stay up late, yawning as the Champions League tune or a national anthem blared out of the TV for a big match. Getting in fights with Indian Arsenal fans on the first Orkut message boards, waiting for digital wallpapers to download pixel by pixel over dial-up, carefully cutting out pictures of Paul Scholes, Peter Schmeichel, and Rio Ferdinand from Us Magazine or the sports section of the paper, all were rites of passage that branded 90s and early 00s kids in Pakistan as distant but steadfast Reds.

Old Trafford has this exalted status for many of us, a mythical place that’s always felt a bit sacred, a bit unreachable. It was the arena where childhood heroes clashed with bullying bad guys (i.e. Roy Keane versus Patrick Vieira — or Roy Keane versus anyone, really). It was a place whose lush pitch and teeming stands were incredibly familiar, but only ever viewed through a TV screen, or in a Four Four Two magazine dutifully brought back to Pakistan by a diaspora cousin during summer holidays.

It was thus the fulfilment of a childhood dream when finally, in my mid-thirties, I visited Old Trafford for the very first time for the final match of the 24/25 Premier League season, Manchester United vs Aston Villa. I caught my first glimpse of an edge of the stadium’s signature white metal scaffold-like structure jutting out across the skyline whilst on the tram, packed with fellow match-goers who had all been on the same delayed train from Birmingham New Street into Manchester Piccadilly. I walked in a black t-shirt amongst a sea of red-and-white and claret-and-blue, deliberately seeking to be anonymous due to my primary reason for being there—research—and due to what I have come to understand as divided loyalties.

Some context: United’s re-signing of Cristiano Ronaldo, mishandling of the Mason Greenwood situation, and repeated undermining of its women’s team all made it very difficult for me to be as steadfast a Red as I had once been, which led me to seek footballing solace elsewhere. Aston Villa was the only other team I had ever been interested in, which was great timing, particularly as I happened to move back to my birth city of Birmingham in 2022 (almost exactly when Unai Emery began his coaching gig). So, Villa became my local team, to heal the wound left behind by the disappointing antics of United’s boardroom. In 2024, I embarked on my doctoral study into football’s link with radicalisation and counter-radicalisation, which enabled me to attend football matches as part of my research, and which is how I found myself at Old Trafford on the last day of the Premier League season.

I had boarded the train to Manchester with my fellow Brummies, but was to be seated amongst my fellow Reds in the Sir Bobby Charlton stand at Old Trafford. The pull of conflicting loyalties—and the fact that I was attending the match to observe fan behaviour as part of my PhD research—meant that I donned neither the United or the Villa kit, but went for a black t-shirt with “Yes Bab” in white letters across the front.

Hurrying over to Old Trafford after the train delay, I caught snatches of the crowd singing “Take Me Home, United Road” (set to the tune of the famous country song about West Virginia). As the stadium got closer and closer, I felt goosebumps along my arms. I scarcely remember scanning the ticket on my phone and walking up the steps to my section, because of the emotional whiplash of seeing the pitch for the first time. The afternoon sun rendered the grass absolutely luminous, and I had this intense feeling of déjà vu as I took in the Stretford End to my left and the Sir Alex Ferguson stand directly across the pitch, not just as though I had been there before, but as though I was a frequent visitor to the stadium I had seen in pictures and posters and broadcasts and dodgy livestreams for the past 30 years.

I spent the first half seated amongst United season ticket holders and the odd grouping of obvious tourists who had very clearly waited a long time for the opportunity to attend a match at Old Trafford. Despite the sea of red in the stands, the home support was rather subdued—owing most likely to the drubbing delivered by the Spurs in the Europa League final earlier that week. It was surprising that the only noise from the home stands was the occasional exasperated shouting at backwards passes by the United midfield, or a half-hearted rendition of “Glory Glory Man United” which was immediately countered by the Villans in the away section by “Who the F**k are Man United,” sung with gusto to the same tune.

As the match went on, I realised how uncomfortable I was listening to the fans around me hurling abuse at the Brummies on the pitch and in the stands. I found myself mouthing the words to “The Villa Boys from Aston” as I took field notes on my phone, and had to physically sit on my hands when Emi Martínez got a red card for a clothesline on Rasmus Højlund at the end of the first half that would have made Stone Cold Steve Austin proud.

At halftime, I stretched my legs and ventured closer to the away section, where I was suddenly hailed with shouts of “Bab! Bab, what are you doing down there?” The Brummy endearment on my t-shirt, innocuous as it was amongst Mancunians, had alerted the Villa fans to my identity. They immediately took it upon themselves to remedy the situation, and began negotiating with the stewards to allow me to join them in the away stand. Standing in Old Trafford, I felt like I was betraying someone by even contemplating sitting with the away section, but Brummy kinship and academic curiosity superseded my guilt, and together we managed to convince the stewards to open the security gate and let me through. I watched the second half of the match standing at the front of the claret and blue crowd, as a 10-man Villa ceded one and then two goals to a resuscitated United team. As the Reds mocked and abused the Villans, I couldn’t join the latter as they retaliated with middle fingers and abuse of their own.

The ninety-odd minutes at Old Trafford came to an end after two United goals to Villa’s none—controversially, a perfectly good Morgan Rogers goal was disallowed, prompting uproar amongst the away fans and chants of “Premier League, corrupt as f***.” After being escorted out of the away stands at the end of the match by security, I went to one of the many vendors lined outside the stadium and bought a half-and-half scarf—a faux pas in the eyes of staunch football fans, but a symbol of the experience I had that day. With loyalties firmly divided, but with a childhood dream fulfilled, I took one final look at Old Trafford, shielding my eyes from the rain, and headed back to the train station.

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