Making Joe Mazzulla jealous!
OK, OK: I doubt Boston's coach will even see this piece ... but if he does I am quite sure he will be envious to hear that I just spent a week in Manchester with his favorite soccer team
MANCHESTER, England — Springtime typically takes me to California's Sonoran Desert to immerse myself in tennis coverage and the tour life that Young Me dreamed of but had to forsake for good when I moved into full-time NBA writing decades ago.
This spring?
My soul and psyche needed something a bit more long distance and even more international than the self-proclaimed Tennis Paradise of Indian Wells.
Which naturally led me to Blue Heaven, Manchester.
The goal of the trip was to see Manchester City play in person three times in the space of eight days. I had to settle for twice because Sunday's epic game at Anfield proved to be the hardest ticket to secure in my nearly 30 years' worth of trips to the Great North West of England to see the Blues. After taking in comprehensive 3-1 victories over Manchester United and FC Copenhagen L-I-V-E, I turned to the telly in the hotel bar for City's exhausting (for viewers as much as players) 1-1 draw with Liverpool.
You won’t hear one complaint from me, though. I had a tremendous time, miss the city deeply already and can’t wait for my next encounter with the Celtics to trade notes with their coach, since Joe Mazzulla (as the enclosed YouTube clip suggests) appears intent on displacing me as the club's most frequent guest from Planet NBA.
I've also assembled a photo album for interested readers to hopefully provide some flavor from the trip … albeit shared with my usual reminder/disclaimer/warning that I’m totally a Words Guy who can only do so much (as in not much) as a photojournalist:
Onto some football photography …
And back to basketball …
And back to football one more time since I also sneaked in a trip to one non-league game (Oldham Athletic 0, Bromley FC 0) and one game in the third tier (Port Vale 1, Shrewsbury Town 2) …
And last but not least: Some dining highlights!
Actually there's two more (because I couldn’t resist) …
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Numbers Game
(Editor's note: Because this post is so absurdly long with all the pictures, I’m going to send out Numbers Game separately on Wednesday.)
(Editor's note 2.0: It was indeed still Tuesday in all but one U.S. time zone when this article was published.)
Epic trip & travelogue! Glad you got to "get away" for a bit to enjoy another passion of yours! Definitely makes me want to go over there the next chance I get!
Looks like a great trip Marc!