Unless you have been to the city of Manchester, it is easy to fall into the trap of solely associating it with Manchester United while thinking of a dreary, industrialised city under a sooty black sky. However when you visit the place you will find that the city is the complete opposite. Manchester is a young bustling city that has become the centre for arts, leisure, technology and university education. More from Juan Ameen.

History

According to the results of a survey commissioned by the city this year, Manchester is the UK’s fastest-growing city economically, with levels of investment second only to London and 100,000 jobs to be created over the next 10 years.

In just over a century, Manchester developed from a minor town to one of the largest industrial cities. It boasts the world’s first passenger railway station and the first public library.

Cotton importation, which began towards the end of the 18th century, revolutionised the textile industry in the area. This new commodity was imported through the port of Liverpool, which was connected with Manchester by the Mersey and Irwell Navigation – the two rivers had been made navigable from the 1720s onwards.

Manchester now developed as the natural distribution centre for raw cotton and spun yarn, and a marketplace and distribution centre for the products of this growing textile industry.

By 1900, Manchester was the ninth most populous city in the world and Manchester’s economy diversified into engineering chemical and electrical industries.

IRA bomb

On Saturday 15 June 1996, at peak shopping time on Father’s Day, a 3,000lb IRA bomb exploded in a main shopping centre of Manchester, injuring more than 200 people.

Luckily, police had begun clearing people from the area some 40 minutes before the blast as a result of several warnings issued to newspapers, radio stations and to at least one hospital in Manchester an hour before the blast.

The evacuation of shoppers immediately took place from the Marks and Spencer’s department store, which was directly at the centre of the site, outside which the van with the bomb was parked.

Although when the bomb went off, around 50,000 square metres of retail space and nearly 25,000 square metres of office space needed to be reconstructed, a post box actually survived the blast and is still standing today.

The Museum of Science

and Industry

The Museum of Science and Industry occupies the former Liverpool Road Station, one of Manchester’s most important historic sites. Liverpool Road Station, which opened in 1830, is the world’s oldest surviving railway station and operated as a passenger station from 1830 to 1844, but continued to be used as a goods station until 1975 when British Rail closed it.

Its main funder, Greater Manchester Council, agreed to purchase the 1830 part of Liverpool Road Station from British Rail for the token sum of £1 in 1978. Greater Manchester Council later decided to purchase the later eastern end of the Station too.

The Museum opened at its new site on 15 September 1983, the 153rd anniversary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Initially, only the Power Hall and parts of the Main Building and Station Building were in use. Now funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the Museum has continued to restore the buildings to hold new galleries and facilities.

During our visit, the museum also had an exhibition, which is still on and will be open until January 2008, on the famous television series Doctor Who.

We had the opportunity to see costumes and monsters from the hit BBC programme, including the impressive, four-metre long Empress of Racnoss from the Christmas Special, The Runaway Bride.

The exhibition also features many of the new, third series characters starring David Tennant and Freema Agyeman.

Football and Old Trafford

It is impossible not to think of one of the world’s most football clubs when you think of Manchester. Manchester United is no longer about football – it has become a business that generates the club millions every year.

Old Trafford is the largest club ground in Britain with 1,705,696 fans who watched Manchester United play at Old Trafford in season 2005/06.

Since work on the expansion of the stadium’s North-west and North-east quadrants was completed in summer 2006, Old Trafford’s capacity has reached in excess of 76,000, making it one of the most atmospheric and historic stadiums in the world.

Man Utd is arguably the most popular football club in the world, with over 50 million supporters worldwide and is also one of the richest in the world, and until recently had the highest revenue of any football club for several years running. Since 2007, the club has the fourth largest turnover in club football, but remains the most profitable club based on operating income.