Around and about Manchester City

1. What do British people associate with Manchester?
Many people think of Manchester as a city with an active nightlife and music scene. The city produced many successful bands in the 80s and 90s, including The Smiths, Take That and Oasis.  In addition to culture, Manchester is considered to be the commercial and educational focus for North-West England.

2. Łódź (Poland) is sometimes called ‘The Manchester of Poland’.  Ahmadabad (India) is referred to as ‘The Manchester of the East’. Why?
Like Łódź and Ahmadabad, Manchester was a textiles town, with many factories making clothes out of cotton. In fact, in 1800, Manchester was jokingly known as ‘Cottonopolis’ (‘-polis’ is a Greek word for ‘city’).

3. Is Manchester still full of factories?
Manchester was the world’s first industrial city but most of Manchester’s factories closed in the mid 20th century.  However, Manchester is still a very hardworking city, and in 2007 was the fastest growing economy in the UK.  And while it is no longer full of factories, it does seem to be full of students. The University of Manchester, Salford University, Manchester Metropolitan University and the Royal Northern College of Music have a combined student population of 93,000, making it one of the largest in Europe.

4. What else does Manchester have?
Manchester is also a great place for shopping, with the UK’s largest city centre mall, the Arndale Centre. It has some world-class museums, including Urbis, which shows the impact that cities have had on human life throughout history. The Lowry, named after the local artist LS Lowry, contains many of the painter’s industrial landscapes, and is itself an unusual and dramatic modern building.

5. What are the people of Manchester called?
They are called Mancunians, and the word ‘Mancunian’ is also used to describe the people of Manchester’s accents.

6. How do Mancunians decide whether to support Manchester City or Manchester United?
Nobody really knows. It depends largely on which team someone’s friends and family support. However, Manchester itself has more City supporters than United fans.

7. What unusual achievement do Manchester City have?
After coming top of the First Division (the forerunner to the Premier League) in 1937, Manchester City scored more goals than any other team the following season. But they were relegated, and spent the next season in the Second Division.

Click here for a vocabulary activity

What do you remember about Manchester City?

Read the statements about Manchester City and decide if they are true or false.

Exercise

Manchester is twinned with several other cities around the world. Which four cities are twinned with Manchester?

• Mexico City (Mexico), Kobe (Japan), Milan (Italy), Fez (Morocco)
• Mumbai (India), Sao Paolo (Brazil), Ottawa (Canada), Nairobi (Kenya)
• Faisalbad (Pakistan), Wuhan (China), Los Angeles (USA) & Saint Petersburg (Russia)
• Dacca (Bangladesh), Frankfurt (Germany), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)

Find out more about Manchester from Visit Britain’s Manchester destination guide.