MLK Weekend Spent in Manchester, England

Bryan & Katie
4 days ago
8 min read

We have experienced a ton of wonderful trips while living overseas, but I have to admit, this trip was one I will never forget! Seeing Bryan's excitement while standing in HIS team's stadium in Manchester, England, just filled my heart! So while I would love to write how amazing this experience was from my experience, I do think this trip has to be co-written by the two of us, so you can experience the Manchester Derby through the true fan's perspective!

My writing will be in italics, while Bryan's writing will be regular! So here we go!

Friday, January 16: Takeoff to Manchester

Katie and I had been tossing around ideas for what to do on the upcoming MLK weekend. Ever since we received our orders to Rota, I wanted to make an effort to see Manchester United play. I've been a Manchester United fan since 2006 (12-years-old), and it's always been a dream of mine to visit Old Trafford and see a United match! When I found tickets to the Manchester Derby (Manchester United vs Manchester City) for a "reasonable" price, I had to jump all over it, and Katie was a great sport and was willing to comply with my wishes! My officemate, Dean, is also a big United fan, so of course I told him about it, and he and his wife, Beth, decided to join us for the game!

Manchester Airport

Friday evening after work, we bolted to Sevilla for our direct flight to Manchester; after navigating public transit, we arrived at Britannia Sachas Hotel around 12:30 am.

Saturday, January 17: Manchester Darby Match

Finally, DERBY DAY has arrived! Donning our United jerseys, Katie and I met up with Beth and Dean at a nearby tram station and made our way to West Manchester.

Side note, Nugget decided to make their presence known by showing off their size today! This did warrant a mirror selfie before leaving for the game, and then another one in the elevator down to the lobby! Lucky for me, Bryan was in a great mood and willing to take all the selfies I wanted on his special day!

The Bishop Blaize

The night prior, Dean and I had done some research on places to visit near the stadium before kickoff. We found out that The Bishop Blaize is a popular "watering hole" amongst United faithful, so of course, to get the full experience, we popped in for an 8:30 am beverage. That's right, game day began with a morning Guinness for both guys while Katie stuck to a refreshing sparkling water!

Tesco Cafe

Now, as everyone knows by now, I've got a 17-week pregnant wife, who A) can't drink, and B) needs to be fed and watered with regularity. An English pub filled with drunk football fans isn't conducive to either of those things, so we walked up the street to Tesco Cafe for a quick bite of breakfast before kickoff!

Following breakfast, it was TIME! We walked a few blocks north, and THERE IT WAS! OLD TRAFFORD! THE THEATER OF DREAMS! After a short photo shoot outside, 10:30 am rolled around, so we made our way inside the stadium 2 hours before kickoff to get the full experience.

Old Trafford

I have to say, I'm really happy we went to our seats so early. No one else was inside, so Katie and I were able to nab a couple of great pictures of us before the place became packed!

The stadium began to fill up about 20 minutes before kick, and the atmosphere was absolutely electric! Imagine how rowdy a student section is at a college football game; the entire stadium was like that, but instead of a few thousand students, it was all 75,000 fans on their feet, chanting, screaming, singing in unison!

United ended up winning the game 2-0! When they scored both goals, it felt like a small seismic event! Old Trafford absolutely exploded! It was such an incredible atmosphere, and an experience Katie and I will never forget.

"We love United, we do!

We love United, we do!

Oh, United, we love you!"

I think it's worth noting that many less family-friendly chants were screamed throughout the game, so thank you, Bryan, for choosing an appropriate one to share on the blog!

I have to admit, this game was well worth the steep price tag. (That's right, I'm a sucker when Bryan begs to experience THE game of the year!) Our seats were amazing, the crowd was electrifying, and the memories we made are unmatched. Here are a few video clips I took of the game that capture the vibes in Old Trafford:

And here's the game's highlights, because apparently, according to my husband, the blog requires them:

Following the game, Beth and Dean made their way to London, while Katie and I spent the evening coming down from the high of the game. After enjoying dinner at BrewDog Manchester, we made it to bed early to catch up on sleep after a lack of it last night!

Sunday, January 18: National Football Museum

As if yesterday didn't have enough soccer, we added another day of football fun to our trip. Today we visited the British National Football Museum and eventually traveled to London!

Cafe 19

We started our morning with a great brunch at Cafe 19! Katie's Oreo French toast was definitely a winner.

National Football Museum

Following brunch, Katie and I braved the rain and made it to the National Football Museum! The first things we were treated to were pictures of the Football Association Women's Super League and the English Premier League trophies, the most-coveted trophies in the English men's and women's professional football leagues.

The museum was stacked with tons of great artifacts, including the original guidelines from 1863, establishing the English Football Association, and laying the foundation for the rules of modern football. They also had the game ball from the first World Cup final in 1930, as well as numerous trophies and jerseys throughout the game's history!

One of the coolest artifacts the museum had was the original jersey worn by Pelé throughout the 1958 World Cup-winning campaign by Brazil. There's also a huge exhibit on England's lone World Cup championship in 1966.

Within that exhibit is the only original replica in existence of the Jules Rimet Trophy (the original World Cup trophy given to winners from 1930 to 1970). In 1970, Brazil won the World Cup and became the final holders of the trophy, with FIFA commissioning a new trophy to be used in future tournaments starting in 1974. Unfortunately, the trophy was stolen from the Brazilian Football Confederation in 1983, making this trophy on display in the museum, the only existing Jules Rimet Trophy in the world.

Bryan forgot to mention that the World Cup trophy was actually stolen twice! The first time was in 1966 when it was on display in England. After the Football Association kept the robbery under wraps, not wanting people to know about it, they received a ransom note for its return. In the end, Pickles, a family dog, saved the day when he sniffed out the World Cup trophy in a garden near his home! What a discovery!

Throughout the three floors of the museum, we learned a ton about football history, including racial integration of the sport and the beginnings of women's football. We also learned the incredible roles footballers play outside the pitch, namely, Marcus Rashford's role in pushing the British government to supply meals to children during the COVID-19 pandemic; I'm slightly biased towards Marcus, because he's a Manchester United youth academy graduate and played for United for nearly 10 years!

Manchester Piccadilly

After 2.5 hours in the museum, we made our way to Manchester's main train station and headed down to London!

hub by Premier Inn London Covent Garden hotel

After a 2-hour train, we made it to London around 4:30 pm! We headed to our hotel and dropped our bags before getting dinner!

Bone Daddies Leicester Square

Katie (and "Nugget") were craving some ramen, so we visited Bone Daddies, which hit the spot! This was Katie and I's third time having Bone Daddies, the first time in March 2024 on our theater tour around London, and most recently in November 2025 when we visited London at Thanksgiving. Katie likes to say this place tastes like our last home- and she't not wrong. Our love for Japan and its food stands strong!

Monday, January 19: The National Gallery & Hercules Play

We started our final day in London with a slow start! This meant we got to eat Pizza Pilgrims for lunch, one of our favorite pizza places in the UK, and then get our caffeine fix at Kiss the Hippo Coffee! Then, both full of fuel for the day ahead, we headed off to the National Gallery!

The National Gallery

That's right, I somehow talked my lovely husband into a day at the art museum!

We started our museum tour by spotting a Michelangelo and TWO Da Vincis! As we moved through the classical portion of the art museum, we spotted a Caravaggio, a Botticelli, and Rembrandt's works. I have to admit, Bryan does have a good eye for spotting the artists we know and love! It's almost like he had a great elementary art teacher to teach him these things!

The final photo above was an interesting sight. While trying to figure out how the artist could hate someone that much, Bryan jokingly whispered, "I'll love you as long as you never grow old and look like that." So there is a bar, but it's quite low! I think I'm safe!

Next up was the Impressionist section of the museum, and this one was much more lively! We spotted several Van Gogh paintings that reminded us of the Van Gogh Museum we visited in the Netherlands, alongside numerous Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, and even a Picasso from his Blue Period!

I think my favorite finds were Georges Seurat's Bathers at Asnières (I had no idea it was such a massive painting!) and Henri Rousseau's Surprised! painting (I just didn't expect to see this one from all my art history classes and studies!) Honorable mention goes to Van Gogh's Two Crabs painting, because I have never seen this one before, and I think it would make a great print to hang in every beach house around NC!

This art museum may not be one of the top "must-visit" places in London, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun Bryan and I had!

On the way to the theater, Bryan and I took a short stop at Leicester Square, where we made a loop around the small park looking for the Harry Potter statue! We spotted it and had to snap a quick photo- making this trip to London full circle, since our first visit to the city was filled with Harry Potter adventures just over two years ago!

Theatre Royal Drury Lane

Our final adventure of the trip was to the Royal Drury Lane Theater to see the West End's newest musical, Disney's Hercules! After dropping £20 ($26.50) on a single pin in the gift shop, we took our seats.

While the show was good and the music was fantastic, we do see room for improvement before this show moves to a traveling performance. Our favorite parts were the muses- but that's a given from the classic Disney songs- we knew they were going to be amazing!

After the show, we grabbed our bags from the hotel and took an hour journey to Luton for the night. We have learned that if I'm going to cheap out on the flights, we have to stay near the airport for an easier morning journey home!

Monday, January 20: Back Home!

We woke up at 6 am and made the 12-minute walk to the airport by 6:45 am. After a quick security check, we grabbed a free breakfast in the airport lounge before boarding our flight and heading home to these sweet babies by 8:50 am!

This MLK weekend was filled with another great trip to England! Bryan got to knock off a bucket-list trip, I got to stretch my art history memory, and we both got to hum our hearts out to Disney's Hercules music on West End!

Until next time,

--Katie & Bryan