Taking Sides: Leeds Vs Manchester

Footie or city?

Leeds for actually living there, Manchester for the music.

Leeds. Less ill-earned arrogance, apart from the horrible day when Leeds United won the championship. Other that, a fine town.

I've never been to Leeds but people tell me it's nice. Manchester, for all its problems, feels like the only city in England that is a serious alternative to London.

Manchester.

Nick, surely there are lots of places which are serious alternatives to London, in so far as they offer something clearly different? There are no serious English rivals to London in terms of size / availability of art-culture-music / shopping.

Oh, and I would agree with Morris that Leeds knocks Manchester into a cocked hat, except that (a) the day LUFC won the title was a fantastic day to be there (I'll admit they are my second team), and (b) Morris represents everything I hate, as has been established elsewhere.

I didn't express myself very well at all. I was trying to do it better and then gave up and hit 'submit'. It's just something I was thinking about the other day. Something to do with warranted civic pride and rich cultural heritage. I don't know - Manchester just seems at ease with itself as a major city. Mancunians don't have to shout about their city being great all the time - it speaks for itself.

Manchester's proponents go on and on about how great Manchester is more than any other UK city I've come across. At least I've heard more pro-Mancs doing that than pro-anywhere else people.

The day Leeds won the championship? Which one? What do you think I'm going to say?

Aw, c'mon Greg, you know as damn well as I do that you secretly give your heart to Bradford when you're not sneaking down the road to Old Trafford and eating prawn sandwiches. Those are your two teams, right?

I'm in Sheffield right now, and although I have to say, although I've never actually BEEN to Leeds, Manchester wins hands down.

The night before last, it rained so hard that the Roadhouse flooded right after our set. This would normally have been a disaster, as the gig would have had to have been cancelled. So we went down the street to another venue (Night and Day) and they just TOOK US IN!!! The entire show! The people in the audience even carried all our equipment down the street. (And no, nothing went missing.)

Can you imagine being in London, and Strange Fruit's venue flooded, just going down the street and Track & Field letting them finish the gig there? Yeah, when hell freezes over.

So Manchester is A-OK with me.

Not to mention the music is just better. All down the pavement of Oldham Street, there are stones with all the bands' names written on them. It was really a thrill hearing New Order and The Smiths while IN Manchester.

Yes, I am a sad pathetic fangirl.

sheffield.

hahahah smart arse response. i say manchester. i feel a bit funny going to leeds. except it always rains in manchester.

student influence too big in leeds?

i dont know ive only been there a few times.

for a long time i would have probably said Leeds, even though M'cr had better record shops. Leeds had decent mainstream indie clubs (Brighton Beach), decent dance clubs (Orbit), duchess, decent small things going on (Vector, Non Stop Fuzzy Din)

but Leeds is in thrall to classik rok and this is a bad thing. leeds also wants to be manchester so badly it hurts, and the little things that go on in LS6 are horrendously snobby and superior and its all full of mod/soul authenticity bolox.

so, manchester then. less uptight about shit

The Rocket's wank. The Duchess closed down. The Cockpit stopped their hip hop night.

The Duchess was doomed frolm the day it was taken over by the pub- rock fools who run Fibbers in York, a venue permanently hosting the same five bad York bands supporting a selection of third division indie also-rans and bands containing ex-members of Brinsley Schwarz.

Never been to Leeds, and have only been to the nasty bits of Manchester. Eeew.

well, with all these new geographical taking sides threads, i thought i'd reprise this one.

i got to say, The North Bar in leeds is pretty good though, credit where its due and that...

Does it really always rain in Manchester?

To quote the old joke "I don't know, I've only been here 18 years."

I was told about the rain before I moved here. The first six weeks I remember being a blissful Indian summer, although that could be rose-tinted nostalgia. Then the heavens opened. I don't know the rainfall statistics, but certainly it rains a lot in the autumn and winter. And spring. And a large chunk of the summer. But this summer's been pretty sunny.

In 1993 I saw a day's Test cricket at Headingley, which after the suburban bonhomie of Old Trafford and the pure history and atmosphere of Lord's, was a real shock to the system. In London and Manchester, the fact that I was Australian was a point in my favor with the local watchers. At Headingley, it made me an object of deep suspicion.

But what was most revealing was when I finally encountered a couple of local lads who were reasonably sober and friendly and had mastered Elementary Social Skills 1A. They asked me where I was staying and I told them, in Manchester with an old mate. They looked kind of sympathetically at me, and one wondered aloud if I had left it too late to find anything closer.

The drive from Manchester into Leeds took about 50 minutes, and back in Australia I travelled further to and from work every day. But Manchester to these blokes may as well have been Moscow.

Test cricket at Headingley = best evah!

Leeds is alright once you put to one side the sizeable brian-dead element in the LUFC fanbase, but really there's no competition. Manchester all the way. Music, football, cultural and political heritage, lack of goths etc.

This rain thing is always a bit exaggerated. It rains a lot in the British Isles. It's no more rainy in Manchester than, say, Dublin, and not much more than anywhere else, even darn sarf.

Melbourne (the supposed Manchester/Seattle/Vancouver of Australia) has been in drought for seven years. It chucked down for about 21 hours up to this morning, and I realised how much I miss rain!

A bit of wetness would be a point in any place's favour right now.

The day after the Dick-Headingly experience above, I drove up to the Lake District. It rained from Manchester to Ambleside, and only stopped about half an hour before I headed south again (about 4pm). Meanwhile, 50 miles down the road in Leeds the cricket continued without a break.

Manchester does allegedly have much rain, but I remember Ray Illingworth talking about Headingley, the cricket ground at Leeds. He said that if you could see the Pennines, it meant it was going to rain. And if you can't see them? asked his co-commentator dutifully. "That means it's raining."

has anyone been to Polaroid?

and, how is leeds, to live in, these days?

Martin, the first time I heard that joke, I was somehwere just outside of Manchester.

I'm not sure I have an opinion on either Leeds or Manchester, but I do like driving along the motorway between them.