March 30, Fri Day 8

      We got a little British weather today. Cold and gray with a light, but bone-chilling breeze. The boys didn’t seem to notice as they ran around the Manchester City FC training grounds with coach Gavin. They lined up with their balls and worked on passing drills and finished with a small-sided game. The parents walked around the track surrounding the field or watched from the stadium chairs.
      After the training Gavin gave us a tour of the stadium. It was slightly more posh than other stadiums, probably due to the wealth of the club’s owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The boys seemed to particularly enjoy the Press Conference room where they sat in the big chairs in front of the press and pretended to be the top players while the tour guide asked them questions. We didn’t get to see the players’ dressing room since the kit manager was preparing it for tomorrow’s game. We moved on to the inevitable stop at the megastore and then to the Old Trafford Mall.

     The Old Trafford Mall isn’t old and resembles a typical American mall except for having mostly different store names, a wading pool in the middle and dim lighting—which I thought was strange given the gray weather. Both parents and children played an exciting game of lazer tag. You had to choose a game name to play. The green team, which included Billy (aka “Iron Man”), Megan Flood (aka “Snow White”) beat the red team, which included top-scorer Mick Luckhurst (aka “Viper”) and low- scorer Matt Carlson who managed to get negative 250 points. We also played miniature golf and shopped.

     On the way home we stopped for dinner at a traditional English pub and had meat pies, bangers and mash, fish and chips, among other things (beer).

     It was a relaxed day and everyone was glad to get a break in the action.