The scene is a weekday morning, some time around 1954. It is Old Trafford, Manchester, and as locals make their way to work, perhaps on the nearby docks, even though it is early, a young blonde-haired boy is belting a ball against the stadium’s red brick walls.
He does so repetitively, left foot, right foot, as he seeks accuracy, power and control. Occasionally, he steps back, to strike from ever greater distances. One day this boy wants to be a red star inside those red walls.
The boy has a name: Bobby Charlton.
Five decades later, Charlton remembered the scene. He recalled how Manchester United’s legendary Welsh coach Jimmy Murphy took him to Old Trafford and told Charlton to make a wall at the ground his friend. Before training, therefore, “often I used to go to the ground an hour early,” Charlton said in his autobiography.
There are a million red threads that bind United and Old Trafford together — one for every fan who ever bought a ticket, one for every player who ever kicked a ball there — but they do not come much stronger or more evocative than the image of arguably the club’s most important player practising ball-striking outside the stadium in the light of a spring morning.
Charlton at Old Trafford in 1970 (Allsport UK /Allsport)
Charlton came to represent United in the second half of the 20th century and beyond. He was part of their surge of 1950s glory — the Busby Babes — and was essential to the club’s resurrection after the Munich air disaster. He scored on the club’s greatest night, the 1968 European Cup final. He scored all the time.
Then Charlton joined the club’s directors and was part of the appointment process that brought Alex Ferguson south from Aberdeen in 1986 to start a second wave of modern United success. And it was Charlton who coined the term ‘a theatre of dreams’ for Old Trafford.
They were his dreams. But they were not his alone. They belonged to every Red inside a stadium which, season upon season, goal upon goal, became so much more than a pitch, terraces and walls. It became a home, a place to go to, the place to be.
Old Trafford has had a life of its own.
Structurally, atmospherically, via experience and longevity, the stadium grew into a leading character in the story of the club and English football.
Old Trafford has stood on its site for 115 years. But now, in 2025, United have decided that the ground must make way. A new stadium, with a 100,000-capacity, will rise on adjoining land. It is a decision rooted in economics, architecture and logistics, and deemed necessary for future success. United’s new co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe says the desire is to “preserve the essence of Old Trafford” and it will be a “catalyst for social and economic renewal” in the area.
Others worry. They will think of what can be lost: their personal history with Old Trafford, their first match, their favourite players, friendships, laughs, glory and disappointment. Individually, organisationally, Old Trafford, the original, contains a lifetime of memories.
United and Liverpool compete in the first game at Old Trafford in February 1910 (Manchester United/Manchester United via Getty Images)
There is a line in Simon Inglis’ 1980s work, The Football Grounds of Great Britain, that will hit United fans and observers with the thwack of a Bobby Charlton shot, and it will provoke a knowing sigh.
“By the late 1920s,” Inglis wrote, “Old Trafford had become rather outdated.”
The ground was less than 20 years old then, having opened in February 1910.
Inglis gives the contemporary examples of Arsenal’s Highbury, Everton’s Goodison Park and Tottenham’s White Hart Lane as structures already surpassing Old Trafford. It is one of several historic references with a modern feel.
Prior to Old Trafford, from 1893, United had been based at Bank Street, in the east of Manchester. The club was called Newton Heath. In 1902, in financial peril, a local businessman JH Davies bailed out the club, changed the name to Manchester United and bought a site at Stretford for a huge, initial £40,000.
Constructed under the supervision of master stadium architect Archibald Leitch, Old Trafford had one stand with almost 12,000 seats — located where today’s main stand — is when it opened. The rest of the 80,000 capacity was uncovered terracing. The intention had been for a 100,000-capacity but costs escalated and plans were altered.
Nevertheless, United were thrilled by their new home… and so were onlookers. As Ian Marshall says in his official history of the ground, written for its centenary in 2010, there was a mini-boom centred on its location at Trafford Park. This was not the suburban area it is today, rather the first industrial estate in the world — “the Silicon Valley of Manchester.”
The adjacent Manchester ship canal, finished in 1894 — ‘canal’ in the northern English sense does not convey its scale — was capable of handling cargo ships on its docks. United, a club who had the gas cut off at Bank Street, so impoverished were they, now had a stadium to fit the increasing industry and prosperity of the area.
The main stand contained a billiards room, a plunge bath, a massage room, a gymnasium and a referee’s room. There were changing rooms on the premises, not at the pub down the road, as had sometimes been the case in early professional football. There was a walled tunnel that led out to the pitch and into the daylight, the players descending, then ascending onto a raised playing surface. It was a setting for sporting drama.
The ground was seen as a statement — by Manchester and for Manchester — and for English football as a whole.
Of all clubs, Liverpool were the first competitive guests. The surname of United’s left-winger that day was Wall and the hosts lost 4-3.
At least a United player, Sandy Turnbull, scored the first-ever goal at Old Trafford. Seven years later during the First World War, Turnbull was killed at the Battle of Arras in France. Another British soldier killed in Arras that year was Alexander Busby, whose son Matt would one day shape the club like no other.
In a sign of its immediate status, Old Trafford staged the 1911 FA Cup final’s replay — 58,000 watching Bradford City win 1-0 against Newcastle United. The last cup final before football stopped for the First World War was played there in April 1915. Sheffield United beat Chelsea 3-0. There was no Wembley then.
Bradford and Newcastle compete in the FA Cup final replay of 1911 at Old Trafford (Paul Thompson/FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
There were 45,000 present for that Liverpool opener and United finished fifth that season. But in the club’s first full campaign at the new ground — 1910-11 — they were crowned champions. The purpose of building Old Trafford had swift validation.
Curiously, not many saw the last-day victory over Sunderland which sealed that title. Reigning champions Aston Villa were top and were expected to win comfortably at mid-table Liverpool. Plus, it rained in Manchester that afternoon so only around 10,000 showed up.
Liverpool, however, beat Villa. United’s players were taken on a day out to nearby Chester to celebrate.
The average attendance for the season was just under 30,000, though 65,000 had turned up for an FA Cup tie, an illustration of the cup’s grip on the imagination and of Old Trafford’s possibilities.
Unable to retain their title, United dropped to 13th in 1911-12 and would not win the league again until the 1950s. The benefits of the new stadium, particularly when weighed against its economic cost, were looked at differently as trophyless seasons passed. The club were dependent on bank guarantees and loans from Davies.
The First World War halted football. American servicemen landed on English soil and brought baseball to Old Trafford. When football resumed, money was scarce and plans for a new bridge into Salford and a car park were delayed. Davies offered Manchester City, whose Hyde Road ground was dilapidated, use of Old Trafford. It would have been a source of income. City declined and built the vast Maine Road in 1923.
A year earlier, with the builders requiring payment and a lack of investment in the team, United were relegated. Second Division football brought lower income and, although United won promotions, it was a troubled era and they would be relegated again in 1931 and 1937. Alternatives, such as the New Zealand All Blacks vs Lancashire at rugby union, were welcomed at Old Trafford. There was also a first England football international — against Scotland — in 1926.
Crowd control at Old Trafford in April 1923 ahead of an FA Cup semi-final between Sheffield United and Bolton (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
The Great Depression loomed when, in 1927, Davies died. Not long before, United’s benefactor had guaranteed a new mortgage for the acquisition of the freehold of the land upon which Old Trafford was built. The existing freeholder was the Manchester Brewery Company. It was another economic burden and at one stage, Marshall writes, the club asked fans for help doing their laundry.
With United having no training ground until The Cliff was purchased in 1951, players used the pitch or a patch of land beside the stadium. They did fitness laps around the ground and ran up and down the terraces. The ground was central to the daily life of United.
But, inevitably given the overall finances, any improvements or maintenance work were on hold. It is why Inglis could say that by the late 1920s Old Trafford felt “outdated”.
In late 1931, James Gibson, a Mancunian businessman in the mould of Davies, agreed to preserve the club and to guarantee debts up to £30,000. Gibson also persuaded the rail network to construct a station at Old Trafford. Until then, most fans had gone on foot to the ground — a three-mile walk from the city’s Piccadilly Station. The rail connection, a logistical issue today, was a solution then.
The main stand’s roof was extended in 1935 and, in March 1939, Old Trafford’s largest-ever attendance — 76,962 — turned up on foot and by train for an FA Cup semi-final between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Grimsby Town.
Then came the Second World War, the Luftwaffe and German determination to wreck Trafford Park’s industrial base.
On March 11, 1941, two bombs struck Old Trafford, destroying the main stand, the club’s offices and severely damaging the terracing and pitch. “A blitzed wreck,” was Matt Busby’s grim assessment of the ground on arrival as manager in October 1945.
Neighbours City now offered United a groundshare, a reversal of Davies’ proposal after the First World War. It came at a price — £5,000 per annum, plus a share of gate receipts. United had little choice and played home games at Maine Road until 1949.
With government grants from the Wartime Damage Commission, the club had hoped to rebuild Old Trafford uniformly. It was not possible and the main stand was uncovered when the place reopened. Both ends were open to the Mancunian weather too and only two corner sections had cover. There were no floodlights until 1957. Busby and his staff worked from Gibson’s offices in nearby Cornbrook.
It was not promising, yet Busby’s impact was instant.
Playing at Maine Road, United finished second in the first season played after the war, 1946-47. They were second again in 1947-48 and also won the FA Cup. Their style of play was attracting fans and that brought profits, even while tenants at City. United could put the money earned into their own ground’s renewal.
On returning to Old Trafford, Charlie Mitten scored the first United goal and, in March 1951, the debts to Davies’ widow and the brewery were finally settled.
“United at last possessed the deeds to the land on which Old Trafford was built,” writes Marshall. A season later, it was the home of the champions again — 54,000 seeing United beat Arsenal 6-1 to ensure a first title since 1911. United’s glorious, transformational and tragic 1950s were underway.
Tommy Taylor scores the winner against Blackpool in 1956 – United are champions again (PA Images via Getty Images)
With Busby assembling a young adventurous side with an average age of 22, United glided to three titles in six seasons. A fourth in seven was anticipated in 1957-58. United had also won the first five editions of the FA Youth Cup, begun in 1952 and, beyond football, a new ‘teenage’ world was emerging and United’s young men were part of it — The Busby Babes.
As ever, new eras have one foot in the past and when an 18-year-old Charlton made his debut in 1956, he walked to the ground from his digs and later said: “Compared to today’s Old Trafford, the pitch that welcomed me was in the middle of a football shanty town.
“The Stretford and City ends were uncovered and the stand across from the main one would have looked to the modern eye flimsy and ramshackle. Yet… ‘Bobby lad’, I said to myself, ‘there are no two ways around it, you are now in paradise’.”
With United playing vivid, winning football in the new continental competition, the European Cup, the club’s national appeal grew — even if their first three matches in the competition in season 1956-57 had to be held at Maine Road.
Floodlights were installed at Old Trafford in time — April 1957 — for the home leg of a semi-final against Real Madrid. There were 65,000 there. The game was broadcast live by local station Granada TV. United would lose 5-3 on aggregate, but they had won an audience. Old Trafford was no longer just a domestic product: it was now a piece of European sport.
On February 6, 1958, it became something greater altogether.
The Munich air crash, in which 23 people were killed, including eight players returning from a European Cup tie in Belgrade, turned United from a Mancunian-English-European football club into a sporting institution with supporters and sympathisers all over the globe.
Old Trafford was where distraught, bewildered fans felt physically compelled to go to express their grief. It was where the bodies of 10 of those killed were taken after being flown back from Germany, a journey told by David Peace in his novel of last year, Munichs. Those 10 bodies resting in the gymnasium underneath the main stand turned the ground into something else.
United supporters gather at the Old Trafford offices to hear news of the plane crash in Munich (S&G/PA Images via Getty Images)
It was also where, 13 days after the crash, the club restarted. A blank United teamsheet was submitted where 11 names should have appeared.
“From the first whistle, there started up a sort of shriek, a noise you’d never heard before,” writes Peace of the volume and emotion of that night, a sound and a memory that made itself as much a part of Old Trafford as the nuts and bolts of its changing architecture. Intense human experience deepened the stadium’s meaning.
Two years later, the Munich Memorial was opened and the Munich clock was unveiled.
More prosaically, but essential, were new seats and coverings in 1964 as the ground was prepared to stage three group games at the 1966 World Cup. Now largely covered, Old Trafford began to take on a bowl shape and, at Busby’s suggestion, corporate boxes were introduced. Roy Keane’s ‘prawn sandwiches’ jibe had interesting origins.
January 1964 was also notable for a development on the pitch: the first time the surnames Law, Best and Charlton appeared in the same XI.
Denis Law, George Best and Charlton reawakened United and Old Trafford after an understandable post-Munich depression. Each won the Ballon d’Or; to have the trio in one team was fire and water and magic, and as colour television coverage broadened, the three were the emblem of United’s bold revival. Old Trafford swooned and for the first time the rest of the world could tune in to see it. Leagues were won, the European Cup was won and the substance was achieved with such style. Old Trafford became the theatre of which Charlton spoke.
As a venue, the ground hosted the 1970 FA Cup final replay between Chelsea and Leeds United. There were 62,000 present and the game drew a domestic television audience of 28 million at a time when England’s population was 46m.
Chelsea and Leeds contest the 1970 FA Cup final replay at Old Trafford (PA Images via Getty Images)
Less appealing, but of material significance to the ground, was football hooliganism.
Fencing around the pitch was deemed necessary from 1971, with United’s crowd trouble so bad the ground was closed for the first two home games of the 1971-72 season. Thus one of Busby’s successors, Frank O’Farrell, had his first ‘home’ game staged at Anfield. For all the inflated fan rivalry, Liverpool (Busby’s former club) offered United use of their stadium.
By 1974, United were back in the second tier and in the early phase of a 26-year wait to be champions again. In 1978, the capacity was registered at 60,500, making it the largest ground in England not called Wembley; the pitch dimensions were also big — 116 x 76 yards (Maine Road was slightly larger).
Even though United were in the shadow of Liverpool and others, the aura of Old Trafford forged in the 1950s and 1960s endured. It could still beguile. Into the 1980s, a young Gary Neville would attend Saturday home games with his father, sitting in K-Stand. They would get there early, Gary’s dad would meet his friends and his son would sit alone.
“Old Trafford would be empty,” Neville said in his autobiography, Red, “but I’d look around, mesmerised by the place. I’d take in the noise, the sights, the smells. They have stayed with me my whole life.
“When the players came out to warm up, I would be transfixed. I can still see Arnold Muhren practising those swerving shots.”
Muhren played the night in 1984 when Diego Maradona’s Barcelona were overcome 3-0 in the now defunct UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup and the fans made so much noise that United midfielder Bryan Robson said he thought the pitch itself was “actually shaking” not just the stands.
It is a layer of memory, another one. It could have been laid in the new stadium museum, opened in 1986, the year Ferguson strode in as manager. He would, pre-kick off, mention the scale of the pitch to his players. “I wanted to plant the idea in their minds that we would have the opponents knackered by the last 15 minutes,” he wrote in Leading.
Here was ‘Fergie-time’, a notion seemingly as real as the clock itself. The home crowd breathed it in, performed their patient role, celebrated when yet another game was won late on. Steve Bruce’s two April 1993 headers against Sheffield Wednesday were the embodiment of Ferguson’s re-enforced Old Trafford. On the good days, Ferguson described the experience as “intoxicating” and Sky Television, new and loud, broadcast the renewed United team at the renewed ground to renewing interest.
April 1993, Steve Bruce scores twice late on and Old Trafford erupts (John Giles – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)
Those Bruce goals were scored at the Stretford End. It was all-standing, but the Taylor Report of 1990 — following the previous year’s Hillsborough disaster — recommended all-seater stadia. The Stretford End was demolished and replaced. The last game in front of the old soul of the ground was the FA Youth Cup final of 1992. United won it, for the first time since 1964. The reconnection with the Busby past was unmissable.
The stadium enlarged along with United’s trophy cabinet. So did the club — a ‘Megastore’ was opened in 1994 and the North Stand, now the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand, was rebuilt at a cost of £28million. It could hold 25,000 fans and sported the largest cantilever roof in Europe. By the new century, new tiers were under construction on the Stretford End and the East Stand opposite, lifting capacity to over 67,000.
The 2003 Champions League final was hosted; yet supply could not meet ticket demand and the same year United explored developing the north east and north west ‘quadrants’. By 2006, they had added over 8,000 seats and Old Trafford was now a 76,000-capacity stadium — 76,098 is the record attendance in the current configuration, set against Blackburn Rovers in March 2007.
As with Busby, United literally built on Ferguson’s success. Both those managers have a statue at the stadium, as do the ‘Holy Trinity’: Law, Best and Charlton.
The ‘Holy Trinity’ statue at Old Trafford (Dave Thompson – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)
But grumbles about a lack of atmosphere, heard elsewhere at all-seater stadia, were voiced and in 2013 the Manchester Evening News reported an “acoustics engineer” was being consulted to see if the noise generated at the Stretford End could travel around the ground.
Six years later, rainwater cascading through a hole in the roof revealed another reality. It happened again in 2024 and while the stadium is not, as some claim, derelict — 68,000 attended the England vs Austria match at the 2022 Women’s European Championship — a lesson of Old Trafford’s history is that ambition and expansion happen under proactive ownership.
Two decades of the Glazer family have seen progression stall. Tottenham, Arsenal, City — and soon Everton — have 21st-century stadia. “Outdated” is once again the description of old Old Trafford.
It is one that the new INEOS section of the ownership is addressing and it will please many fans that the aim to preserve “the essence” of the original ground is so high in Ratcliffe’s priorities. “We must be brave,” said Ferguson in the club statement.
A reasonable retort to both is: how? How can a New Trafford, a 21st-century version, accommodate often corporate-centric economics while retaining 20th-century character? How do you serve the past and the future?
These are questions not unique to United.
Crowds flock to Old Trafford ahead of the Premier League game against Arsenal last weekend (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
On stadium tours, still thronged daily, the old tunnel is pointed out as the last remaining piece of the 1910 ground. Walls thick enough to withstand bombs could and probably should be incorporated into the new structure. A touchstone, stone to touch.
That is tangible. Then there is the intangible, the essence. Nobby Stiles licking stamps in the ticket office as an apprentice — how do you hold onto that? The teenaged Charlton walloping ball after ball against the very frame of the ground? The aftermath of Munich, the pitch shaking? What about the “heady concoction” of noise and passion on Thursday night?
It will be challenging, perhaps impossible, to authentically replace all of this, the distant voices, the lives lived, the time spent.
These are foundation stories of Manchester United, located in the bricks and walls of Old Trafford’s epic history.
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Michael Regan – UEFA/UEFA, Ben Roberts Photo, Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA, S&G/PA Images via Getty Images)
