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21st October 2014

Things you didn’t know about Fallowfield

Fallowfield, the student of of Manchester has been met with many stories over the years, but some that have never seen the light of day yet.
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TLDR

Fallowfield is a big love of a lot of Manchester students. Being, arguably, the hub of student life in Manchester, ‘facts’ have accumulated over the years, making Fallowfield a really interesting place to live in. Having everything you could possibly want, it’s assumed that here isn’t anything that is unknown in Fallowfield. But here are some things that you may not have heard before.

 

One for the football fans, Fallowfield was the host of the 1893 FA Cup final.

The 1893 FA Cup final between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Everton was hosted in the old Fallowfield Stadium (now Richmond Park), with just one goal scored by Wolverhampton making them the winners.

Having a capacity of 15000, the attendance of 45000 meant the majority of spectators had no view of the match. In addition, the stadium also hosted the 1899 FA Cup semi-final between Sheffield United and Liverpool. The match had to be abandoned due to a crush in the crowd.

 

The Chemical Brothers’ first gig was also at BOP.

Until its closure in January 2013, BOP was known for cheesy music and, apparently, being the ‘easiest place to pull in Manchester’, but it once was so much more than that. With free entry, cheap drinks and a good location, BOP was once the most popular student night at the University—quite a shock seeing how it’s seen by a lot of students today.

Held in Owens Park tower ballroom every Friday, it is widely rumoured that the Chemical Brothers who met whilst studying history here in Manchester, played their first gig at this notorious night. Coming back to Manchester for Warehouse Project will probably be a nice change.

 

The tower is also a place that has held a lot of notoriety always held a lot of notoriety. From the tower challenge to grimy rooms and scary lifts, one that is less well known is the tale that someone let off every alarm in the Tower.

All 18 floors were set off and the perpetrator someone managed to avoid getting caught as there aren’t cameras there. So they could have been a student or a wanderer of the street, or a gang of vigilantes, we’ll never know and the mystery lives on.

After talking to some people who didn’t stay in Fallowfield in first year but moved there later on, I was surprised to hear that they were not aware of who the Magic Bus Lady was. Appearing out of nowhere, very few people every really see her move. She is usually surrounded by many suitcases and plastic bags full of mysterious objects, and hands out flyers containing her life stories and generally what’s on her mind. No one really knows what she is ranting about.

There are probably loads more that are not yet known, still there are plenty of years to create new facts.


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