How did I get here? A mizzly, autumnal afternoon in late October. There was I: some shifty-looking, keen, young whippersnapper with “student” written all over him. I slipped in and out the doors of pubs, supermarkets – anywhere I could find. Lurking, praying, I hoped someone would look kindly on me and engage in conversation.
I had set off in search of a community that, at first glance, doesn’t exist. Fallowfield, home to the University of Manchester’s largest campus and situated south of the city centre, where over half of the residents (54.7% as of the 2021 census) are students. The neighbourhood has no community Facebook group, few community events, and very little distinguishable identity other than its famous ‘student character’.
Yet we see these people every day, whether it be in passing on the street or on the buses we take. The non-student residents of Fallowfield are a minority, going about their business surrounded by a body of students with whom they have little to no interaction. It was this which drove me to scour the sodden streets in search of answers that afternoon.
How, I wondered, do the locals of Fallowfield view the students who dominate their neck of the woods? Surely, I had thought, they must resent us: an invasive species of pint-swilling hooligans, tarnishing the sacred peace of their would-be Edenic suburb. I wanted to hear from the residents themselves.
The Great Central on Wilmslow Road seemed ripe with potential, so I stepped inside and scanned the room for would-be interviewees. I approached, at first, an elderly-looking woman. With relatively meagre hopes of introducing myself as being from the student newspaper, asking a simple question, and swiftly buggering off – but, alas, no dice. She swatted me away.
So I tried again, this time approaching a gentleman leafing through the sport section of that morning’s paper. He seemed bemused by my question of whether or not he had any opinion on the student population. To this I received a resolute “no.” “They don’t get in my way.” he said. “I notice them, but they’re no bother.” He went on, “I don’t mind looking at the female ones, mind you. Some of them are easy on the eye.” He chortled whilst I made a quick escape. This was not turning out as I’d hoped.
In desperation, I headed to Sainsbury’s and prowled the aisles like some would-be shoplifter. I approached a woman inspecting the toilet brushes and startled her with an unintentionally accusatory “Excuse me.” Posing the same question, she answered in much the same way. Barring any lecherous remark, she informed me that she had no opinion of Fallowfield’s student population. Instead, the woman said that they make few intrusions on her life, and that she had, in fact, never thought about the issue prior to my inquiry.
Pub after pub, shop after shop: the answers were mostly the same. Some were dismissive, most others ambivalent, and one gentleman said he felt positively about the students. “I like seeing ’em in their get-up on those sport nights.” he said. “The fellers in blouses, what have you. Always a good laugh. So long as nobody’s sticking me in a frock, I’ve no issue.”
The relative apathy that soon became apparent is perhaps partly down to the fact that Fallowfield’s student scene isn’t nearly as rowdy as it once was. Gone are the days of sordid house parties that caved in roofs and made the pages of the Daily Mail. Gone too are many of the more rowdy bars and nightclubs that gave the area its reputation as somewhat of a degenerate student paradise: Robinsky’s, Cubo, and Orange Grove have become names unfamiliar to most current undergraduates.
These are gone — replaced by fast food chains, corner shops, and shisha bars — and with them has gone much of what made Fallowfield such a notable example of hedonistic student culture. These days, many students opt ‘to pre’ at home before heading to town, or other more fashionable areas such as Withington, which has maintained its student character more successfully.
The student grip over Fallowfield is waning. My assumption that the locals were an oppressed minority was evidently naive: a desire to pin the blame on people like me for the destruction of Fallowfield’s local character. The truth, it seems, is far less “us and them”. The locals have made peace with the students, and have, whether intentionally or not, begun to reclaim some calm.
The attitude of the Mancunians with whom I spoke is best summarised by something one man said to me in a pub: “I don’t notice the students.” he said. “I’m only bothered by the ones who go around asking me stupid fucking questions.” In short, they couldn’t care less.
