West side story: A history of the Stretford End
The word Pep Guardiola used to describe Old Trafford, only a few weeks ago, was ‘mystical’. The City boss was speaking in Spanish, in Madrid, before a match that had nothing to do with Manchester United. But our stadium cropped up anyway, as the Catalan tactico talked about the spiritual majesty of Europe’s greatest football arenas.
But thousands of Reds would look west. Towards the Stretford End, and Old Trafford’s most famous stand. Not everyone who visits the Theatre of Dreams sits or stands here, of course, but most would agree that this section of our ground represents something way beyond humble bricks and mortar. Something which seems to represent the deathless passion of the Manchester United fanbase, which has made us England’s best-supported club for the last 80 years.
When the players walk out, glance up above them, and you’ll see and hear it. An audible and visual representation of United’s support, channelled through thousands of Reds stood side by side, holding up dozens of flags and banners. All testifying to this great love, shared by millions.
The colour and vibrancy brought by this part of the ground has, for many fans, been the best thing about 2025/26 so far. Some even say it is returning the Stretford End to something akin to the glory days of the 1960s and ’70s.
But before we tackle that question, perhaps it’s time to investigate how the Stretford End became this mythic football stand. When did it become ‘a thing’? How has it changed over the years? And what does its future hold?
There’s only one way to find out, of course: by asking some of the Reds who created and still sustain its magic…
“It first became a thing about 1954. At the Stretford End there was a tunnel as you came in, and me and my mates would stand just at the side of it. It started with about 10 of us and just kept building up.”
Derek ‘Digger’ Gardner believes he was one of the first. One of the first to stand on the Stretford End as part of a unified group that identified with that part of the ground.
“I would say it first became a thing about 1954,” he says. “At the Stretford End there was a tunnel as you came in, and me and my mates would stand just at the side of it. It started with about 10 of us and just kept building up and building up. Eventually, there was about 40 of us. I’m sure we were the original Stretford Enders – I don’t care what anyone else says!
“We all had rattles and we’d always be waving them, and people got to know this little group at the Stretford End. From there, the rattles started going all over the ground. We loved it. It was brilliant, and somewhere to meet.”
Before long, Digger and his pals were making new friends on the Stretford End with boys and girls from Stockport, Salford and beyond. Relationships which quickly expanded to away games and Saturday nights dancing to music at Sale Locarno. But what did the Stretford End sound like back then?
“The atmosphere was absolutely brilliant,” recalls Gardner. “We were cheering from the word go and we had a few songs. There was: ‘We are supporters of United, Matt Busby is the king, Tommy Taylor is the scorer, Johnny Berry is the wizard of the wing. Roger Byrne is our left full-back, Billy Whelan is inside-right, in fact we are the champions, we are the boys in red and white.’ That was our favourite.
“Then we sang one to the [Dickie Valentine song] Christmas Alphabet: ‘Capital C for Johnny Carey…’ We had another that was: ‘2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate? United!’ and ‘1-2-3-4, who put City on the floor? 3-5-7-10, we won the league again.’ Things like that. It was just young people at the beginning, but then it went round the ground and one or two others jumped in. But it wasn’t all the crowd singing like nowadays.”
Anthony Crook, who first stood on the Stretford End in 1955 and is still there today, remembers a similarly innocent time. “I’d go on my dad’s crossbar down Railway Road, and every house had a back entry where you’d leave your bike,” he begins. “When I was five he’d put me on the front of the Stretford End with my rattle, and then he’d stand a bit further back with his mates. They all wore white shirts and ties – everyone looked the same. It was bizarre!
“When I was five he’d put me on the front of the Stretford End with my rattle, and then he’d stand a bit further back with his mates. They all wore white shirts and ties – everyone looked the same. It was bizarre!”
“You’d sit in the front, you’d get your orange juice or your Wagon Wheel or your scalding-hot Bovril from the tea urn behind, and it was just amazing. The atmosphere alone. I had hair in those days, and it would make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up!”
It helped that United were then the best team in the country, of course. But a few years after Munich, both Gardner and Crook began to notice a creeping change to the energy on the Stretford End. The subsequent decades would bring some of the terrace’s most joyous moments, but also some of its most frightening.
1965-1989: WE ARE THE MANCHESTER BOYS
“I stayed on the Stretford End until the early 60s,” explains Digger. “The Stretford End group disbanded around then, when some of us started courting and getting married. Around then the Stretford End seemed to become a ‘thing’ like it is now – more of a mass.”
Now old enough to go on his own, Crook and his mates from Stretford Grammar quickly established their own spot on the ‘right side’ of the Stretford End. Other groups of teens did likewise.
“The comradeship, the camaraderie was brilliant,” he remembers. “You went with your mates and you had your spot, week in, week out. Nobody dared come in your spot and if any interloper did, you’d shift them. The tunnel had its own gang, the left side was Ashton, Middleton, Salford… Stretford and Wythenshawe was right side. You were with your best mates; some you’d grown up with, and others you’d just see at weekends. The Stretford End was one big meeting place.”
With Best, Law and Charlton approaching their peak, the Stretford End was the place to be. And with fans typically in the ground hours before kick-off, there was plenty of time for making friends, getting creative with chants and, inevitably, mischief.
“It would be rammed and all of a sudden a gap would appear,” chuckles Crook, “and the dare would be you’d go in the gap and the crowd would come piling down. You’d get stuck and crushed to bits. But it was good fun at the time – you might get a cracked rib or two, but everyone just got on with it!”
But by the mid-’60s, more dangerous incidents were starting to overshadow this type of good-natured jostling, signalling the hooliganism that would haunt football through the 1970s and ’80s.
“In 1965, Everton made an attempt to ‘take’ the Stretford End,” Tony says. “They came up from the bottom, and a bloke at the front pulled this big sword out of his coat. Obviously, people backed off, but then everyone got brave and the older lot charged towards them and ran them out of the ground. The ’60s was when the hooliganism started, certainly.”
But although such hair-raising moments could erupt at any time, Crook admits this period also provided some of his greatest memories as a Red. Yes, the Stretford End could be dangerous, but its explosive youthful energy was also harnessed to create some of the greatest atmospheres ever seen in England.
“I was really lucky because I experienced three or four years standing on the Stretford End with my mates in the late ’80s. And unless you were there, you can’t really do it justice.”
“I remember the first home game after the 1968 European Cup final, against Everton,” gasps Crook. “The Stretford End constantly chanted ‘We are the champions, champions of Europe!’ from the gates opening at 1pm until kick-off at three. It was awe-inspiring.
“I was in there all through the Second Division days, too – they were just magical times. Those years and the Barcelona game in ’84 were the high point of the Stretford End. Another famous one was when Best scored that famous goal against Sheffield United [in 1971] – there were 15,000 locked out!”
A kind of wild and wonderful mania would characterise the Stretford End throughout the ’70s and ’80s. But as the latter decade neared its end, a harrowing reckoning was forced upon English football by the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster. It would lead to massive changes across the game; changes that would thrust the Stretford End into a new phase, with consequences both good and bad.
1990-2013: FERGUSON’S RED AND WHITE ARMY
The 1992/93 season was one of the happiest in the club’s history: it brought the arrival of Eric Cantona and the deliverance of the club’s first top-flight title in 26 years. But the Stretford End was near-unrecognisable throughout this seismic season, due to an ongoing rebuild.
The 1990 Taylor Report, commissioned after Hillsborough, led to the demolition of the terraced Stretford End, and the end of an era. The all-seater stand that replaced it was impressive, but inevitably different.
“I was really lucky,” admits Stu Edwards, a Stretford End regular since 1983/84, “because I experienced three or four years standing on the Stretford End with my mates in the late ’80s. And unless you were there, you can’t really do it justice.
“My first memories were of going in E Stand, which were the wooden benches at the back, with my dad and my uncle. It was a bit safer, rather than getting crushed! So I knew the Stretford End from a very early age. But I started properly going with my mates at age 12-13. I lived in Droylsden and there was four of us, and a few from Ashton, and we’d travel there on our own and get in at least two hours before kick-off.”
Stu was moved during the rebuild, but made it back in for the denouement to that 1992/93 season, as United swept to glory.
“When that first bottom part opened up, it still had no roof on, and I’ve still got some of the pac-a-macs we were given in my loft,” he laughs. “But ’93 was amazing, and the standout was when we beat Blackburn and Pallister scored, and it all happened down at the Stretford End as well. It was a beautiful day, I was 17, with my shorts on! I remember staying in for ages after, and our steward let me go on the pitch and get my picture taken in the Stretford End goal! But I’ve got loads of memories throughout the 1990s, obviously. We were spoilt, and it was just a great time to be alive.”
Football-wise, many would anoint the 1990s as United’s greatest decade. But for the Stretford End, it was a period of flux. Most controversially, there was the addition of executive seating to the middle of the stand in 1993 – an initiative that chairman Martin Edwards later acknowledged as a misstep. And throughout the 1990s, many of United’s most vocal fans chose to make the Scoreboard End – also known as K Stand – their home.
“Barcelona in 2008 was the big one for me, the pinnacle. It was loud, it was incessant. You just sensed that people were up for everything, and it seemed from the first minute that the Stretford End would get us over the line.”
“There were raised eyebrows [about the executive seating],” says Stu. “It didn’t sit right with me and many others, and it definitely affected the atmosphere. The Scoreboard End was the place to be from an atmosphere point of view.”
“By the Double year [1993/94], it didn’t really feel like this intimidating place that you’d read about. By then that had switched to K Stand,” agrees Neil Meehan, who started going to matches in 1990.
“But when they opened tier two of the Stretford End in 2000, the club made an effort… they were contacting people and asking if they wanted to be in this new vocal area.
“There was a game against Middlesbrough not long into the 2000/01 season. We were losing at half-time, and inside the tier two concourse, someone started singing the United Calypso and, for whatever reason, everyone joined in and it became this huge thing, and it spilled onto the stands as the second half started. I remember thinking: ‘This is what the Stretford End should be like.’ It was crazy, and we won 2-1. The Stretford End helped the team win that day.”
Incredibly, the 2000s matched the ’90s for silverware, and created some incredible highs. For Meehan, the victory over Barcelona in the 2008 Champions League semi-final was one of the Stretford End’s finest hours. “That was the big one for me, the pinnacle,” he enthuses. “It was loud, it was incessant. You just sensed that people were up for everything, and it seemed from the first minute that the Stretford End would get us over the line. We had the best team in the world – but we still needed that crowd.”
2013-25: FOREVER AND EVER, WE’LL FOLLOW THE BOYS
Since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013, things have become more complicated on the pitch. But amid the ups and downs, the Stretford End has well and truly reclaimed its status as the heartbeat of the Old Trafford atmosphere. And since the behind-closed-doors era enforced by the Covid pandemic, things have kicked on again, thanks to club and fan collaboration.
In 2023, the same year that safe standing rail-seating was introduced to the Stretford End, it was announced that the executive seating area would be removed “in support of successful ongoing efforts to enhance the Old Trafford atmosphere”.
And once that work had been completed, fan group The Red Army moved to a more central position within the stand to help invigorate the atmosphere. For this season, TRA worked with the club to ensure more than 70 flags and banners would be present on the Stretford End – bringing a vividness not seen since the 1970s.
“I sit on the front row, in the middle of the goal, and have done for the last 20 years,” notes Crook, who has 70 years of match-going in the tank. “The atmosphere’s certainly improved and is more coordinated, and the flags are a tremendous asset. Some of them really make me chuckle.”
“They’ve done a really good job,” agrees Stu Edwards, who says the displays have accelerated his 16-year-old’s son’s keen interest in United and its fan culture. “When I look over my shoulder and see all the flags, it looks amazing. The more the merrier. I’d love to see another 100!”
For Meehan, a return to that ’70s-style sense of comradeship and camaraderie is key to the present revival, as is cooperation between fans and the club.
“All the noise you get is from groups of mates that stand together, which is what would have happened 40 or 50 years ago,” he muses. “People organically getting things going. It was massively noticeable when TRA moved to the Stretford End… the noise, the volume, the general spirit, just your enjoyment of the game was upped massively.
“Now with the flags, it looks great visually as well, and you’re all involved in holding them up. Even before the game’s started, you feel like you’re part of something. Something that’s inspiring the players and giving the team a lift.
“You feel a lot more connected, and that’s really important. It helps people to give a bit more and take the right attitude towards supporting the team, rather than complaining if it’s not going well. Well done to all involved, including the club, for facilitating these things. Because a few years ago they didn’t happen.”
Football has, inevitably, changed hugely since the 1990s, let alone the ’70s or the ’50s, as the memories shared in this piece make clear. But the progress made on the Stretford End in recent years is undeniable, and shows that change doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.
The Stretford End’s story is a long and winding one but, who knows, maybe there are still a few brilliant chapters to be added to the story of one of world football’s greatest stands.
This feature first appeared in United Review, our official matchday programme at Old Trafford - subscribe here.