City of Manchester stadium prepared to be rocked

May 11 2008

THE City of Manchester Stadium may have played host to the likes of George Michael, U2, Oasis and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers but Gers fans will really rock it to its foundations when the UEFA Cup Final comes to town this week.

Wednesday night's clash is the venue's biggest moment since the 2002 Commonwealth Games - the event for which it was initially constructed.

The stadium on the eastern edge of the city centre was originally conceived as the centrepiece of the unsuccessful bid to bring the Olympic Games to Manchester. A scaled-down version of the original 80,000 capacity venue was given the green light when the Commonwealth Games were handed to the city and construction began just after the turn of the milennium.

Queen Elizabeth led the opening ceremony for the Games and the arena instantly won rave reviews for the quality and its atmosphere.

At the end of the Games the pitch level was lowered and an extra tier of seating added to raise the capacity to 47,726 in preparation for Man City's tenancy which began a year later.

With a capacity of under 50,000 the stadium is too small to be awared UEFA's five-star rating, meaning it is ineligible to stage the Champions League Final.

But it was awarded the next greatest honour when it was selected to host the 2008 UEFA Cup Final.

And with Rangers' huge travelling support ready to blow its roof off the stadium is in for a European baptism of fire on Wednesday night.