Manchester-Ringway - 14/05/2008

Well, my good mate John Higgins ('The Ferrit') has been bugging me to go up to Manchester for long enough, so when Zenit Zt Petersburg won their place in the final of the UEFA Cup in the city, and with the prospect of a few nice Russian bits bringing in the fans, this looked like the ideal opportunity to get him off my back!

My travelling companion for the day was Marcus Jellyman.

With an 0400 departure from my place 'the Ferrit' had better be right about how good this place is! With easterly winds continuing to prevail, Manchester were on '05', and with twin runway operations (departures on the left, and arrivals on the right), we concentrated solely on the arrivals.

I'll admit that I was quite astounded by just how rural the airport was - winding country roads led us all the way to our morning location. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky, and that's how it stayed for much of the day.

Unfortunately it emerged that the anticpated Red Wings Tu-204 had cancelled, but with the sun now very high and straight down the runway it was time to switch locations to the opposite side.

And with that 13 hours of pretty much non-stop shooting came to a close, and a top day had been had by all. We will be back!

Huge thanks to 'the Ferrit' for looking after us, and to Scott, Baz, Tom, Jimmy and Neil for their company.