Day Eight - April 26th 2017

Everyone woke up this morning with the sad realization that this was our last full day in England. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we have been spoiled for choice staying at Hotel Football. Some of the kids have come around to the 'Full English' which is a staple match day diet in England. Bacon, sausage, beans, eggs, mushrooms, toast and tomato...not a bad way to start the day. I will say I don't think anyone has given the black sausage a go. If you don't know what it is, Google it and I will let you decide. 

Once we polished off our breakfast we made our way across the road to Old Trafford. When I say across the road I literally mean, across the road. If you fell out of your window at the hotel you would land in one of the seats at the stadium. The whole group took a tour of the  Manchester United Museum and the stadium. The history of the club and supporters was on full display. The tour guide rattled off a ton of impressive numbers such as the stadium holds 76,000 fans which makes it the largest ground outside of Wembley in the country. He also did a great job explaining the significance of the Class of '92 and all of their accomplishments. The best part of the tour was going into the home changing room and seeing firsthand where the greats such as Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney prepared on a match day. An unforgettable time!

After the tour the team went back to the hotel they had a great lunch and followed that with one-on-one evaluations with former Manchester United player and fellow Class of 92 Coach Chris Casper. The players received feedback as well as an evaluation sheet so they could see how they performed over the past few days. There were some helpful tips/suggestions on what they could work on when they returned home to help improve their game.

After the  meetings the group had a great final dinner followed by closing ceremonies hosted by Keith Fane who was the former Manchester United PA Announcer. It was easy to see why he use to be the main man on the mic as he had a fantastic voice! In addition to Keith, United legend Phil Neville joined us for a brilliant Q&A where both Phil and the kids enjoyed some 'banter' about American/British terminology. This was the icing on the cake to a wonderful evening. Did I forget to mention that we had our dinner ceremony on the rooftop pitch?!