As evening settled over Manchester, the warmth of the day slowly faded, but the atmosphere around the stadium only became more intense. The Avenue of Stars had already worked the crowd into a frenzy, and almost everyone assumed the next stage would be a conventional stadium-opening ceremony.
At exactly six o'clock, a deafening roar suddenly rolled across the entire complex.
A firework burst high above the stadium, opening like an enormous flower against the darkening sky. Its sparks spread across the entertainment district, and when they faded, the Red Rebels crest remained suspended in light above the ground.
The message was unmistakable.
This was their home now.
Another sequence immediately followed. Fireworks erupted above the Avenue of Stars, forming one glowing footprint after another along the approaches from Alan Turing Way and Ashton New Road.
There were six in total.
One for every year since New Manchester United had been founded.
The six trails converged above the stadium before an even larger explosion illuminated the Manchester skyline, beginning a twenty-minute fireworks display designed specifically for the opening ceremony.
Ethan had commissioned one of the world's leading pyrotechnic designers to create the show, and the result was far more elaborate than anything normally associated with a football stadium. The glowing footsteps, a football appearing to race through the sky, the club crest, and a series of carefully timed sequences transformed the entire district into an enormous outdoor theatre.
For twenty minutes, supporters, guests, and residents across east Manchester watched the sky.
By the time the final fireworks faded, the atmosphere was already extraordinary.
Then came the live performances.
The club had deliberately mixed traditional pageantry with modern stadium entertainment. A huge illuminated creature, constructed from fabric, light, and articulated sections, moved through the surrounding plaza before making its way towards the stadium. Smoke and coloured light poured from its mouth as performers guided it around the ground, making it appear almost alive.
Eventually the procession entered the stadium itself.
Temporary platforms had been built around the pitch for the ceremony, while every supporter with a ticket was already in place. The stands were completely full.
Even those who had remained outside were not missing much. Giant screens throughout the entertainment district carried the entire ceremony live, allowing tens of thousands more people to follow everything happening inside.
For half an hour, the atmosphere barely dropped.
Several supporters later claimed that the opening ceremony alone had been worth the price of admission.
When the final performance ended, the lights inside the stadium dimmed.
Then a single spotlight appeared at the players' tunnel.
Ethan walked out.
The reaction was immediate.
The spotlight followed him slowly towards the platform in the centre of the pitch. When he reached it and turned towards the stands, the applause became almost deafening.
Supporters rose everywhere.
Some shouted his name until their voices cracked.
Six years earlier, Ethan had been little more than a supporter with an idea and enough stubbornness to pursue it. Since then, he had led the club through the lower divisions, endured ridicule, opposition, financial uncertainty, hostile rivals, and constant predictions that the project would eventually collapse.
Instead, New Manchester United had become Premier League champions.
For many supporters, Ethan was inseparable from that journey.
Outside the stadium, enormous screens showed a close-up of him standing alone in the centre of the new ground.
He looked around once.
Then again.
For several seconds, he tried to speak and could not.
"Nobody understands what this means better than you."
He pointed towards the stands.
"You've been here for the whole journey. You know how long we've waited for this day. You know what we've been through, what we've lost, what we've had to fight through just to stand here tonight."
The response shook the stadium.
Ethan waited until the noise eased enough for him to continue.
"I kept telling myself all day that I wasn't going to get emotional. Then I walked out here."
He looked around again.
"This is ours."
The supporters roared.
"Our stadium. Our home. Our place in this city. After everything, we finally have a ground worthy of all of you."
Another wave of applause rolled through the stands.
The old athletics ground had belonged to the club in a sentimental sense, but nobody could compare it with this. The new stadium was already being discussed among Europe's most modern venues and had received the highest level of UEFA certification. There was even speculation that a future Champions League final could be staged there.
Six years earlier, Ethan had been dreaming about simply creating a football club.
Now he was standing in one of Europe's finest stadiums, surrounded by supporters who had followed that club all the way to the Premier League title.
His hands were trembling slightly.
"My secretary prepared several speeches for tonight," Ethan continued. "She spent days working on them, so I should probably apologise to her now."
Laughter moved around the stadium.
"But none of them feel right anymore. I don't think any prepared speech can explain what this team means to me, what this stadium means, or how grateful I am to every supporter, player, coach, employee, friend, and guest who helped us get here."
The mood changed again.
Around the ground, people who had been with New Manchester United from its earliest days found themselves struggling with their emotions.
"Without you, none of this exists."
A familiar melody began quietly through the stadium speakers.
At first, people needed a moment to recognise it.
Then they realised.
It was Wavin' Flag, the song that had become inseparable from the Red Rebels, but this version was slower and softer than usual. The familiar rhythm had been rearranged into something warmer, carrying none of the usual stadium thunder.
K'naan emerged from the tunnel.
By then he had become one of Britain's most recognisable pop performers, and his connection with New Manchester United had only grown stronger over the years.
He jogged towards the central platform and, without warning, pulled Ethan into a hug.
It had not been rehearsed.
The crowd loved it.
K'naan took the microphone and began singing.
The softer arrangement gave the anthem a completely different character. It sounded less like a battle cry and more like a memory of everything the club had survived: supporters travelling through the lower leagues, players training in poor conditions, promotions, defeats, injuries, trophies, arguments, celebrations, and years of work behind the scenes.
One section of the crowd joined in.
Then another.
Within seconds, K'naan was no longer performing alone.
Tens of thousands of voices filled the stadium.
The song gradually grew stronger until the arrangement suddenly shifted back into the familiar, driving version the supporters knew best.
The stadium exploded.
Players standing in the tunnel could hear the sound vibrating through the concrete.
The guests seated in the executive areas felt it too.
Whatever anyone thought of New Manchester United, nobody could deny the extraordinary bond that had developed between the club and its supporters.
Sir Alex Ferguson watched from his seat with complicated emotions.
The Glazer family's attempt to take control of Manchester United was already gathering momentum. If the takeover succeeded, one of the most profitable football clubs in the world could suddenly find itself carrying enormous debt.
Ferguson understood the danger.
He also knew there was very little he could do about it.
He could have walked away.
Pride would not allow it.
Too many people still questioned him, and too many supporters already regarded his silence during the ownership battle as a betrayal. Ferguson wanted another chance to prove himself, even if staying meant accepting circumstances he disliked.
Watching Mourinho now, he felt something uncomfortably close to envy.
The Portuguese manager had found an owner who understood football, trusted his judgement, and gave him enormous authority over sporting decisions.
That kind of freedom was rare.
Ferguson also found himself envying the supporters around him.
Manchester United's modern success had brought enormous commercial growth, but it had also changed parts of the Old Trafford experience. Corporate hospitality, premium seating, expensive food, executive boxes, and the increasing distance between clubs and ordinary supporters were becoming familiar throughout elite football.
There was nothing inherently wrong with any of it.
But watching the Red Rebels supporters singing together, Ferguson could not help wondering whether something was sometimes lost along the way.
Success always demanded compromise.
He knew that better than most.
Florentino Pérez viewed the evening from a very different perspective.
To him, the entire opening ceremony was a commercial masterclass.
It united supporters emotionally, elevated the club's image, attracted sponsors, generated worldwide media coverage, and strengthened New Manchester United's status without requiring a single new signing.
Last season's Premier League title could still be dismissed by sceptics as an extraordinary underdog story.
This summer, Chelsea and Manchester United had dominated the transfer market.
New Manchester United had barely spent anything.
Yet one carefully designed event had placed them back at the centre of European football's attention.
Florentino admired the planning behind it.
He had recently been re-elected as Real Madrid president, with his own plans for a large-scale club entertainment development forming part of his long-term strategy. Some of those ideas had been inspired by what Ethan was building in Manchester.
Now, watching the finished version come alive, Florentino realised just how high the standard had been set.
When K'naan finished the anthem, stadium staff moved immediately. The central platform began to come apart as preparations were made for the football match.
Because the evening was as much celebration as competition, nobody was concerned about normal substitution rules. Every player would have an opportunity to appear, including several academy prospects.
Players currently out on loan were treated as members of the former-player side for the occasion.
Ethan left the pitch and entered the tunnel, where both teams were waiting.
Steve Bruce was the first person he met.
The two embraced warmly.
Bruce had been New Manchester United's first manager. He had not led the club all the way to the Premier League, but nobody had forgotten what he contributed in those early years.
He had delivered the first trophy.
The first promotion.
The first sense that the impossible project might actually work.
Supporters still spoke fondly about his time in charge.
Ethan then moved on to Juninho Paulista, Ivica Olić, Abidal, and the others.
Many were now established stars elsewhere in Europe, but every one of them had returned for the opening.
Juninho became emotional almost as soon as Ethan reached him.
He wrapped both arms around Ethan and struggled to speak.
Ethan held him tightly.
"This will always be your home."
The cameras filming inside the tunnel captured the moment, and within seconds it was being broadcast around the stadium and across the live television feed.
Ethan greeted every former player personally.
Even Kitson.
Their relationship had once ended badly, but time had softened both sides. When they met again before the ceremony, Kitson apologised directly for the way things had happened.
Ethan accepted.
Later, when Pellegrini told Droylsden he needed another centre-forward, Ethan remembered that Kitson was still at Brighton and suggested that David Pace contact him.
The moment Kitson learned that the recommendation had come from Ethan, he accepted a pay cut and agreed to join Droylsden.
The decision divided some Red Rebels supporters.
One group believed the way he had left should never be forgotten.
Others pointed out that Kitson had repeatedly expressed regret after leaving and had never publicly attacked the club.
Ethan settled the argument during an interview.
"New Manchester United was built on remembering the people who helped us," he said. "Things ended badly with Kitson, but that doesn't erase what he contributed before that. If someone who once helped this club needs a hand and we can give one, I don't see why bitterness should stop us."
After that, most of the debate faded away.
Inside the tunnel, there was no hostility left.
Only old teammates, former coaches, new stars, and people who had once shared the same impossible dream.
Soon, they would walk out together onto the pitch of the stadium that dream had built.
(To be continued.)