Leeds are just jealous they’re not quite as cool as Manchester

The Tab Leeds recently published an article entitled ‘Manchester is a crap version of Leeds.’ Are they having an actual laugh?

You wouldn’t think they would be so stupid as to attack their bigger, fitter and generally cooler older brother. But if they are going to start badmouthing the London of the North, then bring it on.

Think of all the times you’ve heard someone say “Why would you go to Manchester when you can go to Leeds?” It’s probably none. You definitely didn’t hear the BBC saying that, because they moved from London to Manchester, which is part of the reason we have so much going on here.

The article also said that Leeds has a better music scene than us, bragging about half of Bastille coming from there. That’s really no match for Manchester’s world renowned and incredibly varied musical heritage: The Smiths, Bugzy Malone, The Stone Roses, The BeeGees, Oasis, Take That, Everything Everything, Wu Lyf, The Chemical Brothers, Bondax, need we go on? How can they even bring themselves to publish such an outrageous lie?

Manchester would never do such a thing.

When it come’s to fashion, we have it pretty good here in Manc. Leeds comparing Trinity shopping centre (not even worth a visit) with the Trafford centre is like comparing fifth to WHP. So it might have a load of designer shops, but who needs constant reminding that they’re a broke student wearing their year 10 clothes? They don’t even do student discount in there.

Sure, we can accept that Leeds does have quite good taste in the wavey garms, because they reflect the items we were wearing last year. With the Northern Quarter overflowing with vintage retailers and charity shops, we know what we’re doing.

And so what if we’re a bit braver with the pattern clashes than they are in Leeds? Sometimes you have to take a risk, that’s what Fallowfield fashion is about – leave your boring, conservative dress sense in the car with your parents to drive back to the home counties.

And so what if we wear hand-me-down clothes from our family? At least we haven’t paid an extortionate amount for pretend ‘vintage’ clothes in attempt to conceal our privileged backgrounds. We don’t follow trends, we set them. And yes, just got out of bed is a trend.

Without a doubt one of Manchester’s greatest attributes is how amazingly multi-cultural it is, something you won’t find elsewhere. Where else has a Curry Mile and China Town so close by, providing the highest standard authentic cuisine?

We also have a booming LGBT scene, with a gay village even the most heterosexual of individuals are queueing on canal street to get into. AND it’s free entry. One might say that our liberalism is endless.

And how could we forget about the likes of Fresh Meat and Corrie? There’s a reason those shows are classics, and one of those is that they’re not set in Leeds.

We are the epitome of uni student life, with the best reputation for a night out thanks to places like Warehouse Project, Sankeys (named the world’s best club) and The Albert Hall where you can see all the biggest names in music. For Leeds to even suggest they’re clubbing scene is superior when one of their highlights is called ‘Fruity Fridays’ is blasphemy. Please do not offend Warehouse Project in such a way.

We’re also notorious for our house parties, who could forget the time the ‘dance floor’ in someones house actually collapsed cause we were partying too hard. Bet that’s never happened in Leeds.

Need we remind you that the University of Manchester has also produced the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, The Chemical Brothers, Brian Cox and Jack Whitehall (so what if he didn’t graduate, he still lived in Tower).

Oh Manchester, we owe you a lot. And it’s about time you shut your little brother up.