Where have all the Mancunian heroes gone?
01.08.2023 - 06:37
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Wandering through Manchester city centre, the same faces follow you around.
Ian Curtis is consistently taking a drag of a cigarette. The Gallgher brothers stand, back-to-back, eyeing you up through their sunglasses. Tony Wilson’s smirk sits alongside a quote he never said.
It’s no secret that Manchester is very good at celebrating its heroes. That’s brought a certain arrogance to the city, built on a reputation earned on the 1990s’ Madchester scene, and harnessed by marketing agencies for property developers in the 2020s.
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Those usual tropes were on show at the opening ceremony of the 2023 Allianz Para Swimming World Championship, which opened yesterday at the newly-refurbished Aquatics Centre. The Championships — which are on until Sunday, August 6 — are being held in the city for the first time and feature 67 nations and more than 500 competitors. It’s the third time the UK has hosted the event, with Glasgow doing so in 2015 and London following suit in 2019.
The event is also the reopening of the Manchester Aquatics Centre, built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and closed for two years for a £31 million upgrade. The first gold medals went to two Italians — Alberto Amodeo and Xenia Palazzo in the S8 freestyle 400m — as the first GB medal came from Suzanna Hext as she claimed gold in the women’s 50m freestyle S5.
Before the swimming, there was a stereotypically Manc welcome back.
It re-opened with a reading from the poem ‘This is the place’, written by Tony Walsh and performed by Matt Walker MBE, a three-time Paralympic Gold from Marple. Then, the Untold Orchestra played a string medley of Mancunian hits — including ‘Don’t