The Leeds-Huddersfield-Manchester route gets busy all the time, especially on a weekend. But this was beyond that. I took one look at Platform 16 in Leeds and opted for the longer journey to Victoria instead....however, this even took 45 minutes longer than it does normally and was very over-crowded by Hebden Bridge.

We made it to Victoria for about 1....took one look at the tram queues and opted for a taxi. These came at a rate of about 1 every 12 minutes by my reckoning. I've never seen fewer taxis at a major station. Managed to get in eventually just as the Haka was starting.

Anyway, coming back we got a flying start 10 minutes before the end, and must have missed most of the rush. Waited 5 minutes for a tram, and queued for 10 minutes to get on to Platform 13 at Piccadilly. So not too bad, but you could see it was starting to build up, and the staff were very abrupt even at that point.

I cant say any of this came as a surprise though, sadly.

Once on the Manchester Victoria line and had to stand all the way due to the usual shortage of carriages. However, as we approached MV station the driver came on the tannoy and apologised for the poor service and then proceeded to slag off his bosses and told everyone they don't invest on this side of country and all the money went to the East Coast line etc. Brutally honest!

I got dropped off before the game as my missus was travelling on somewhere, but getting back was OK.
Directed to the tram station by the police, big queue, but it moved reasonably quickly.
Jumped off at Deansgate and got the 17.45 train to Lime St. off at Mossley Hill and I was back home by 7.
No worries for me. Looks like you guys coming from the east had the short end of the stick.

Huddersfield was a nightmare, we watched 5 trains go by and couldn't get on any. When we asked the customer services lady if they had planned on extra carriages or trains she declared there was no plans for that, however they would put buses on. Upon going outside to look for a bus, it was a 15 seater mini bus. Her explanation was FTPE didn't expect the passenger load. Who would have thought the annual Manchester Xmas market, shoppers and a major sporting event with the bulk of supporters living on the M62 belt would increase train loads

I travel on the trans pennine trains a fair bit during the week and the number of carriages is almost always higher than the three or four we were faced with yesterday.

I travelled from Halifax, went across to Huddersfield and it was bedlam, took us over an hour and a quarter to get on a train, luckily we got to Hudds at 10.40.

Dally, this game cannot be compared to a Man Utd game where the crowd are dispersing all over the country, when nearly half are heading back to Yorkshire and many of those are on public transport with xmas shoppers added to the mix, and a large Leeds following to Blackburn then the train companies preparation was woeful.

This cannot be compared to the Grand Finals with their 6pm kick offs avoiding such a concentration of travellers all at once. Going home we got lucky realising the lift was still taking people to Platform 13, but the train was still packed. The journey home was made bearable thanks to some charming ladies from Normanton.