It’s nearly time: not just for the Manchester Half but, more importantly, the freebies and offers you can get for running it.
Let’s be honest, not everyone loves running for literal miles just for the sake of it; a lot of people need motivation, and besides an inspiring cause, you’d be surprised how many people will get out of bed for something as simple as free stuff.
You might be one of them – you are here reading this, after all.
There’s no long-winded preamble or intro needed to set this up, so let’s just crack on. Here are five brilliant freebies you can get with a 2025 Manchester Half Marathon medal.
What freebies you can get with a Manchester Half finisher’s medal
Now, you’ll be glad to know that most of these are completely gratis, but we thought we’d mention some others that stuck out to us as well.
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1. Free fizz on The Refuge
First up, how about some free fizz? Well, that’s exactly what you can get this Sunday, 12 October, if you’ve just run the 2025 Manchester Half-marathon.
Participants can head to The Refuge inside the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel after the race to claim a well-earned glass of prosecco – available to the first 100 finishers on a first-come, first-served basis.
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2. Complimentary food and drink at Circolo Popolare
Next up, it doesn’t get much better than a free pizza and a cold one; that’s what Circolo Popolare in Gary Neville’s stunning St. Michael’s building are offering.
Just show your medal and enjoy a free margherita pizza plus your choice of either an ice-cold beer or a refreshing virgin cocktail. Prego!
3. You’ve got to be quick to get House of Social’s freebie
Speaking of free drinks, the first 50 runners who use the last of their energy to dash over to House of Social this Sunday and enjoy a pint on the house.
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All you have to do is present your medal when ordering to snap up a beer at absolutely no cost. So we’ll see you there, basically.
Self-explanatory, really. The student favourite that used to be the old Footage pub on Oxford Road is offering up a limited amount of free pints to runners, just make sure you show your medal at the bar.
To be honest, even if it wasn’t free, we’d still probably spend a good few hours here sinking affordable pints because it is absolute VIBES at this gaff.
Last but not least, if you’re looking for a lovely carby reward in the city centre, you’re obviously spoilt for choice, but Italiana Fifty Five are offering a free starter when booking and presenting your 2025 finisher’s medal upon arrival.
Available at all Greater Manchester locations, the Italian eatery formerly known as Cibo always delivers good offers, and race day for the MCR Half is no different.
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🏃♀️ Running the MCR Half this Sunday?
Celebrate your finish line moment at Italiana Fifty-Five, Manchester 🇮🇹
Show us your medal and enjoy a FREE starter with your meal! 🍝✨
Oh yeah, it might not be a freebie per se, but as one of the busiest post-marathon celebration spots anywhere in Greater Manchester, The Wharf is obviously getting involved beforehand as well.
This year, the canalside Castlefield favourite is serving up sausage and bacon butties from 10-11:30am before the usual Sunday roast service kicks in as normal from 12pm. Now we’ve just got to pray for good beer garden weather.
We hope you get to make the most of these freebies and others Manchester Half offers after your race is run, because let’s be honest, running 13.1 miles (21 and a bit kilometres for you metric heads) is a fair bit of effort, so you deserve a treat.
It goes without saying that there’s probably plenty more SWAG to be snapped up in and around the city that we’ve missed, so make sure to let your fellow runners know about them down in the comments.
Finally, if you’re still feeling uncertain about anything to do with the race itself, you can find our full Manchester Half Marathon guide down below.
Featured Images — The Manc Group/press shot (supplied)
Sport
The 2026 World Breaking Finals of the UK B-Boy Championships are coming to Manchester
Danny Jones
It’s official: the UK B-Boy Championships are returning to Manchester this year for the 2026 World Breaking Finals, in what is a special anniversary for the annual tournament.
Celebrating three decades since the inaugural event this summer, the UK B-Boy Champs will once again remind fans why they still remain among the gold standard for competitive breakdancing.
With elite breakers and dance battlers from more than 20 different countries in attendance – and plenty of contestants from each, at that – it’s going to be a real global showcase of talent.
Returning to Manchester once again, we can’t wait to see breakdancing take over the Factory International concourse and wider campus.
Anyone in the world will know that the city also hosted another big European equivalent back in 2022 on behalf of the 2022 World DanceSport Federation, but the UK B-Boy Championships have a passionate following of their own.
This also happens to be the 30th anniversary of the event, so it’s a momentous occasion on many levels.
With live music from not only classic artists and legendary MCs, but artists for the future too, there’ll be plenty of tunes and impressive moves from start to finish.
Coming to Aviva Studios this summer, they’ve billed it quite short and sweet: “The sickest breakers on the planet will battle in a once-in-a-generation celebration of Hip-Hop culture.”
They’re promising “High-stakes rivalries. Gravity-defying moves”, and “Unforgettable performances”, adding, “This isn’t just another battle – this is the Champs legacy in motion.”
Credit: Supplied
The World Breaking Finals get underway in Manchester on 16 August at Aviva Studios, and it’s all set up to be arguably the biggest yet.
General admission went on sale this past Friday, 13 March, with adult tickets starting from only £20 and kids from just a tenner.
As we mentioned before, this isn’t the only big sporting date coming to Manchester this year, with the likes of the British basketball’s annual Cup Finals concluding at AO Arena and another big Super League set to for a grandstand finish at our other big indoor entertainment venue…
Featured Images — Publicity pictures (supplied via Get the Affects Communications)
Sport
The Premier League and EFL should follow La Liga’s lead and bring Retro Matchdays to the UK
Danny Jones
Following the news that La Liga is set to debut a new ‘Retro Matchday’ round, we can’t help but ask the question: why didn’t the Premier League and EFL think of this first?
Well, technically, neither did the Spaniards, but you take our point.
Anyone who follows the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, or even the Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) equivalent here in the UK and mainland Europe, will know that the concept is nothing new – but by and large, it seems to be for the beautiful game.
In case you missed it, in an effort to further capitalise on the increasing trend of vintage and classic football kit fashion/the wider nostalgia culture that only seems to be growing every year, Spain’s top two tiers will soon host their inaugural Retro Matchday gameweek next month, and we want a piece of it.
Set to be hosted from Friday, 10 April, over the usual weekend of football in their premier and second division, and running until the final lot of fixtures on Monday, 13 April (no, thankfully not an April Fool’s), supporters will get to see players step out onto the pitch in some of the country’s most iconic kits.
Depending on who you ask, some would argue that Spain has some of the nicest footy shirts all time, whether that be the national side or clubs themselves.
To be honest, we definitely have a soft spot for a proper European throwback – we’re thinking Borussia Dortmund’s 1995/96 home kit, the Napoli kits of the 80s, that amazing Toyota-sponsored Fila Fiorentina kit at the turn of the millennium – and even some of the best 2000s ones now look so old-school.
In fact, we actually had a taster of these kinds of special matches in the past, including here in 0161 for the likes of the Manchester Derby.
Reminds me of the Manchester derby in 2008 where they played in retro kits due to it coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Munich disaster. Looked absolutely brilliant. pic.twitter.com/TLRjKHThbG
When you also take into account that, besides collectors already creating a whole new craze in filling their cupboards with classic kits, the likes of Nike, Adidas and more now regularly turning to old designs like the ‘Futura’, Total 90′ and various ‘adi Originals’ revivals of late, it’s more the rage than ever.
Birmingham’s recent ‘penguin’ remake, Port Vale’s traditional 150th anniversary one, based on their 1953-54 season jersey, not to mention countless other lifestyle fashion collections inspired by historic releases, you can’t move for the stuff – so why not get them wearing it on the grass?
As mentioned, the likes of local ice hockey outfit Manchester Storm have been taking a leaf out of the NHL’s book for ages now, with the annual ‘Retro Nights’ proving to be some of the most popular dates on the calendar, even selling off original shirts in the stadium itself before, during and after the match.
We genuinely can’t think of a single football lover following a team at any level in the English football pyramid that wouldn’t LOVE this. In fact, plenty of them already go to the ground wearing their dad’s second-hand away strip, which has turned out to be a modern cult favourite among the next generation.
These are the kinds of ideas we can see fans actually getting behind; you can find out more HERE. Would you like to see a retro Premier League and/or EFL match day featuring your favourite kits from down the years?
Danny Jones -
10th October 2025 
