Sport

John Cena keeps following random people on Twitter and Lancashire Cricket Club had the best response of all

Danny Jones Danny Jones - 25th January 2023

If you told us that we’d one day be writing about professional wrestler-turned-actor John Cena and Lancashire Cricket Club in the same sentence, we’d probably have given you a funny look.

However, as weird a combo as it may sound, that day has come.

You’d be forgiven for not knowing this but it turns out John Cena follows A LOT of people on social media and not exactly people you’d expect him to be following.

We’re talking everyone from random fans, comedian-actor Danny Wallace, various regional journalists home and abroad; even our lovely editor — though that makes much more sense, we admit (great content, boss, please don’t sack me).

Honestly, you only have to type in ‘John Cena followed me’ on Twitter to pull up literally thousands of results. This was one posted literally minutes before we started writing this:

As it turns out, Cena follows some over 533, 700 different people on Twitter alone and we seriously can’t find much of a thread that links any of them, but that doesn’t make any it less fun to dive into.

With that in mind, it recently came to light that the 45-year-old WWE legend and Suicide Squad star just so happens to follow Lancashire Cricket Club. Because why not?

Playing just down the road at Old Trafford Cricket Ground, Lancashire Cricket might sound like a far cry away from the Hollywood sound stages and giant entertainment arenas where he made his name, but the familiar face has actually played a bit of cricket in his time.

Better still, thanks to the social media guys over at the Manchester-based cricket club and their absolutely impeccable response to spotting a certain Cena in their likes, he’s been put in Lancs colours. Turns out you can see him after all:

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Somebody give that social admin a pay rise, right now.

Not so long ago, Cena did address the question as to why he follows so many people and the answer was actually quite a simple but wholesome one.

“It’s tough to follow the timelines because of how many people I follow. But I am trying to learn more about the world.”, he told ESPN‘s ‘Pardon My Take’ podcast, confessing that he even went down “a rabbit hole following EDM dance culture and non-fungible tokens and also Twitch streamers”.

He said that part of the reason is that he simply knows “nothing about any of these avenues of the world” and gets a kick out of people following him and vice versa, adding: “I am learning a little bit about each and every person as I go.” Well that’s just nice, isn’t it?

Guess we have a new favourite wrestler. Give us a follow while you’re at it, John.

For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester, subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE.

Featured Image — Wikimedia Commons/Lancashire Cricket Club (via Twitter)

Sport

Gymshark is opening its first standalone northern store in Manchester this weekend

Emily Sergeant Emily Sergeant Outside the new Gymshark store

A huge new Gymshark store is opening in Manchester tomorrow, and it’s the brand’s first standalone store in the North.

The global sportswear and fitness brand will be setting up shop at the Trafford Centre and taking over a large 7,500 ft space on Upper Peel Avenue with all of its iconic Gymshark ranges, including the massively ‘Vital’ and ‘Power’ collections, as well as some exciting new exclusives for Gymshark Trafford Centre.

The store itself is said to have Gymshark’s ‘increasingly trademark’ look and feel throughout it, including mannequins that are created from the image of real people in the community, different destinations for its hero products, and spacious changing rooms with bespoke lighting.

Unfamiliar with Gymshark? Since it was founded by Ben Francis from his garage in 2012, the brand has gone on to become one of the UK’s greatest business success stories of the 21st century – with more than 20 million people across 200 countries now counting themselves as members of the Gymshark community.

Gymshark is opening its first standalone northern store in Manchester this weekend / Credit: Supplied

The new Trafford Centre will be Gymshark’s first standalone store in the UK outside of London, and follows recent openings in Dubai and Amsterdam, as well as coming ahead of the opening of Gymshark’s first flagship store in the US later this year.

Most importantly, it builds on the brand’s long association with Manchester, as one of the first-ever Gymshark meet-ups was in the city, as well as its first ‘Lift’ event post-COVID.

Gymshark also credits the public’s reception to its space inside Selfridges at the Trafford Centre as one of the driving forces behind its choice to open a permanent store within the shopping centre, calling it ‘nothing short of spectacular’ and adding that the new opening genuinely solidifies Manchester’s role as a ‘big brother’ to a Brummie brand.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Gymshark’s first Northern store to Trafford Centre this weekend, joining our growing athleisure and sportswear offering at the centre,” commented Simon Layton, who is the Centre Director at Trafford Centre.

“We have no doubt that Gymshark will prove immensely popular and can’t wait to welcome them on opening day.”

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Gymshark is opening at the Trafford Centre tomorrow (Saturday 12 July) with a grand ribbon cutting at 10am, followed by goody bags, refreshments, and merch being handed out for those waiting in line.

There’ll also be different fitness challenges to take part in too, in true Gymshark spirit.

Featured Image – Trafford Centre

Sport

Explaining the ‘Poznań’ and why Oasis fans are doing it at their Live ’25 reunion tour gigs

Danny Jones Danny Jones

The sun is shining, Britpop is back on top and, more importantly, Oasis are BACK – plus, they’ve got thousands of people that aren’t even Manchester City fans doing the Poznań. Here’s why.

Before you jump down our throats, yes, we’re fully aware of what the popular Man City supporter celebration is (including the fact that it’s nicked); however, we have seen plenty of people confused over what it’s all about.

Including a few in our office who couldn’t give a monkey’s about football, which is fair enough.

So, if like lots of other non-footy-obsessed Oasis fans, you’ve also been wondering A) what the Poznań is and B) why people on the Live ’25 reunion tour have been doing it, here’s a brief explanation.

What is the Poznań celebration?

For starters, if you’ve been keeping off social media completely to avoid any spoilers whatsoever, first of all, well done, your willpower is much stronger than ours.

Secondly, if you’ve never seen it before at all, here’s what it looks like:

It came out of Poland, hailing from the place of the same name and popularised by Ekstraklasa (a.k.a. the Polish first division) football team, Lech Poznań, who have been doing it since the 1960s.

As you can see, the group – and in this case, stadium-wide celebration – sees supporters turning their backs on the pitch/the centre of the arena and linking by wrapping arms around each other’s shoulders and jumping up and down in one, massive, continuous wave.

It is quite a striking visual, no question about that.

Why are Oasis fans doing it?

Come on, you must have put two and two together by now.

Manchester City fans adopted this now iconic celebration more than a decade and a half ago, and have been doing it regularly during big games, big scorelines, and big trophy wins, of which there have been a lot since then.

In fact, aside from the Burnage boys being massive Blues, Liam Gallagher himself actually instructed the Cardiff crowds on nights one and two.

It’s actually said to originate from Turkey or Greece, where it is also fairly commonplace, being simply referred to as ‘la Grecque’.

They’ve even used some pretty biblical official photography from the opening weekend of the reunion tour as the cover art for a live recording re-released of ‘Slide Away’.

It might be the coolest album artwork we’ve seen in a while, to be honest.

The history of the Poznań and its connection to Man City

Be it at Wembley for a cup final or at the Etihad Stadium, where the majority of fans saw the supporter stunt for the first time, it’s become arguably even more synonymous with City than its creators.

It was 2010, and the blue half of Manchester was hosting Lech Poznań in the group stage of the Europa League, but despite a 3-1 victory on the grass itself, more eyes were fixed on the stands themselves.

An army of 6,000 loyal Lech Poznań fans travelled for the game and had the ground quite physically bouncing with a shade of slightly darker blue, so when Emmanuel Adebayor wrapped up a hat-trick, the home support decided to turn the jubilation on their opponents and do it themselves.

It was all in good spirit, of course, but it went down a pretty instant hit with City fans and has only grown more prevalent and regular ever since.

Perhaps one of the funniest sights in recent years is Noel Gallagher being too hungover to join in, which also led to one of the coldest-looking images of the songwriter ever, and one that was quickly dubbed a perfect album cover for the next High Flying Birds album or, who knows, maybe another Oasis record?…

Ok, this is still up there in the cover art competition too.

So, yeah: that’s pretty much the long and short of it, we just thought it would help if we quickly explained the Poznań to anyone wondering why Oasis fans have been doing it.

Basically, if it was that big over in Wales, don’t be surprised if you see a literal sea of people flood Heaton Park before turning their backs to the stage, which seems to be triggered once Liam introduces ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol.’ It’ll be interesting to see if Man United fans get involved.

And finally, just imagine how much more epic this is going to be back home in Manchester as we brace for quite possibly the biggest headline gig the region has ever seen…

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Featured Images — TNT Sports (screenshot)/Oasis (via X)

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