Manchester Town Hall turned a very United shade of red to mark Monday night's derby - thanks a to a competition on Twitter.

Virgin Media asked users of the social networking site to Tweet their support for either United or City to decide which colour to turn the town hall, and 84pc said 'red'.

More 20,000 messages of support were sent for one of the two teams, with 17,555 backing United and just 3,344 supporting City.

The Town Hall in Albert Square was lit up in proportion to these numbers – with the small blue portion dwarfed by the red.

Notable tweeters included Reds Melanie Sykes and former keeper Peter Scheichel, Blues legend Franny Lee and City-supporting Daybreak presenter John Stapleton.

And there were contributions from as far afield as South Africa, India, USA, Australia, Venezuela and New Zealand.

Ryan Adolpho, manager at Virgin's branch in the Arndale Centre, said: “It looks like United fans have scored the first goal by winning our competition but City still have plenty of time to bag the bragging rights in the real match.

"We wish both teams the best of luck and will be glued to the game on to find out who will take the three points.”