Football rivalries between Manchester musicians are usually put aside.

"Ian Brown likes us and asked us to play at the Etihad supporting the Stone Roses," Ogden says. "That was brilliant, playing at City. We also saw Johnny Marr in the Arndale (a central Manchester shopping centre) and he said he likes us. Liam Fray from the Courteeners really helped us to get the exposure you need as a new band too. We're trying to help Cabbage (an up-and-coming band from Mossley near Manchester)."

"There's an unspoken rivalry between bands—but in a good way," Fray says. "You hope that they do well, but that you do a little bit better!"

"One thing I like about Manchester is that the older bands promote younger ones," Murray explains. "You don't get that in other cities. They genuinely want to help everyone out."

Relations between Red and Blue aren't always quite so diplomatic. "I was in the Hacienda basement talking to the late New Order manager Rob Gretton, a huge Blue," recalls Gary Whelan, a United fan in the Happy Mondays. "The discussion became heated and ended up with us both on our knees. I had him in a semi-playful headlock when Tony Wilson came in with a writer from the L.A. Times.

"The writer had come to interview us and he was truly shocked at what he saw. Rob and I looked up from our kneeling positions, said 'hello' then resumed our wrestling match and trading insults. Tony explained, 'It's just football rivalry and you Yanks will never understand, darling.' He then launched into a rant about how United were the working man's team because immigrants saw Old Trafford as they approached Salford docks on the Manchester Ship Canal.

"The writer was still taken aback, but I explained that I was doing all I could to fight working-class oppression at the hands of our bourgeois, blue-blooded, capitalist oppressors. Tony laughed and said, 'Indeed, you see it's politics and not football...and I haven't even started on the religion.'"

Manchester United fans pay tribute to Ryan Giggs, and Joy Division, with this banner at Old Trafford. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

The now-legendary Wilson was a central figure in Mancunian culture until his untimely death in 2007, at 57, from cancer. His Manchester-based independent label, Factory Records, started in 1978 and ran until 1992. One of its first successes was releasing Joy Division's magisterial, angst-laden "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (later adapted by United fans to "Giggs Will Tear You Apart").

As a United fan and season ticket holder who subscribed to the United We Stand fanzine, Wilson was willing to offer his views on Manchester's mentality to the fanzine in 1998. "The best thing is that no one can define or explain and it's to do with a hospitality to life, openness to life," he said. "We're a great immigrant city, the immigrant city of Europe, and it boils back to the question: Why has Manchester consistently produced quality music bands for so long?

"It's because Manchester kids have the best record collections, and that makes them open to new ideas and influences. The students come here and many of them stay. Outsiders quickly become insiders, and maybe the same theory is true with being a Manchester United fan."

Wilson saw music and football as the city's twin forms of escapism.

"Football and music have always been two great ways out for kids. That feeling you got when you walked into the Hacienda in the summer of '89 was like I used to get when I walked into Old Trafford. It just hit you."

The Hacienda, a former motorboat showroom, opened in 1982 and closed in 1997. By then it was losing money and plagued by protection rackets—criminal groups extorting money to the detriment of Manchester's nighttime economy. Peter Hook, a United fan and Salford lad, even wrote a book called How Not to Run a Club.

The Hac found its greatest success in playing house music from Chicago and Detroit. Young United footballers Nicky Butt and Ryan Giggs loved Manchester's nightlife—in moderation, of course. Giggs, like Wayne Rooney, is reportedly a great dancer.

"Me and Ryan used to go to the Boardwalk and the Hacienda a lot," Butt says. "The Boardwalk was the greatest place in the world, the best club I've ever been to because the music was so good."

Former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher in animated form watching his beloved Manchester City take on Tottenham at White Hart Lane, in 2009. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Oasis rehearsed daily at the Boardwalk before releasing Definitely Maybe, and it became renowned as one of the finest clubs in Manchester. Butt and Giggs, Manchester boys through and through, wanted to be, and were allowed to be, part of the vibe.

"We were never into drugs, but we loved the music," Butt says. "We were young lads who played for United, our local team. We were the champions of England, and we'd go out in our own city at night. People would say 'well done' and then leave you alone—unlike the young lads now who get smothered. We were looked after, and the bouncers would keep an eye on us. How could life be any better?"

The Courteeners formed in 2006 and are still going strong. Their tunes are regularly on the Old Trafford playlist, and one, "Not Nineteen Forever," became the club's anthem as United surged to a record 20th league title in 2013.

"That was such a buzz," he says. "I'd get goosebumps. There was a flag at Old Trafford, and I used to take a picture of it all the time."

Don't get the idea that Manchester's music scene is stuck in its '90s "Madchester" past. "It's thriving," says Ogden. "People are watching gigs on a Tuesday or a Thursday. There are lots of venues in Manchester, so they exist because there's a demand."

Paul Fassam is a band manager who travelled home and away with United, watching them play on every continent except Australasia. Now he focuses more on music. "For both signed and unsigned bands, there are great underground places for bands in Manchester, and there's a buzz about," he says.

Many of the concertgoers in Manchester are regular matchgoers at Old Trafford or the Etihad.

"You'll get people who go to the game and then come to a gig after," explains Fassam. "The Courteeners have a huge following from United fans. I've been with them in places like Blackpool and heard, 'United! United!'

"PR people say don't push the Manchester thing too much," Murray points out. "They'll say, 'The media don't like it. Some are sniffy about it.' I say, 'What the f--k are you on about?' We're from the city with two of the biggest clubs in the world and the two most famous managers.

"The snobbery isn't usually from Londoners, but the type of people who move to (the hipster enclaves in) east London and affect a cockney accent," Murray says, warming to his theme. "Some kid from Norwich who reinvents himself is the type to be snobby against Manchester music."