{"id":2175251,"date":"2026-07-06T00:20:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T23:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/northwest\/?p=2175251"},"modified":"2026-07-07T07:02:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T06:02:58","slug":"so-you-think-you-know-who-first-said-this-is-manchester-we-do-things-differently-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/northwest\/news\/2175251-so-you-think-you-know-who-first-said-this-is-manchester-we-do-things-differently-here","title":{"rendered":"So you think you know who first said – ‘This is Manchester, we do things differently here’"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Andy Burnham’s very first manifesto, when he sought to be Mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017, was this quote, proudly on the very first page – “This is Manchester, we do things differently here,” Anthony H Wilson.<\/p>\n

Trust me, he never said it.<\/p>\n

In a vast archive of Wilson quotes there is no recorded evidence of him saying it, because he didn’t.<\/p>\n

It has become this slightly ridiculous marketing slogan, plastered on hotel reception walls, property marketing brochures, billposters, a health strategy, Andy Burnham’s manifesto, and even on the chair (above) that his colleagues presented the departing Mayor with after he won the Makerfield by-election.<\/p>\n

Burnham even referred to it in his big speech at the People’s History Museum, though blissfully he didn’t walk into the trap of another story about Tony and the Hacienda.<\/p>\n

In fact, subtly, and more recently, Tony’s authorship has slightly slipped from the hordings. It has become a phrase adopted and utilised as a symbol of Manchester exceptionalism more widely.<\/p>\n

Let me tell you who did say it.<\/p>\n

\"\"Steve Coogan said it, playing “Tony” in Michael Winterbottom’s 2002 film 24 Hour Party People<\/i> about the Manchester music scene. In a script entirely written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, a brilliant writer, a national treasure, and, for more irony, a proud Scouser, who very much knew what he was doing.<\/p>\n

The whole film contains a mesh of literary references, something Tony could have done, but didn’t. Not those lines anyway.<\/p>\n

24 years old this year, the film has aged remarkably well and it is still going to be worth grabbing a ticket for the anniversary screening at the opening of the Beyond The Music festival this October.<\/p>\n

I love it’s warmth, I love the version of Tony that Coogan carries off for public consumption, even though it’s a little bit Alan Partridge too.<\/p>\n

Tony Wilson actually liked it. Others didn’t; I remember Steve Morris of New Order describing it on BBC Newsnight, on the night Tony died in 2007, as ‘Carry On Factory Records’.<\/p>\n

It took a few liberties with the truth, but it told a story of a time and a place very effectively. You had the character of Tony also comparing Sean Ryder of the Happy Mondays to WB Yeats, which also never happened, but worked in the context of the film.<\/p>\n

Here are the roots of that quote though.<\/p>\n

Half way through the film, in a delicious use of the theatrical technique of ‘breaking the fourth wall’ “Tony” reflects on the transition from one musical era to another, sort of quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon<\/em> (the interpretation of which is also subject to some debate, by the way): “Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. This is Manchester, we do things differently here. This is the second act.”<\/p>\n

The supposed Manchester quote is the reply, which itself is derived from \u2018The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there,\u2019 the first line of L. P. Hartley\u2019s The Go Between<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Frank Cottrell Boyce (left) with Guy Garvey<\/p><\/div>\n

I asked the writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce whether it was at least based on things Tony Wilson “might have said”.<\/p>\n

“I totally made it up, me by the way, not Steve Coogan.”<\/p>\n

Frank goes on to elaborate: “Tony had zero interest in Fitzgerald, or WB Yeats.<\/p>\n

“He preferred to quote Adorno, Deleuze and in his latter days, Habermas.”<\/p>\n

That however, might have proved a bit of a stretch for a film about a music scene, but that line – this is Manchester, we do things differently here – worked perfectly, it still does.<\/p>\n

Acclaimed author Andy Spinoza has pointed out to me that in the 2002 \u2018novelisation\u2019 of the screenplay by Tony Wilson, based on Frank’s original script, the quote appears on p29 in his reported dialogue from 1977 with Lord Bernstein over the Sex Pistols appearing on Granada TV.<\/p>\n

“The BBC have banned them, sir, town councils have banned them, bloody British Rail have banned them, sir. This is Manchester, I believe we do things differently here,” Wilson says.<\/p>\n

In his excellent book Manchester Unspun<\/em> Spinoza goes with the legend that Wilson used it \u2013 even if it was a false memory or false claim \u2013 and here\u2019s why\u2026<\/p>\n

“While Frank Cottrell-Boyce most almost 100% penned the original line, Wilson clearly put his name to the phrase.<\/p>\n

“And so, in the same way that a speech writer might pen a think piece for a PM which appears in print, Wilson\u2019s name is on that line, part of a published text the copyright of which is clearly credited to him.<\/p>\n

“The book reads just like him \u2013 with his pared down TV script style and granular music detail – and so there is no evidence it is Frank\u2019s work or that of a ghostwriter.<\/p>\n

“In addition, as we know, he was a master magpie, and so who is to say that he never repeated that line after 2002 and before his death?”<\/p>\n

Does any of this matter? No, probably not. Afterall, didn’t Tony Wilson also say – ‘faced with the choice between the truth and the legend, always print the legend?’ Except, he didn’t originally say that either, but it was definitely the kind of thing he used to say a lot. That quote comes from ‘This is the West, Sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,’ which is from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance<\/i>.<\/p>\n

As if to emphasise that point, the legend didn’t waste any time. Quotes from the film, incorrectly attributed to Tony, first appeared at his funeral and were beamed on to a wall at the wake. It’s a fitting allegory, because he’s become one of these figures who people project their own version of an ideal reality onto.<\/p>\n

If you’re still paying attention, here’s what Frank Cottrell-Boyce also says about Tony in David Nolan’s candid and reflective biography of Wilson, You’re Entitled to An Opinion<\/a><\/i>: “He was a good device for driving a movie forward.\u00a0 You have this idea when you’re growing up that musicians are rock ‘n’ roll and suits are boring. Tony was massively more interesting than any musicians he worked with. I know he worked with geniuses. I’m sure Ian Curtis was an amazingly charismatic person and Shaun Ryder as well, but utterly boring compared to Tony. Musicians become fossilised; Tony was always moving forward. He was alive in a way most musicians aren’t. And more romantic. He cared less about money than they did.\u00a0 He was incredibly generous. He was like a perverse St Francis, he gave everything away. He was psychotically generous.”<\/p>\n

Manchester, the psychotically generous city probably wouldn’t have stood the test of time.<\/p>\n

My favourite Tony Wilson quote is this: “‘In the North West it rains and rains. And yet we managed to produce the best music, the Industrial Revolution, the trade union movement, the Communist Manifesto and even the goddam computer.\u00a0Down South, where the Sun never sets, you took all our money and what did you produce? Chas and f*cking Dave.”<\/span><\/p>\n

By the way, I haven’t said any of this in order to trash Tony’s reputation, or Andy Burnham’s. In fact, precisely the opposite. Wilson would have loved Manchesterism, the meshing of a city’s identity with an idelology, and one linked so closely to pop culture.<\/p>\n

You can see why this icon so appeals to a storyteller like Burnham, he did an English degree afterall. I’ve observed him for the last ten years at close quarters. His stories, his cultural references, draw from a broad hinterland. Some land, others don’t.<\/p>\n

There’s nothing wrong with second acts either, or even third acts, we’re in the interval between them as we speak, are we not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clue, it wasn’t Tony Wilson – so who really first came up with the phrase that’s become a governing principle?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264565,"featured_media":2175253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137137,120782,136545,120783],"coauthors":[116163],"class_list":["post-2175251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-economy","category-local-government","category-media","tag-featured-story","tag-greater-manchester","tag-northwest","tag-top-story"],"yoast_head":"\nSo you think you know who first said - 'This is Manchester, we do things differently here'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Clue, it wasn't Tony Wilson - so who really first came up with the phrase that's become a governing principle?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/northwest\/news\/2175251-so-you-think-you-know-who-first-said-this-is-manchester-we-do-things-differently-here\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"So you think you know who first said - 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