AS WE get ready to see out the ‘noughties’, Simon Donohue gives his A-Z guide to a decade which began with unrealised fears of digital meltdown and ended with the reality of recession and uncertainty ...

THE noughties for me began dressed as Gandhi and celebrating the great leap into the unknown at a fancy dress bash. We partied, quite literally, like it was 1999, insulated from thoughts of what would happen if the Millennium Bug lived up to its ominous reputation. Airliners might crash out of the sky, radioactive liquid might breach the concrete shells of nuclear power stations. Worse still, pocket calculators might stop working.

But they didn’t.

So that was the beginning of the noughties – a decade which is now at an end. For a while, we surfed the sense of optimism generated by headlines telling us that the value of our homes was growing exponentially.

Now what lies ahead is much more uncertain than anything the Millennium Bug threatened.

We are at war, the recession is worse than any of us expected and as tax-payers at least, we face a huge overdraft. A general election is imminent and alongside continuing concerns about global terrorism which have tainted the decade, the threat posed by climate change now seems increasingly real. So how to sum it all up? How about starting with...

A is for Afflecks: Nobody realised at the end of the nineties that Tib Street’s bohemian emporium stood in the middle of an area soon to be known as the Northern Quarter. Afflecks now has a new lease of life at the heart of what has emerged as Greater Manchester’s coolest district.

B is for Beckham: Manchester lost some of its shimmer when David Beckham walked away from Old Trafford in 2003. Together with wife Victoria, the Beckhams brought a bit of Hollywood buzz to town. It all ended when Sir Alex Ferguson decided the celeb had literally become too big for his boots.

C is for Commonwealth Games: Having failed in its bid to host the Olympics, Manchester made sure the 2002 Commonwealth Games would be a winning event. In total, 3,679 competitors from 72 countries participated. The legacy of the games is clear to see. What was once a run-down district of Beswick is now home to the magnificent City Of Manchester Stadium, National Squash Centre and National Cycling Centre.

D is for dearly departed: In Tony Wilson and Bernard Manning, Greater Manchester lost two of its most prominent personalities. It was also the decade in which we bid farewell to the legend that was George Best, actor John Thaw, steeplejack Fred Dibnah, and marked the passing of Myra Hindley, whose legacy will haunt Greater Manchester for generations. Perhaps the most startling death during the decade, however, was that of Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Michael Todd, who succumbed to the cold on Mount Snowdon.

E is for Energy: This was the decade in which Britain lost its status as a self-sufficient energy island and began to import more gas than it draws from the North Sea. Thoughts turned to ways of warming our homes and powering cars using renewable sources, as wind farms sprung up. Manchester has now been named as a low carbon city.

F is for football: Manchester United dominated the Premier League with six table-topping years in the noughties and one European Cup. But the biggest story in soccer is now unfolding at Manchester City. Who’d have thought that the Blues would end the decade as the world’s richest club – Sheikh Mansour spending £200m on the club and then flexing his financial muscle to buy some of the world’s best players. United also changed hands, with American Malcolm Glazer’s takeover angering some Reds so much that they launched breakaway side FC United of Manchester.

G is for Google: The ubiquitous search engine was just one of many at the start of century – now it accounts for 90 per cent of all internet searches. Other new names include Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

H is for Harry: The best-selling book of the decade on Amazon was Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows.

I is for iPod: Launched in October 2001, the iPod was the gadget of the noughties, with sales topping 220m. It spawned legions of imitators, but isolated us all that little bit further from our fellow man.

J is for Jacko: If the death of Princess Diana defined the nineties, Michael Jackson’s passing did the same for the noughties. Aged just 50 and on the brink of what could have been the biggest pop comeback ever, Jacko died in June with powerful prescription drugs in his system.

K is for Kirsty: Kirsty Howard was given six weeks’ to live in February 1999 but went on to become the angelic face of the successful £5m appeal to safeguard the future of Francis House hospice.

L is for ‘lingo’: Before the noughties, there were no WAGs, chavs, hoodies, bling, sudoku, social networking.

M is for MediaCity: As much a story of the next decade as the last, the noughties saw the city of Salford begin to steal some of its near neighbour’s glory by winning the battle to provide a new northern home for five BBC departments.

N is for naughties: The decade which lived up to its reputation with TV phone-in scandals, ‘Sachsgate’ and revelations of outrageous expenses claims from politicians.

O is for Orange: Ten years ago, mobile phones were held by the few. Now they’re the most competitive market on the high street and companies like Orange, Vodafone and 02 take money from pretty much all of us.

P is for people power: The congestion charge was billed as a bit of bad tasting medicine that would do us all good. The spectre of paying to drive was ended with a referendum in which voters rejected the scheme by a majority of almost four to one.

Q is for queuing: The noughties was the decade in which we queued to see dentists due to a shortage of places in NHS dental practices and we queued to take our money out of beleaguered banks and building societies.

R is for recession: The decade started and ended in the financial doldrums – with a firm filling of unbridled optimism sandwiched in the middle. There were promises that the recession was coming to an end, but we’re still waiting.

S is for skyscrapers: Tower cranes became the barometers of boom and bust in noughties’ Manchester – punctuating the horizon as skyscrapers like the Beetham Tower were thrown into the sky before all but disappearing as finance and confidence ran out. The clearest sign that the end had come was the scrapping of a scheme in Salford where twin skyscrapers would have rivalled the 550ft high Beetham Tower.

T is for terror: The twin towers atrocity of September 11, 2001 was the single most significant news event of the decade. Among the repercussions was the death of DC Stephen Oake, killed during a terror raid at a house in Crumpsall in 2003. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq followed. Five soldiers from Greater Manchester have been killed on active service in Afghanistan.

U is for University: The University of Manchester was formed in 2004 through the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST, to create a powerful new force in education. It was the next stage in a story which has made Greater Manchester’s universities some of the most popular in Britain.

V is for Velodrome: Who'd have thought cycling would become the sexy sport of the noughties? The Manchester Velodrome was largely responsible, helping to turn Chris Hoy into a triple gold medal winning Sir, and tuning the talents of Victoria Pendelton and Bradley Wiggins.

W is for WAG: The emergence of the Wives And Girlfriends culminated in a new cult of consumerism as young women attempted to emulate the designer-heeled spending habits of footballers’ better halves. Handbags worth thousands of pounds and carried around Manchester by the likes of Coleen McLoughlin (later Rooney) became must-haves.

X is for X Factor: The decade demonstrated the ubiquitous power of pop through the TV talent contest and Greater Manchester was not immune. Bury’s Suzanne's Shaw was among the winners of the very first Pop Idol in 2001. Clayton’s Shayne Ward won the second series of X Factor in 2005, going on to hit Christmas No1 with That’s My Goal.

Y is for Y2K: Another name for the Millennium Bug, which threatened to end civilisation as we knew it... but didn’t.

Z is for Z-list: This was the decade when everybody wanted to be famous and Z-list “star” after Z-list “star” was chewed up by showbiz and spat out into the gutter instead.

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