Perhaps that’s what the club got wrong at the end of the great Best–Law–Charlton era, and when Sir Matt Busby moved on. Too much looking back. The challenge for the club will be to prove that we aren’t harking back to the Ferguson era.
United are in safe hands for a while yet. I can see the emergence of another brilliant team. There’s great youthful talent in Rafael and Fabio da Silva, Chris Smalling and Chicharito. The signing of Phil Jones is another statement of intent – he’s already got the look of a future United and England captain. Watching him play for England Under 21s in the summer, he looked an absolute steal for £16.5 million.
I can feel the manager making the bold changes necessary to take us on again. There’s a good blend of experience and youth, and new talent coming in with Jones, Ashley Young and David de Gea. It’s not as if we are far off.
I know we lost the 2011 Champions League final at Wembley, and it looked to the world as if we’d been outclassed, but I think then you were seeing Barcelona at the absolute peak of their powers. This was a great team, one of the very best, at the pinnacle. But I’ve been around football long enough to know that you cannot possibly sustain that level of excellence. Xavi, Messi and Iniesta were all on top form, but they can’t go on for ever. Something has to give. A major player starts to get older, the manager might leave, and then the wheel of fortune turns again.
I’m not taking anything away from Barcelona. They gave us a lesson at Wembley. If I hadn’t felt so bad for our lads, I’d have enjoyed watching their skills. But I am a hundred per cent confident that the gap will get smaller. I can see the evolution of another top United team and I don’t believe that Barcelona will retain their Champions League title. You heard it here first: Real Madrid or United will be champions in 2012. Our boss is ready to go again.
Definitely the End
THE END CAME for me on New Year’s Day, 2011 – and it came on a toilet at the Hawthorns. It wasn’t the way I’d have chosen to finish, but I knew for certain that this was my last game.
After eighteen years at Manchester United, after 602 first-team appearances, I was in the middle of playing for my team for the last time. And I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
In the dressing room, the manager was barking instructions about how we were going to improve on a dire first-half performance against West Brom. But I just wanted to get home, to disappear. In the sanctuary of the toilet, my mind was elsewhere.
I’d been really poor in the first half but that hadn’t stopped the fans singing my name. ‘Gary Neville is a Red, is a Red …’ For the first time in my life I’d been embarrassed to hear it.
Don’t sing that. I don’t deserve it. Maybe in the past, but not today
.
I was beating myself up even as the game was going on around me.
What am I doing out here? How soon will this be over?
My mind was racing at a thousand miles an hour, full of doubts and vulnerabilities.
This wasn’t like me at all. I was normally full of drive and commitment and focus. Normally I’d be the one barking instructions, telling others to concentrate. I’d prepared for every game in my life knowing that however much my opponent wanted it, I wanted it more. But now all I could think was ‘please get me out of here without making a terrible mistake’.
I’d known I wasn’t right from the moment the manager pulled me on the Thursday after training to tell me I was playing. He wanted my experience, he said. We’d been panicking a bit at the back, let in a sloppy late goal at Birmingham City a few days earlier. But this would be my first start for more than two months. I’d not played since the trip to Stoke City the previous October when I’d not exactly covered myself in glory. We’d won, but I should have been sent off for a scything tackle that was several minutes late.
I’d made four appearances in four months and never felt properly fit. It had been a hard struggle with injury ever since my ankle went in 2007. I’d been ready to bow out in the spring of 2010 so it caught me by surprise when the boss asked me to stay on for another year. I had my doubts, but I couldn’t turn down the invitation. Who wants to walk away from the job of your dreams?
I signed on happily for another season, but the first day back in pre-season I pulled my calf. Then I pulled my groin, and then my ankle went again in the game at Stoke. I was caught in a nasty Catch-22: I needed matches to regain my sharpness, but with Rafael starting to blossom as my long-term successor I knew the manager couldn’t give me a run of games.
With my obsessive attention to detailed preparation – the right number of leg weights, sprints, stretches – I knew I wasn’t ready. Others might get away with cutting corners but, right through my career, if I wasn’t in the right condition, I was half the player.
When I saw Scholesy in the canteen after I’d spoken to the manager, I told him my fears. ‘This is going to be messy,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘You don’t mean Lionel.’
Typical Scholesy, ready to take the mickey.
So now, at half-time against West Brom, I was staring at the toilet door and all my worst fears were coming true. I was making Jerome Thomas look like Ronaldo. It would have been even worse if the referee had spotted my trip on Graham Dorrans in the box. I deserved a red card; if justice had been done, my career would have finished there and then with a lonely, embarrassed walk to the dressing room. I’d got off lightly, but I wasn’t going to avoid the wrath of the manager at half-time. I walked into a predictable, and deserved, blast for poor positioning.
Perhaps sensing my troubles, Rio stuck up for me, offering to take the blame for one of West Brom’s chances. It was good of him to put his hand up because I didn’t have the stomach to argue back at the manager. All I wanted to do was get through the second half and get home.
Out of the toilet I came and, bizarrely, I enjoyed my twenty-five minutes after half-time. I felt a renewed sense of calm, probably from knowing it would soon be over. My mind was back on the job though my legs were still pleading for a rest.
I went for an attacking run, and it seemed to take all day to get back in position. There was no chance of me lasting until the final whistle, and when the ball ran out of play near the bench I saw Mick Phelan wander over for a word.
‘You’re fucked, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
Now the end was only seconds away.
I saw Rafael warming up, and soon the board was out – a big number two, up in lights. Off I went for the last time. I knew it was over.
Gary Neville, the former Manchester United defender.
I don’t know if anyone else on the bench knew this was the end for me. If they did, they weren’t saying. There were no reassuring pats on the back or words of comfort, and I wasn’t expecting any. There was a match still to be won, so I grabbed my coat, pulled the hood over my head for a moment of quiet reflection, and then watched to see if we could turn a scrappy draw into a victory.
We were playing really poorly, but I knew we were going to win. I’d have bet my life on it. This team has the spirit – the Manchester United spirit – I’d first detected as a teenage apprentice. It is the need to win, the hunger for it, and the ability to find a way.
This is the DNA of the club established by the boss: play great football if you can, and if not, dig deep within yourself and win with guts and heart and determination. And that’s exactly what the lads did at West Brom, Chicharito popping up with the winner from a corner. It was a horrible performance. But we found a way.
‘Only Manchester United could have won playing that badly,’ I said to the manager the next day when I went into his office to tell him I was retiring. That unquenchable fire is the greatest quality at United, but, as I explained to the boss, you also have to know when to quit.
I knew this was my time to go. I’d had a sleepless night fretting over it. I woke up Emma in the middle of the night with my tossing and turning.
‘What do you think I should do?’
‘Why are you asking me?’ she laughed. ‘You’ll do what you want anyway.’
I lay in bed going over and over it, asking myself again and again if that was it. What if I went away on a training camp? What if I got fit? What if the manager suddenly needed me for the run-in? My brain was still racing when I went in at 7.30 that Sunday morning to see the manager and tell him I was bowing out. I sat in my car for an hour in the car park, not realising the manager was already in his office – first in, as ever.
It wasn’t an easy decision to make but, deep down, I knew one hundred per cent it was the right one.
The boss tried to talk me round – ‘Typical Neville, overreacting, getting emotional.’ He told me to go for a break, which I did, to Dubai with my family. It must have been the only week in history when it rained there every day.
I had plenty of time to sit and ponder my options, but I knew I was finished. I didn’t want to be a liability to my team. I felt like I could cost us points, maybe even the title, if I carried on playing.
Briefly I thought of whether I could hang on for ten appearances. Then I might finish with another championship medal, and what a sweet one it would be given that we’d be passing Liverpool’s tally of eighteen titles. But it was a fleeting thought. My time had been and gone. United could win the championship without me. I was ready to accept it gracefully and count my blessings.
I’m the type who makes a decision and wants to get everything sorted immediately. I hate things dragging on for weeks. So although we’d talked about waiting until the end of the season to make a decision, I wanted it out. I didn’t want to live a lie. So on 2 February, the club announced that I was retiring with immediate effect.
You read about some sportsmen really struggling to face up to the end of their playing careers. Sport is all they’ve known and they can’t face life without it. But there hasn’t been a moment of panic for me.
The thought of never playing for United again was bound to feel like a massive wrench but I’d had plenty of time to prepare for it with the injuries I’d had. And it was made easier by knowing I had plenty to get on with. I knew I wouldn’t be rattling around the house with nothing to do, getting depressed.
So, what next? It won’t be management, not any time soon. I need plenty of convincing that my future lies in the dug-out. I’ve done my badges up to Uefa ‘A’ level and some coaching with junior United teams but I face the same dilemma that confronts all of us who have played at the top level for many years: can I find the motivation to work obsessively which is necessary to be a good manager?
First I need a break. I’ve been on the same ship with the same routine for a quarter of a century and I need time off. I’ve been controlled. I’ve been told where to be, what to do, when to do it. I’ve known what I was going to eat, when I was going to train, how far I was going to run. I need a breather.
It’s a complete guess, but I imagine that assistant manager of United would be a dream job. That way you spend time on the practice ground and you work with the players without all the other hassles of management, and you learn your trade. But that’s easy to say. How do you prove you are worthy of it?
You can’t stage-manage a career in management. If you are serious about management you have to be willing to learn the trade. The most successful managers have done that: Mourinho, Wenger, Ferguson, Redknapp. They’ve worked their way up.
It’s a job that takes suffering, mistakes, the sack. To be good, you’ve got to give it everything. I see old teammates like Keano, Brucey and Incey and the traumas they put themselves through, jumping up and down on the sidelines like they are going to have a heart attack. I wonder if I have the stomach to put myself through all that tension again.
What also puts you off is the knowledge that, in this country, you get written off so quickly and brutally. Steve McClaren’s reputation was so battered after the England job that he had to go abroad. Glenn Hoddle still has something to contribute, but you get a reputation in this country, especially when you have failed at England level. Robbo, Keano – they’ve all been judged in five minutes.
We write managers off when they have endured a bad run. We personalise it. I look at Spain and see managers rotating. Real Madrid will sack somebody and then five years later they’ll make him manager again. In England we have a mentality that you’re either a success or a failure and there’s no in-between. It’s the same with the English national team – always on the brink of total calamity.
Even some very good managers have bad seasons. Look at Carlo Ancelotti, sacked despite winning trophies at Chelsea. Clubs so rarely show patience and it makes a hard job even more stressful and unsettling. Is that really what I need?
I do think we fail to harness the knowledge and experience of ex-players in this country, though. The PFA membership contains some of the most high-profile people in England. With fame comes a certain amount of power, but we don’t use it as well as we could.
Players should have a voice in the big decisions being made by the Premier League and the FA. There are some big issues that need to be addressed – too many matches, the winter break, better coaching courses – so why aren’t we consulted? We keep bemoaning the fact that we don’t have a Platini, a Beckenbauer. Well, let’s encourage the players to take on that responsibility.
By the way, this is not a personal pitch for leadership. I don’t fancy Gordon Taylor’s post whenever he steps down at the PFA. After the magnificent job he has done he will be very difficult to replace. I’ve plenty else to occupy me for the next few years. I’ve signed up to work for Sky and I believe I’ve something to contribute on TV having played at the top level for almost twenty years. Of course United is in my blood but I’ll strive to be as open, honest and impartial as I can be.
I’m involved with a few business projects as well, notably property and a sustainability company. Those two interests have combined with the supporters’ club I’m helping to build using proceeds from my testimonial. United fans have never had somewhere around Old Trafford to gather and I’m hoping it will become a focal point before games.
I look forward to going in there myself. I’ve become an ambassador for the club, but above all I’m a fan. I always said that when I retired I looked forward to sitting in the stands with my mates, having a drink and cheering my team.
That’s why I went on the terraces at Stamford Bridge in March. I got three tickets for me and a couple of mates and we sat in the away end, just like I’d wanted to do for years. I had a great night, but I’ve been advised that it might not be the safest thing in future.
It’s sad that it’s come to that, but as the fame and the money has grown in football, so has the hostility. There are massive rewards for players today but there’s also more intrusion, more hassle, more aggression. There’s a frightening amount of scrutiny, which I won’t miss.
The most common question you get asked as you approach the end of your career is how you want to be remembered. For me, it’s simple really: I want to be remembered for giving everything to United. That’s what my dad told me when I started as a kid: don’t look back wishing you could have done more.
I wasn’t the most skilful player around. I’ve always joked that I’ll have six out of ten on my gravestone because that’s the perception of me – a steady Eddie in a team of stars like Cantona, Robson, Beckham, Ronaldo, Scholes, Giggs. Never bad but never great either.
But that’s OK. All that matters is that you make the most of yourself. I’ve never been a pin-up but I’m not a bad example for anyone out there who wonders if they’ve quite got the skill to make it to the top. I’m proof of what can be achieved if you keep working.
I think that’s the greatest quality that can be said of all of us who came through from the class of ’92. You see how Giggsy is still going strong; Becks is still playing out in the States; Phil has just signed a new contract at Everton; and Scholesy kept going for as long as possible. We’ve all tried to squeeze every drop out of our careers. That’s the best that any footballer can do, whatever their talent level.