The First Time
WE STILL HAD plenty to learn, and who better to learn it from than one of the most ferociously competitive teams in the history of English football?
The boss has gone on record many times to say that his favourite United team, if not his best, was the 1992–94 vintage, and I can understand why. They played the game the same way they behaved off the pitch, with power and presence. They reflected the manager’s character. This was a team that could win the championship not just through ability but sheer force of personality.
Schmeichel, Bruce, Ince, Robson, Hughes, Cantona – they weren’t just great players but fierce competitors and real men. Perhaps it took those qualities to shoulder the responsibility of finally bringing the title to Old Trafford after twenty-six years.
That long wait had been an embarrassment for a club of United’s stature but a new era, finally, was dawning. And as history was being made at Old Trafford, young players like me had front-row seats.
As apprentices, we would travel with the first team helping Norman, the kit man, with the laundry skips. We would watch close-up as this squad of huge characters stormed their way to the title. We witnessed their fire and passion – which led to some explosive clashes in the dressing room.
We went to Anfield one day and it all kicked off in the dressing room between the boss and Peter. It was the first time I’d truly seen what people call ‘the hairdryer’, though the players never referred to it as that.
‘You’re slipping!’ the boss shouted at Schmeichel.
‘So are you,’ the big goalie replied, just in earshot.
Everyone looked up, thinking, ‘Oh my God, here he comes’. And sure enough, the boss ripped Peter’s head off. I’d thought Eric Harrison had a temper, but this was something else. I think Peter was fined for that bit of backchat, but the worst of it was the manager’s four-letter ear-bashing.
Then there was the time in 1994 when we got thrashed by Barcelona at the Nou Camp, torn to shreds by Stoichkov and Romario, and at half-time the boss ripped into Incey. At one point Kiddo half stood up ready to intervene, thinking it was about to go off.
I loved to see this competitive spirit come alive in the dressing room, though for us young lads it was intimidating to say the least. We’d had brilliant coaching from Eric and Nobby, we’d had a taste of success, and now we were witnessing what it took to be champions from seeing Schmeichel, Hughes, Ince and Robson with their ferocious determination. This was the final part of our education, the perfect schooling.
I experienced first-hand the exacting standards one day in September 1992 when, totally out of the blue, Kiddo told me I was in the first-team squad for the visit of Torpedo Moscow.
I could hardly believe it. I was still a raw apprentice, seventeen years old. None of our age group had been near the first team, not Butty, Becks or Scholesy. Never mind playing for the first team, we still had to knock on the door before we could even enter their dressing room. Mark Hughes, in particular, was a stickler for manners like that. I wouldn’t have dreamed of speaking to a player like Sparky unless he said something first so I was nervous as hell as Kiddo told me where and when to meet.
I kept myself to myself as we were taken on a bus to the Midland Hotel in central Manchester for a pre-game nap. Even the hotel was an eye-opener for me. I hardly ventured into the city centre in those days and I’d never seen anywhere so posh.
When we reached Old Trafford, the manager told me I was going to be among the substitutes. I assumed that I’d just be filling out the numbers for a European game, making sure we had enough on the bench, but with the clock running down Kiddo told me to get ready.
Of the 19,998 fans in the ground, I expect only my dad noticed the kid running up and down the sidelines. Then, as the clock counted down on a drab goalless draw, the signal came for me to strip off. I was going to make my debut. I was going to be running out at Old Trafford to play alongside Hughes, Bruce and Brian McClair. The boy who’d sat in the K-Stand all those years was about to get his big chance, tucked in behind Andrei Kanchelskis.
I shook out my nerves as Lee Martin trotted over to the bench. It wasn’t much of an appearance, or much of a game, but my dream had come true.
It was a moment to cherish and remember – and I haven’t forgotten what happened afterwards, either. We won a throwin down in the right-hand corner and taking it was the only touch I got in those three minutes. I lobbed it into the box – I’ve always had a decent throw on me – but like everything else that night the move came to nothing.
Afterwards, as we stripped off in a subdued dressing room, the manager started laying into Gary Pallister.
‘Pally, have you ever watched the youth team? Have you not seen his long throw?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why weren’t you in the box then!’
He wasn’t happy we’d been held to a 0–0 draw at home – we’d go out on penalties in the second leg two weeks later – and Pally was getting it in the neck for a tiny detail. As I sat there thrilled, eager to see my dad and relive the experience, I’d witnessed yet another stark reminder that the boss wouldn’t let standards drop for a minute.
You can never beat the first time. Of all my hundreds of appearances for United, that debut will always have a special place in my memory. We were brought up at Old Trafford always to strive for more, but I remember the night after that tie with Torpedo Moscow thinking, ‘If I die tomorrow, I die happy.’
A dream really had come true, but I’d be lying if I said it was the blossoming of my career at United. My promotion was short-lived. It was straight back to the youth team, back to learning my trade. It would be months, many months, before I got another sniff of the first team.
Rather than dreaming about running out at Old Trafford again, I had to knuckle down to the job of defending the Youth Cup and earning a professional contract. With such quality in our ranks we should have retained the trophy in 1992/93, our second year as apprentices. But we ended up losing the final to a Leeds United team with Noel Whelan, Jamie Forrester and Mark Tinkler but few others who made the grade.
We were sitting in the dressing room at Elland Road gutted after defeat in front of thirty thousand fans. ‘I couldn’t have asked for more from you over two years, you’ve made me proud,’ Eric told us. It was a fond farewell as we headed off to the senior ranks. And we really couldn’t have worked harder for Eric. We’d given him everything.
Then the door opened and the manager walked in. ‘You lot,’ he said, with one of those looks. ‘You can have all the ability in the world, but if you haven’t got the temperament, you won’t play for my team.’
This was how it was at United under the boss – a constant test of your desire, your determination, your concentration. We were very self-motivated as a group, but as we moved up to the senior ranks, we saw competitiveness in a whole new dimension.
Liverpool beat us in a reserve game one day. We hadn’t played that badly but the manager was apoplectic. We were hauled in, knackered, for training at 7.30 a.m. the next day and told to buck up our ideas, or else. The message was clear: any defeat was bad, but some were worse than others. No United team would be allowed to come second to Liverpool under any circumstances.
Most of the time we trained with the reserves, though some days we’d be called in to work with the first team. It was a hard school. Some of the players would look out for you. Brucey generally had a kind word. Incey, despite his reputation for cockiness, would offer helpful advice. Schmeichel was a different animal. I had to give him crossing practice and if I hit even one bad ball he’d shout, ‘What’s he training with us for? He’s fucking shite.’
It was tough, but we were starting to make the transition. We would play in A-team games or for the reserves alongside some of the first-teamers who were coming back from injury, and through doing that we started to feel more comfortable alongside senior pros. We’d play with the likes of Clayton Blackmore and Lee Martin and, no disrespect, we started to realise that they were no better than us. We’d seen them from the stands, watched them play in cup finals, but suddenly it hit us that they weren’t gods, they weren’t untouchable. Robbo tells the story himself about going to take a free-kick in an A-team game and Becks shooing him away. And Robbo was captain of England.
Because he was my childhood hero, it was Robbo who gave me the biggest boost of my young career, though he won’t know it. A mate rang me up one morning and said that Robbo had done an article in the papers talking about the young lads who had come through, the class of ’92. I remember reading that newspaper like it was yesterday and seeing what Robbo had said about me: ‘I’ll be amazed if he doesn’t become a top player.’ This was my idol saying that I could go all the way. It sounds a small thing, just a line in a paper, but, honestly, I never looked back from there. If Robbo believed that I could make it to the top, that was good enough for me.
Robbo wasn’t the only one singing our praises. My dad has still got a scrapbook at home full of cuttings from that time, including an article where the boss says, ‘If this lot don’t make it we can all pack in.’ You think about how cautious the manager generally is about building up young players, how he likes to play down the hype – but in our case he was willing to make a bold prediction.
Outside the club, there were other managers comparing us to the Busby Babes. We were getting amazing write-ups, and I had another reason to believe in myself when I was part of the England squad that won the European Under 18 Championship in the summer of 1993. The tournament only lasted just over a week, with four matches crammed in, but it was fantastic experience. It was the first time I played at right-back, and in a really good team. Five of us – me, Butty, Scholesy, Sol Campbell and Robbie Fowler – would go on to play for England, though that tournament is a good example of how players develop at different speeds. The stars at the time were Julian Joachim, who had bags of power and pace, and Darren Caskey, the captain, who was a bit older and had the most experience.
We beat Turkey in the final at the City Ground in Nottingham in front of more than twenty thousand fans. It was a useful part of the learning experience of facing European sides – I remember a young Clarence Seedorf playing for the Dutch – but the best thing of all was the taste of victory. Trophies, medals, give you confidence. You become ambitious to win more.
Obviously I couldn’t have known at the time that this would be the only success of my international career.
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As a United fan I was overjoyed that we were back on the summit of English football with that title in 1993. The manager had transformed the club after decades of frustration. Winning that first title was a major turning point in the club’s history and, honestly, I was as happy about that championship as any I played in.
The night we celebrated at home to Blackburn Rovers was as euphoric as I’ve seen Old Trafford, before or since. You can never beat the first time. It was a night when you felt the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. We’d had to wait so long. There’d been the agony of just missing out the season before, and we’d endured heart-stopping moments in the run-in, famously the game against Sheffield Wednesday when Brucey’s two late headers saved the day. That night at Old Trafford is a memory I’ll take to the grave.
The downside of the club’s new era of success was that it was going to be even harder for the likes of me, Becks and Butty to break into the team. As a centre-half, my path was blocked by Brucey, a brilliant, brave defender and a respected captain. Alongside him, Pally was one of the best centre-halves United have ever had. Opportunities for an eighteen-year-old central defender were going to be limited. So the coaches decided I was now a full-back.
Jim Ryan, our reserve-team coach, and ‘Pop’ Robson, his assistant, took me aside one day and pointed out that Paul Parker was getting more injuries. Perhaps he wasn’t as assured as he used to be. They told me, bluntly, that right-back was my best chance of making the first team. I disagreed and told them I wanted to stay at centre-half.
I can’t say I enjoyed full-back at first. I’d loved the authority that came with being in the centre – organising the defence, pushing people forward and back. I could yell out instructions from the middle. I couldn’t see myself as the next Josimar, making overlapping runs. Even before I learnt to attack and cross the ball I’d have to become more mobile, get lower to the ground and snap quicker into tackles. But the coaches had made it clear it was my only chance of moving up through the ranks.
When it came to my education, I couldn’t have been luckier than to have Denis Irwin to study. Has there been a more versatile full-back in English football? He was able to switch from left to right wing without skipping a beat, he could attack and defend with equal ability, take free-kicks and penalties – and he stayed modest and hard-working throughout. He must be the best left-and right-back United have ever had.
I wasn’t in his class, but I must have been doing something right because in the 1993/94 season I made it on to the pitch for a second time. We younger lads would often find ourselves as unused substitutes in Europe when the manager needed a bigger squad. But for the trip to Istanbul in November 1993 I got on to the pitch for five minutes – though it wasn’t my appearance that made this a memorable evening.
We were playing in the Ali Sami Yen Stadium and the Galatasaray fans were up for it. One of their supporters had run on to the pitch in the first leg and Peter had given chase and chucked him to the ground. Now thousands of them were giving us hell.
An hour and a half before the game, the crowd was frenzied. I’d never experienced an atmosphere like it. There were so many flares and so much smoke it looked as though the whole stadium was on fire. By the time the game kicked off the noise was deafening. We couldn’t understand a word of what the fans were chanting, but we didn’t need a translator when we saw a banner that read ‘Manchester United RIP’.