learning new tricks. If Eric spotted a weakness in your game, you could
be sure he’d do his best to confront it. I don’t know if ‘Headers’ was
designed just to make me suffer, but some mornings it felt like it. As a
forward player, you need to be strong enough to hold your own
physically
against bigger and tougher defenders. Heading and tackling
weren’t exactly my strong points, especially as I was smaller than most
of the other lads. ‘Headers’ was Eric’s way of toughening up young
players like me. There were two teams: midfielders and forwards lined
up against defenders. The ball was chipped up and you could only
score with your head. That would have been fine, except it was an
invitation to the likes of Gary Neville and Chris Casper to come crashing
into you from behind in order to stop you. Gary was the worst. You’d
end up bruised all over, wondering what you’d done to annoy him. I
dreaded those sessions then but, four years later, by the time I was
lining up in the Premiership against the likes of Stuart Pearce and Julian
Dicks, I was grateful that the first serious whacks I’d taken had been
from my own team-mates.
It wasn’t just when we were doing that particular routine that Gary
and Chris Casper did their best to give me grief. Busy they were, the
pair of them. Cas was very big and strong for his age. His dad, Frank,
had been a player with Burnley when they were a top side in the sixties,
and Chris had obviously picked up habits from him. He had this very
grown up, professional attitude. And, when we were playing together,
he talked non-stop through every single game. Sometimes Cas played
at the back; he ended up playing center-back as a professional. Other
times he’d get a game in central midfield, which meant I’d be playing
alongside him. He’d be shouting encouragement, telling me who to
pass to. And not just me: he’d be telling anyone within earshot. He even
used to talk to himself. After ninety minutes, I’d have a splitting
headache
and what made it worse was that Dad thought it was good to be
like that.
‘You should be like Cas, you know. You should be talking like him.
More than him, even.’
I’d be thinking: I prefer silence. As I’ve got more experienced – and
especially since I’ve been a captain – I’ve come to understand how
important it is to communicate on the field. Obviously you have to let
a team-mate know if someone’s coming to close him down but, if
someone can’t see a pass for himself then, by the time you’ve told him,
the moment’s probably gone anyway. If you’re playing for Man United
or for England, do you need your mate telling you, minute by minute,
if he thinks you’re playing well? Of course you have to talk. Half the
time, though, I thought Cas was talking just for the sake of it. It was like
lining up alongside a commentator.
He used to get on my nerves when we played together, but Cas and
I were good mates too. He was one of a small group of us who went
away on vacation together. My mum and dad were the first people to
meet Joe Glanville: they’d always run into him at games. Joe was
Maltese, and United mad. They got to know each other and, the next
thing I knew, my parents were telling me we were going on vacation
to Malta. Everything was being taken care of at that end and we just
had to get ourselves to the airport at the right time, with our bags
packed.
We had a lovely time that summer. Joe and his friends put us up in
a nice hotel. We’d wake up in the morning and someone would be
there to take us wherever we wanted to go: down to the beach, into
the village, or round the island. It was a great set-up and the Maltese
loved their soccer. The next summer I went back with Cas, Gary and
Ben Thornley. It was a lads’ vacation; or, at least, as laddish as it was
ever going to get with us – a couple of beers and a little romance but
nothing you’d need to keep a secret from your mum.
We’d told Joe beforehand not to book us a fancy hotel or anything,
although when we got to our apartment block we wished we hadn’t
mentioned anything. The place was terrible. There was no air-
conditioning and Malta, in the summer, is stifling hot. Gary and Ben
grabbed the one room that had a fan in it and Cas and I just sweated
away, all day and all night. Those were really good times, though. I
loved it so much I went back the next six summers on the trot. Gary
even got himself his own place over there.
The four of us used to knock about in Manchester, too, along with
Dave Gardner, who was younger than us but always knew the best
places to go. Our regular night out together was on a Wednesday,
usually to a place called Johnsons, which was in the center of town but
slightly tucked away. We were sensible lads – Ben, I suppose, was the
most outgoing – and we knew when to stop; when to go home and
when to get out of a place if it seemed dodgy. We also had Gary with
us, who’s one of the most paranoid people ever. He’d drive us mad
sometimes. We’d all walk into a place, then turn round and see Gary,
standing there bolt upright.
‘No, lads. I’m not comfortable here. We’ve got to get out. Come on,
we’ve got to get out.’
All it would take would be one funny look from someone. In a way
it was good, because it meant we never had a whiff of trouble. Later,
we’d all end up at Ben’s to stay the night. He was still living with his
parents and his room was right up at the top of the house: a big room
but absolutely freezing. Ben, of course, would be tucked up cozy in his
bed. Me, Gary and Cas would be lying on the floor, shivering. I miss
those nights out: I couldn’t do anything like that now, after all.
Like all young players, we had our jobs to do around the training
ground. I remember Cas and I being put on the first-team dressing
room, which meant we had to scrub the baths and showers and clean
the dressing room itself. I got in there first and got the easy half of it:
got my shorts on and just splashed around till the baths and showers
were hosed down. Cas was too slow off the mark and got left with the
mud and rubbish in the dressing rooms. We had a bit of a row about
that one, and almost ‘got the ring out’, which was when we’d wrap
towels around our hands and have mock boxing matches to sort out
an argument. To make it even worse for him, we swapped jobs around
Christmas. That meant I was assigned to the dressing rooms, looking
busy cleaning boots, and ready to pick up the bonuses from the senior
players at just the right time. Cas couldn’t believe I’d got away with it.
It’s one of the sad things about a life in soccer. You get really close
to people and then, when they move to another club, you lose touch.
I still see Ben Thornley now and again and I know Gary talks to Chris
Casper sometimes. But I think back to when we were teenagers and
the four of us were together all the time, and got on so well: once Ben
and Cas moved on, that all finished. It’s a shame but, perhaps, it just
goes with the territory: you have to focus on the players who are in the
dressing room alongside you at the time.
Even though I was occasionally homesick, it was a fantastic life. Mum
and Dad were great, coming up to watch me play every weekend
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without fail. And day to day at United was everything I’d imagined it
would be. It hadn’t taken long for me to become friendly with the lads;
or
for us to start winning soccer matches together five-or six-nil. Because I
was smaller and, at first, Keith Gillespie used to play in my position on
the right, I did worry that I wasn’t getting in the team for some of the
bigger games. That first season, most of the players we were competing
against were a year older than us when it came to FA Youth Cup
matches and, to start with, Eric used to leave me out of those games.
Eventually I got my chance. Keith Gillespie got moved to play up front
so I could play wide right. I was competing with Robbie Savage for that
position as well, but Robbie got injured during that season. I’ve found
out since that United hadn’t won the Youth Cup since 1964, when
George Best was in the team, so what we achieved in 1992, with most
of us in our first full year at the club, meant something special as far as
history was concerned. At the time, though, none of us were really
aware of that: it was just the excitement of playing and winning games
for United.
I remember beating Spurs in the 1992 Youth Cup semi-final. Then,
like the semi, the final was played over two legs. We beat Crystal
Palace 3–1 down in London. The game almost never happened: it had
hammered down all day and the field was waterlogged but, just as they
were deciding to call it off, the rain stopped and we went ahead. Nicky
Butt scored two and I got the other – a volley, left foot, from the edge
of the box after Ben Thornley cut the ball back – and then we won 3–
2 back at our place. The bond in that team was amazing, with Ryan
Giggs, who was a year older than most of us, as captain.
That second leg at Old Trafford was a huge night: there were 32,000
United fans there to watch, which made for a bigger atmosphere than
any of us had ever experienced before. You always get supporters who
want to see the local talent come through and so follow the Youth side.
But 32,000 of them? Maybe the word was getting round that the club
had found a particularly good group of young players. I think we were
aware of what was going on, but we never really talked about it amongst
ourselves. Over the two or three years we were coming through, Alex
Ferguson said just once: ‘If we don’t get a first-team player out of this
lot, we might as well all pack up and go home.’ Other than that, nobody
inside the club mentioned that there might be something special
happening.
The focus was always on that day’s training session or on that
afternoon’s game.
We got to the Youth Cup Final the following year, too. I can still
remember the semi-final against Millwall. We’d heard that they had
something planned before the game. Sure enough, out they came on
the night of the first leg at Old Trafford, and every single player had
his head shaved. I don’t know if that was what threw us off our stride,
but we lost 2–1. For the second leg we had to go down to their ground
– which, being nearly full, had a pretty intimidating atmosphere even
for a Youth game – and we won 2–0 to go through to the final, where
we played Leeds United.
People have said since that it was strange how we had so many
future first-team players in our side and yet hardly any of the Leeds
boys came through. In those two games, though, they played very well
and were really fired up. We lost 2–0 at Old Trafford and then went
to Elland Road for the second leg. There, it wasn’t just the players who
were up for it. We’d had a 30,000 crowd again in Manchester. When
they announced that Leeds’ home crowd was even bigger on the night,
you’d have thought a goal had been scored. Their fans really got behind
them and they beat us again, this time 2–1.
