Life in Manchester away from football was just part of what was totally new to me. There was this group of local lads for a start. Gary and Philip Neville, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes were all from around Manchester, so they’d been training at United since they’d signed schoolboy forms, although they hadn’t been at the holiday sessions I’d attended over the previous couple of years. I wasn’t aware of it at the time but I think, to start with, they weren’t sure about me at all: Gary says they had me down as a right flash little cockney. I can understand why. It wasn’t because I was loud or anything but, when we were getting handed out our kit, I’d always end up with the nicest tracksuit and the best-fitting boots. I happened to get on really well with the kit man, Norman Davies, and he just looked after me. I’d known Norman for a long time already from going to the games as a kid and, maybe, this was my reward for helping him clear up dressing rooms for the first team at places like Upton Park all those years ago.
I was from London and the other boys were from the Manchester area but it was surprising how much we had in common. Apart from loving football and having the ambition to play for United, there were things in our backgrounds that brought us together as well. Gary and Phil’s mum and dad, for example, were so much like my parents. They’d be at every game too. I think the Nevilles and the Beckhams had the same sort of values and saw life in much the same way. I know the four of them took to each other straight away and I’m sure the similarity in our upbringings had a lot to do with why Gary and I became such close friends.
Gary, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes had all played together for the same Sunday League team. Boundary Park must have been a northern version of Ridgeway Rovers. Not only was the team successful, it had the same spirit and sense of loyalty that we’d had at Ridgeway. Those boys had been learning to approach football in the right way, picking up good habits, at the same time as we were. It was natural that a sense of togetherness grew pretty quickly at United. Quite soon after we started, we went off to Coleraine in Northern Ireland for a tournament called the Milk Cup. Teams came from all over the world to compete, and that was the first time we represented the club as a group.
We had a brilliant time. We were all about sixteen, on a tour together and getting to know each other, as players and as people. The Milk Cup competition is still going. As well as the games, there’s quite a lot of ceremony: I remember us being paraded through the streets of the local town, trying to look sharp in our Manchester United tracksuits. Nobby Stiles was in charge of the trip, along with a physio named Jimmy Curran. Nobby knew me and trusted me, and he made me captain for the tournament. It was some team: as well as the players who are still at Old Trafford, there were plenty of others who went on to have good careers elsewhere. Ben Thornley was our best player on that trip and got the award for Player of the Tournament. He’s done well since leaving United, despite some shocking injury trouble over the years. With Gary, Phil, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt playing alongside the likes of Ben, Keith Gillespie, Robbie Savage and Colin Murdock, it’s no wonder we won the cup. We stayed at a hotel owned by Harry Gregg, who was a United great himself. He survived the Munich Air Crash and he loved having the United youngsters around the place. The Milk Cup was the first silverware any of us ever won as United players.
Every single day was an exciting one back then. Before I’d left home to start as a trainee in Manchester, Dad had drummed one thing into my head.
‘You may have signed for Man United, but you haven’t done anything yet. When you’ve played for the first team, then we can talk about you having achieved something. Until then, don’t start thinking you’ve made it.’
Did he need to tell me that? Well, it did no harm to know Dad would be around to keep my feet on the ground. But I hadn’t been running around boasting, telling everybody that I had signed for United. I’d just been looking forward to going and couldn’t wait to start work. Once I did, of course, I realised what Dad had meant. I’d been to United’s old training ground, the Cliff, as a boy to watch the first team train. Now I had to be there for training each morning myself, along with the senior players. It dawned on me straight away that the most important thing wasn’t being at United. It was working hard enough to make sure they’d let me stay there.
Come to think of it, there was never any chance of us not working hard; not with coach Eric Harrison in charge. If I think about the people who’ve really shaped my career, that has to mean my dad and Alex Ferguson – of course – but it’ll also mean Eric. Even now, a dozen years on from first meeting him, I look to him for guidance and advice. He’ll tell me what he thinks, not what he thinks I want to hear. And, like every other boy he worked with at United, I know he’s always cared about me. Back then I was sure he had my best interests at heart. I still feel exactly the same.
Eric could be scary, though. We knew about his reputation and I was a bit anxious beforehand because of that. But I soon found out what a brilliant coach he was. Everything he did with us was spot on: the sessions he ran, how hard he made us work, how he understood how we were feeling and how much he made us believe in ourselves. Eric might have had a talented group of lads to work with, but the credit goes to him for turning us into footballers and, during the next three years, turning us into a team.
That fierce reputation, though, it’s all true. When Eric was angry with you, he could dig you out worse than anybody I’ve ever known. We were younger then, obviously, but I’d say the volleys you got from Eric were even more terrifying than the manager in full flow. I remember when we had matches at the Cliff, Eric had an office with a big window that looked out over the pitch we used. If you made a mistake or did something you knew you shouldn’t have done, you’d hear this furious banging on the glass. You didn’t dare look up in that direction because you knew it would be Eric, not best pleased. But you’d have to have a quick glance. And if you couldn’t actually see him shouting from behind the window, that’s when you knew there was real trouble and it was time to disappear over to the other side of the pitch. It meant Eric was on his way down.
When Eric was pleased with you, it made you feel great. If I heard him say: ‘Great ball, David’ once in the morning, that would set me up for the rest of the day. Likewise, if he criticised something, you thought a long time before doing it again. I remember one session when, every time I got the ball, I was trying to pick someone out with a sixty-yard pass. Even when I was young, I was able to see what was going on ahead of me and could strike the ball a very long way. That particular day, though, nothing was coming off and Eric wasn’t impressed.
‘David. What are you playing at? Hitting those flippin’ Hollywood passes all day?’
Hollywood passes? I’d never heard that before. I knew exactly what he meant, though. And I thought twice before I hit the next one. Truth is, I still love playing those long balls; they’re a part of my game. But, even now, whenever one doesn’t make it, I imagine Eric, shaking his head and grumbling: ‘flippin’ Hollywood passes’.
It’s not always been true with Alex Ferguson or other coaches I’ve worked with, but with Eric you always knew exactly where you stood. If he lost his temper with you, he made sure you understood why and, somehow, he had the knack of shaking you up without ever abusing you or putting you down. We always knew, however hairy it got, Eric only ever wanted what we wanted too: to get the best out of ourselves and to achieve everything we could as individuals and as a team. No wonder he commanded the respect of every single one of us young players. Some young players nowadays who sign for a big club suddenly think they’ve hit the big time. There was none of that with our generation. And if there had been, Eric would soon have sorted us out.
I was lucky. I had good coaching all the time I was growing up but, of course, when I got to United and started work with Eric, I knew straight away that I’d moved up to another level. I remember hearing the argument a lot when I was young: that it would be best to start with a smaller club and work my way up to a bigger one like Manchester United. And I can see the sense in that. Once I began training at the Cliff, I realised that the only way from here, if things didn’t work out, was going to be down. But my feeling then, and even more so now, is that if you’re given the chance to be with the best, you should take it.
Everything