Even though I was occasionally homesick, it was a fantastic life. Mum and Dad were great, coming up to watch me play every weekend 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 I was training alongside all week; or for us to start winning football 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 playing against were a year older than us when it came to FA Youth Cup ties 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 pitch 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 some 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 out of our stride, but we lost 2–1. For the second leg we had to go down to the old Den – 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.
We’d played a lot of games that season and I remember being very tired, but losing that final wasn’t such a bad thing. For most of us, it was the first big disappointment of our footballing lives and perhaps it made us stronger, having to experience it together. You want to make sure you don’t feel that down again in the future. And you certainly don’t ever want Eric Harrison going mad at you again like he did in the dressing room after we’d lost at Elland Road.
By then, the 1992/93 season, the players in our age group were starting to get involved, and to get games, with the first team. As early as September, I got called into training with the senior players and, a couple of days later, the manager told me that I would be travelling to Brighton for a League Cup tie. Gary, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes were coming as well. We flew down on this little seventeen-seater plane. It was a horrible flight: the noise, the bumping, the cramped seats, and it seemed to go on forever. Maybe that was why I got such a great night’s sleep once we’d finally arrived. I woke up to the news that I was going to be one of the substitutes.
About twenty minutes from the end, the gaffer told me I was going on in place of Andrei Kanchelskis. I was so excited I jumped off the bench and cracked my head on the roof of the dugout: a great start to a first-team career. The boss wanted to have a look at me and I think I did all right. Mum and Dad were at the Goldstone and they were as surprised as I was that I actually got a game. Seventeen minutes as a United player, but I still felt really young. What was I? Just seventeen? More like the boy who’d been on the bench at West Ham as a mascot than a man ready to be in United’s first team. The manager had a little go at me in the dressing room afterwards. I don’t remember having done anything wrong. He was probably just trying to make sure I didn’t get ahead of myself: a sign of one or two difficult times, maybe, that lay ahead for the two of us further down the line.
It was a long time before I got another chance. The Youth Cup side had all moved up to reserve team football: we’d won the ‘A’ League and then the Central League, the first time the club had done that in over twenty years. I played in some League Cup games again early on in the 1994/95 season, when the gaffer rested his first-choice players. Back in the early 1990s, United struggled a bit in Europe because of the Overseas Players Rule, which meant you could only play three foreigners in the European Cup. It wasn’t that we didn’t have a strong squad, but the changes the boss had to make would disrupt the rhythm of the side. That particular season, we were already as good as out of the competition but had a home game against Galatasaray still to play. It was early December.
The first I knew about the possibility of me being involved was an article in the Manchester Evening News saying the gaffer was thinking about giving some youngsters a chance to try European football. On the day, he told a few of us we’d actually start the game that night. I don’t know about the others, but I went into it not having a clue what to expect. About half an hour in, I scored my first senior goal for United. The ball rolled out to me, in front of the Stretford End, and I remember thinking: if I catch this right, something could happen. Even though I didn’t really connect properly, the ball bobbled in somehow and I turned and ran away to celebrate. Eric Cantona was the first player to get to me. I was buzzing that much, he was having to fight me off in the end. I just wouldn’t let go of him. I’ve scored a goal and I’m celebrating with Eric Cantona.
I really enjoyed myself. I think Galatasaray had left out some senior players, too, and the game wasn’t as difficult as it might have been. We played well, and the fact that there were so many of the younger boys in the team made it even better. Starting the game had made a difference, too. I felt a lot more at home at Old Trafford that night than I had during my seventeen minutes down at Brighton, two years before. For us boys, it felt like the European Cup Final, never mind that United were going out whatever the result. As it was, we won 4–0, which is a decent score in a European game whatever the circumstances. The manager didn’t say anything afterwards. He was disappointed to be out of Europe, but seemed happy enough with how the young lads had played.
That first start in a big European fixture was an exception for me. I still had work – and filling out – to do. The thing that has kept United and the players at the club driving on is the knowledge that if your standards slip, there’s someone waiting to take your place. As a teenager, the doubts about whether you’d still be there in a week, a month, or even a year’s time, were even more intense. It was back to the reserves after my start in the